Ecclesiastes 12:7
Hebrew Bible
5 and they are afraid of heights and the dangers in the street; the almond blossoms grow white, and the grasshopper drags itself along, and the caper berry shrivels up—because man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about in the streets— 6 before the silver cord is removed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the well, or the water wheel is broken at the cistern— 7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the life’s breath returns to God who gave it. 8 “Absolutely futile!” laments the Teacher, “All these things are futile!” 9 Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also taught knowledge to the people; he carefully evaluated and arranged many proverbs.
Date: 3rd Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Sirach 40:11
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
9 come death and bloodshed and strife and sword, calamities and famine and ruin and plague. 10 All these were created for the wicked, and on their account the flood came. 11 All that is of earth returns to earth, and what is from above returns above. 12 All bribery and injustice will be blotted out, but good faith will last forever. 13 The wealth of the unjust will dry up like a river, and crash like a loud clap of thunder in a storm.
Date: 195-175 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Notes and References
"... Hengel notes that there is a firm belief in an afterlife by the time of Sirach 40:11 and Daniel 12:3, but it is doubted by Qoheleth. Hengel writes, however, “It was easier for this view to be accepted because of earlier OT ideas that the impersonal breath of life breathed into men by God could be taken back again by him (Ecclesiastes 12:7; Psalm 90:3; 104:29; Job 34:14).” Although Qoheleth may be on the verge of such ideas, he does not air them explicitly here. A common comparison of these passages is with Genesis 2:7 - “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” Although there are conceptual links of Ecclesiastes 3:19–20 with Genesis 2:7, it is the contradictory Ecclesiastes 12:7 that, in my view, has more in common with it. In Ecclesiastes 12:7 a distinction is made between the “dust” that returns to the earth and the “breath” that returns to God, the same distinction found in Genesis 2:7 (life breath). The author of Ecclesiastes remarks that both elements return to their source, a fact from which he derives no comfort. Ecclesiastes 3:20 has more direct links with Genesis 3:19b—“you are dust and to dust you shall return”; compare Job 10:9 in which both the beginning and end of life is referred to as “dust”; Job 34:15; Sirach 40:11; Psalm 104:29–30, and elsewhere in which all life is dependant on the “breath” of God ..."
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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