What is meant by "a time to gather stones"

The phrase "a Time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones together" can be heard quite often, but that's what mean people saying those words is not always clear. To learn the true meaning of the phrase is often possible, by contacting the source.

Biblical origin

Like many other aphorisms, the phrase about stones came into modern usage from the Book of Books – the Bible. In Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes we read:

"All in good time, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what was planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace."

From the quotation it becomes clear that we are talking about that comes time and everything comes to your time. The meaning is really deep and, like many biblical quotations, philosophical.

But still do not quite understand why to throw stones, then to collect them. Actually in this sentence it is just about one of the types of peasant labor. The land on which lived the people of Israel were not fertility, was rocky, and in order to cultivate a field, it first had from stones to clear. Been doing farmers, i.e. collecting stones. But not scattered them, and piled them in the hedge for the land plots.

As is often the case with quotations from the Bible, the translator summed up the ignorance of the realities of peasant life of the Israelites, to be more exact quote could be translated as "a time to gather and a time to stack the stones".

And no wonder: the book was translated by the clergy - people who are far from the peasant realities.

But who knows, would like this phrase so popular. Probably not, because lost the mysterious sense.

The modern meaning of the phrase

It turns out that its interpretation is ambiguous. There are at least three explanations of this expression, although close to each other, but have a number of distinctive nuances.

The most common interpretation is the idea of cyclical existence. Events in the world and in the life of every person consistently follow each other: after night comes the morning, after the birth followed by the development and then aging and death, the seasons change, are born and stars fade... Everything happens in his time and everything is transient.

If the second interpretation follows from the first: everything comes to your life, and it is important that any work was done on time, then the act will bring the desired results. Every action must have its reasons and conditions for its implementation. Thoughtless acts committed not in time, can only do harm.

And finally, the third interpretation is the most profound, but not contrary to the first two: everything in life has its reason and its consequence, every action entails "retribution".

This interpretation is close to the principles of karmic law.

If a man performs good deeds – will get the deserved reward, and if his deeds are evil – evil to him and return.