7 And the dust returns to the earth as it was, And the spirit returns to God who gave it.
By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish.
An oracle. The word of Yahweh concerning Israel. Yahweh, who stretches out the heavens, and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him says:
Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows the spirit of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, whether it goes downward to the earth?"
If he set his heart on himself, If he gathered to himself his spirit and his breath; All flesh would perish together, And man would turn again to dust.
Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?
You turn man to destruction, saying, "Return, you children of men."
So Zedekiah the king swore secretly to Jeremiah, saying, As Yahweh lives, who made us this soul, I will not put you to death, neither will I give you into the hand of these men who seek your life.
His bones are full of his youth, But youth shall lie down with him in the dust.
How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, Whose foundation is in the dust, Who are crushed before the moth! Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.
Let Yahweh, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation,
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Ecclesiastes 12
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 12 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 12
The wise and penitent preacher is here closing his sermon; and he closes it, not only like a good orator, but like a good preacher, with that which was likely to make the best impressions and which he wished might be powerful and lasting upon his hearers. Here is,
Ecc 12:1-7
Here is,
Ecc 12:8-12
Solomon is here drawing towards a close, and is loth to part till he has gained his point, and prevailed with his hearers, with his readers, to seek for that satisfaction in God only and in their duty to him which they can never find in the creature.
Ecc 12:13-14
The great enquiry which Solomon prosecutes in this book is, What is that good which the sons of men should do? ch. 2:3. What is the true way to true happiness, the certain means to attain our great end? He had in vain sought it among those things which most men are eager in pursuit of, but here, at length, he has found it, by the help of that discovery which God anciently made to man (Job 28:28), that serious godliness is the only way to true happiness: Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, the return entered upon the writ of enquiry, the result of this diligent search; you shall have all I have been driving at in two words. He does not say, Do you hear it, but Let us hear it; for preachers must themselves be hearers of that word which they preach to others, must hear it as from God; those are teachers by the halves who teach others and not themselves, Rom. 2:21. Every word of God is pure and precious, but some words are worthy of more special remark, as this; the Masorites begin it with a capital letter, as that Deu. 6:4. Solomon himself puts a nota bene before it, demanding attention in these words, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Observe here,