A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
Ver. 3. A time to kill,] viz., To cut off corrupt members by the sword of justice or of war, ne pars sincera trahatur: There is a cruel mercy, saith one; There is a pious cruelty, saith another. "But cursed is he that doth the Lord's work negligently; and cursed is he that (in a good cause, and upon a good calling) keepeth back his sword from blood." Jer 48:10 But that soldier can never answer it before God, that striketh not more as a justice of peace than as a soldier of fortune.
A time to break down, and a time to build up.] This and the rest, though every one knows to be so in common experience, yet one and the same thing (in effect) is oft repeated, that it may be once remembered - viz., that this whole world is nothing else but a mass of mutabilities; that every man, every state, everything is a planet, whose spherical revolutions are some of longer, some of shorter continuance. Omnia versantur in perpetuo ascensu et descendu, there is a perpetual ascending and descending of life and state.