John Gill Commentary Ecclesiastes 3:6

"a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;" — Ecclesiastes 3:6 (ASV)

A time to get, and a time to lose
To get substance, as the Targum, and to lose it; wealth and riches, honour and glory, wisdom and knowledge: or, "to seek, and to lose" ^F9 ; a time when the sheep of the house of Israel, or God's elect, were lost, and a time to seek them again; which was, done by Christ in redemption, and by the Spirit of God, in effectual calling;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away ;
to keep a thing, and to cast it away, into the sea, in the time of a great tempest, as the Targum; as did the mariners in the ship in which Jonah was, and those in which the Apostle Paul was, (Jonah 1:5) (Acts 27:38) ; It may be interpreted of keeping riches, and which are sometimes kept too close, and to the harm of the owners of them; and of scattering them among the poor, or casting them upon the waters; see (Ecclesiastes 5:13) (11:1) (Proverbs 11:24) .

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FOOTNOTES:

• F9: (vqbl te) "tempus quaerendi", Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Piscator, Mercerus, Gejerus, Rambachius.