- All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? -
Uplifting thoughts as always Solomon. Super not making me stressed out at all.
If this is your first-time reading Ecclesiastes, you’re probably wondering what the heck this is doing in your Bible.
A religious text that makes an argument against eternity? Is there no reward or future home? Is your belief a lie? Did Jesus not mean what He said? Why would – *SLAP*
Sorry, but I think you needed that.
To really understand what this verse is saying, I think we need to slow down. Let’s put this in context and look at the actual argument.
Okay, so the context. This book is in your Old Testament, meaning the Messiah hasn’t arrived. Everything that Jesus is to reveal is still clouded in mystery.
If you take a critical eye to the Old Testament, one of the startling discoveries you will make is how little it says about the afterlife.
While we could debate why this is endlessly, we do know that this was a point of contention among the religious groups of Jesus’s day!
That’s right. The Pharisees and the Sadducees argued about the soul’s immortality. The Pharisees believed in eternal life, whereas the Sadducees thought there was only this life.
So, Solomon’s asking a question, debated at his time or not, that has been relevant to the Jewish faith. Jesus gives us answers, but of course those are not available to Solomon.
Now that we have the context, what is the actual argument being made?
The first part says that beasts and us both return to the earth. That’s our bodies decaying.
The second part talks about the direction of our Spirits when we die. Do human spirits go up and into Heaven? Or do they go down into the earth where Hell is?
Note the directions here and the eternal abodes associated with them are based on an ancient understanding of how the world worked.
This is strange. Do dogs and beasts have spirits? If they did, why would they go to Hell? Why would our spirits go along with or without them?
The most important part to understand about this verse is the phrase, “Who knows.”
Solomon isn’t making a declaration one way or another. He’s looking you and everyone else who has a shallow belief of the afterlife and saying, “Prove it.”
You can’t. You’ve never witnessed a “physical” form of a spirit. You’ve never conversed with one to learn how it got to Heaven. You’ve never died yourself and gone on the journey.
The Catholics got in trouble, in my estimation, with this more than anybody. They claimed to know the various parts of the afterlife – Hell, Heaven, and Purgatory.
When you had a loved one stuck in Purgatory, you could pay the church some money, an indulgence, to reduce their sentence. Yes, Purgatory is no fun.
All of that confusion and fallout came from pride. Solomon warns us that most of what we know of the afterlife is accepted by faith, not by knowledge.
Now, as Christians, we should take Solomon’s words with humility and use them to guide our tongues when we speak of the life to come.
Housekeeping: I have exciting news to share: You can now read Broken Wheel in the new Substack app for iPhone.
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.