express, first, only the fact, in itself comfortless, that the component parts of the human body return whence they came. But the comfortless averse of the proverb is yet not without a consoling reverse. For what the author, Ecc 3:21, represents as an unsettled possibility, that the spirit of a dying man does not downwards like that of a beast, but upwards, he here affirms as an actual truth.[1]
From this, that he thus finally decides the question as an advantage to a man above a beast, it follows of necessity that the return of the spirit to God cannot be thought of as a resumption of the spirit into the essence of God (resorption or emanation), as the cessation of his independent existence, although, as also at Job 34:14; Psa 104:29, the nearest object of the expression is directed to the ruin of the soul-corporeal life of man which directly follows the return of the spirit to God. The same conclusion arises from this, that the idea of the return of the spirit to God, in which the author at last finds rest, cannot yet stand in a subordinate place with reference to the idea of Hades, above which it raises itself; with the latter the spirit remains indestructible, although it has sunk into a silent, inactive life. And in the third place, that conclusion flows from the fact that the author is forced by the present contradiction between human experience and the righteousness of God to the postulate of a judgment finally settling these contradictions, Ecc 3:17; Ecc 11:9, cf. Ecc 12:14, whence it immediately follows that the continued existence of the spirit is thought of as a well-known truth (Psychol. p. 127). The Targ. translates, not against the spirit of the book: “the spirit will return to stand in judgment before God, who gave it to thee.” In this connection of thoughts Koheleth says more than what Lucretius says (ii. 998 ss.):Cedit item retro, de terra quod fuit ante, In terras, et quod missum est ex aetheris oris Id rursum caeli rellatum templa receptant.
A comforting thought lies in the words נתנהּ אשׁר. The gifts of God are on His side ἀμεταμέλητα (Rom 11:29). When He receives back that which was given, He receives it back to restore it again in another manner. Such thoughts connect themselves with the reference to God the Giv. Meanwhile the author next aims at showing the vanity of man, viz., of man as living here. Body and spirit are separated, and depart each in its own direction. Not only the world and the labours by which man is encompassed are “vain,” and not only is that which man has and does and experiences “vain,” but also
- ↑ In the Rig-Veda that which is immortal in man is called manas; the later language calls it âtman; vid., Muir in the Asiatic Journal, 1865, p. 305.
