Genesis 8:21
19 Every living creature, every creeping thing, every bird, and everything that moves on the earth went out of the ark in their groups. 20 Noah built an altar to the Lord. He then took some of every kind of clean animal and clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, even though the inclination of their minds is evil from childhood on. I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done. 22 “While the earth continues to exist, planting time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”
Ecclesiastes 8:11
9 While applying my mind to everything that happens in this world, I have seen all this: Sometimes one person dominates other people to their harm. 10 Not only that, but I have seen the wicked approaching and entering the temple, and as they left the holy temple, they boasted in the city that they had done so. This also is an enigma. 11 When a sentence is not executed at once against a crime, the human heart is full to do evil.47 12 Even though a sinner might commit a hundred crimes and still live a long time, yet I know that it will go well with God-fearing people—for they stand in fear before him. 13 But it will not go well with the wicked, nor will they prolong their days like a shadow, because they do not stand in fear before God.
Notes and References
"... But before we leave the idea of a “fall” being echoed in Ecclesiastes we have to consider Ecclesiastes 7:20, 29; 8:11 and 9:3, all of which suggest that while God made human beings (“straightforward / upright,” 7:29), sin and evil was always knocking on the door, and indeed is not always punished as it should be. Is this sense of the evil in human nature an echo of the fall, as Forman suggests? I would suggest not, in that again the author of Ecclesiastes is expressing givens about the human condition. The word is frequently used in this text (49 times), as in Genesis 1–11 - though this is hardly surprising given its subject matter! Even if human scheming is against God’s true intention for humankind (7:29), it is still presented here as a fact of life. Elsewhere (7:13), there is the feeling that God’s purpose cannot ultimately be changed - “who can make straight what he has made crooked?” This verse suggests that even evil can be attributed to a divine cause (7:20) and here there is an interesting link with Genesis 8:21 which suggests that, even after the flood, “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth,” and now that fact is not going to deter God’s purpose. Qoheleth, though, struggles with the evident point that evil does not seem to be punished as it should be, and that prolonged lack of “sentence” leads to more evil (8:11). Indeed, that the same fate comes to all is seen by Qoheleth as an evil in itself (9:3). Schuele airs the idea that this verse is a quotation from the story of the flood (Genesis 8:21) and makes the point that there is no perspective in either text that God will rectify the natural evil quality of the human heart, in comparison with ideas of a new heart as found in early postexilic prophecy ..."
Dell, Katharine "Exploring Intertextual Links Between Ecclesiastes and Genesis 1–11" in Dell, Katharine Julia, and Will Kynes (eds.) Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually (pp. 3-14) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014