Investigation: The Fate of Humans and Animals

"All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" (3:20–21).

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" (12:7).

Israel's older picture

Much of the Hebrew Bible pictures the dead as going down to Sheol, a shadowy place of silence where God is not praised (Psalm 6:5; 88:10–12; Isaiah 38:18). Hope beyond death appears in some psalms (49:15; 73:24) and clearly in Daniel 12:2 (resurrection). Ecclesiastes stands within the older picture but questions even what can be known about it (3:21).

12:7 and 3:21

12:7 says the ruach returns to God who gave it, recalling Genesis 2:7 (God breathed into the human the breath of life). Some read this as a statement of the soul's return to God (much later Jewish and Christian reading); others as the giver taking back the breath of life, with no claim about personal survival (compare Psalm 104:29; Job 34:14–15). 3:21's "who knoweth" suggests Qoheleth would not claim more than the second.

Reception

Rabbinic tradition read the book in harmony with belief in the world to come (the Targum adds judgment and reward). Christian interpreters read 12:7 and 12:14 in light of resurrection and final judgment. Some groups (Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses) cite 9:5 and 9:10 for the view that the dead are unconscious until resurrection. These are later doctrinal uses; the passages themselves speak from the standpoint "under the sun."

Humans and animals in Genesis

Genesis 1 creates land animals and humans on the same day (1:24–31), and both are called nefesh chayyah, "living being" (Genesis 1:24; 2:7, 19). Humans alone are made "in the image of God" (1:27). Ecclesiastes 3:18–21 looks only at what is visible: in death, humans and animals are alike. It does not deny the image of God; it says that death does not reveal it.

Sheol in Ecclesiastes and elsewhere

Sheol appears once in Ecclesiastes (9:10) and about 65 times in the Hebrew Bible. It is pictured as below the earth, dark and silent (Job 10:21–22; Psalm 88:6, 12), the destination of all (Psalm 89:48). Later Jewish writings (1 Enoch 22, 3rd–2nd century BC) divide it into compartments for the righteous and the wicked; the Greek Bible renders it Hades. Ecclesiastes uses the older, undivided picture.