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The Hebrew version of Ecclesiastes says God shows people that they are no better than animals. The Greek Septuagint interprets the difficult Hebrew as saying God will also judge them, adding explicit divine judgment that the Hebrew does not say.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Ecclesiastes 3:18
Hebrew Bible
17 I thought to myself, “God will judge both the righteous and the wicked; for there is an appropriate time for every activity, and there is a time of judgment for every deed.” 18 I also thought to myself, “It is for the sake of people, so God can clearly show them that they are like animals. 19 For the fate of humans and the fate of animals are the same: As one dies, so dies the other; both have the same breath. There is no advantage for humans over animals, for both are fleeting.
LXX Ecclesiastes 3:18
Septuagint
17 And I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked together, for there is a season for every activity and for every deed.” 18 And I said in my heart concerning the speech of the sons of humanity, that God will judge them, also to show that they are livestock. 19 And also for them is there not the fate of the sons of humanity and the fate of the livestock? It is one fate for them. As is the death of this one, so is the death of that one, and there is one spirit for all. And what makes a man more superior than livestock? Nothing, for it is all futility.
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Notes and References
... The reading of the Masoretic Text (welirʾot) makes no sense. It is better to follow most of the ancient versions (the Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate) in taking the infinitive to be Hiphil, with the syncope of h: larʾot from leharʾot (compare larʾotekem in Deuteronomy 1:33). A similar syncope is attested in Ecclesiastes 5:5, where we find the Hiphil infinitive form lahatiʾ for lehahatiʾ. Obviously in the case of Ecclesiastes 3:18 the loss of the causative marker, h-, caused the misinterpretation of the form as Qal instead of Hiphil. ...
Seow, Choon-Leong
Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(pp. 166-167) Yale University Press, 2008
* 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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