A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build.

A time to slay, And a time to heal, A time to break down, And a time to build up.

A time to put to death and a time to make well; a time for pulling down and a time for building up;

A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to tear down, and a time to build up.

A time to kill, - heal, - break down, - build up -
"The healing art, when out of season used,
Pernicious proves, and serves to hasten death.
But timely medicines drooping nature raise,
And health restore - Now, Justice wields her sword
With wholesome rigour, nor the offender spares:
But Mercy now is more expedient found.
On crazy fabrics ill-timed cost bestow'd
No purpose answers, when discretion bids
To pull them down, and wait a season fit
To build anew."

A time to kill, and a time to heal,.... A time to kill may be meant of a violent death, as a time to die is of a natural one; so the Targum,
"a time to kill in war;''
or else, by the hand of the civil magistrate, such who deserve death. Aben Ezra interprets it "to wound", because of the opposite "to heal"; and so there is a time when wounds and diseases are incurable, and baffle all the skill of the physician, being designed unto death; and there is a time when, by the blessing of God on means, they are healed; the wound or sickness not being unto death: so the Targum paraphrases the last clause,
"to heal one that lies sick.''
This may be applied in a civil sense to calamities in kingdoms, and a restoration of peace and plenty to them; which is the property of God alone, who in this sense kills and makes alive in his own time, Deuteronomy 32:39; And in a spiritual sense to the ministers of the word, who are instruments of slaying souls by the law, which is the killing letter, and of healing them by the Gospel, which pours in the oil and wine of peace and pardon through the blood of Christ, and so binds up and heals the broken hearted; and there is a time for both;
a time to break down, and a time to build up; to break down a building, and build a waste, as the Targum; to break down cities and the walls of them, as the of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; and to build them up: as in the times of Nehemiah and Zerubbabel: and so in a spiritual sense to break down the church of God, the tabernacle of David, and to raise up and repair the breaches of it; to build up Zion, and the walls of Jerusalem, or to restore the Gospel church state to its glory, for which there is a set time; see Amos 9:11.

time to kill--namely, judicially, criminals; or, in wars of self-defense; not in malice. Out of this time and order, killing is murder.
to heal--God has His times for "healing" (literally, Isaiah 38:5, Isaiah 38:21; figuratively, Deuteronomy 32:39; Hosea 6:1; spiritually, Psalm 147:3; Isaiah 57:19). To heal spiritually, before the sinner feels his wound, would be "out of time," and so injurious.
time to break down--cities, as Jerusalem, by Nebuchadnezzar.
build up--as Jerusalem, in the time of Zerubbabel; spiritually (Amos 9:11), "the set time" (Psalm 102:13-16).

"To put to death has its time, and to heal has its time; to pull down has its time, and to build has its time." That harog (to kill) is placed over against "to heal," Hitzig explains by the remark that harog does not here include the full consequences of the act, and is fitly rendered by "to wound." But "to put to death" is nowhere = "nearly to put to death," - one who is harug is not otherwise to be healed than by resurrection from the dead, Ezekiel 37:6. The contrast has no need for such ingenuity to justify it. The striking down of a sound life stands in contrast to the salvation of an endangered life by healing, and this in many situations of life, particularly in war, in the administration of justice, and in the defence of innocence against murder or injury, may be fitting. Since the author does not present these details from a moral point of view, the time here is not that which is morally right, but that which, be it morally right or not, has been determined by God, the Governor of the world and Former of history, who makes even that which is evil subservient to His plan. With the two pairs of γένεσις καὶ φθορά there are two others associated in Ecclesiastes 3:3; with that, having reference, 2b, to the vegetable world, there here corresponds one referring to buildings; to פּרוץ (synon. הרוס, Jeremiah 1:10) stands opposed בּנות (which is more than גּדור), as at 2-Chronicles 32:5.
These contrasts between existence and non-existence are followed by contrasts within the limits of existence itself: -

To kill - When men die a violent death. To heal - When he who seemed to be mortally wounded is healed.