properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
dust
הֶֽעָפָ֔רhe.'a.Far
H6083
dust (as powdered or gray) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
turn
שָׁ֥בshav
H7725
to turn back (hence · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
dust
הֶעָפָֽרhe.'a.Far
H6083
dust (as powdered or gray) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
again
שׁוּבshûwb
H7725
to turn back (hence
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto…
Job 34:15 All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
Numbers 27:13 And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered.
Job 7:9 As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.
Job 10:9-10 Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?
Psalms 104:29 Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
Ecclesiastes 3:21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 3:16–end
Solomon is still showing that every thing in this world, without piety and the fear of God, is vanity. Take away religion, and there is nothing valuable among men, nothing for the sake of which a wise man would think it worth while to live in this world. In these verses he shows that power (than which there is nothing men are more ambitious of) and life itself (than which there is nothing men are more fond, more jealous of) are nothing without the fear of God.
I. Here is the vanity of man as mighty, man in his best estate, man upon the throne, where his authority is submitted to, man upon the judgment-seat, where his wisdom and justice are appealed to, and where, if he be governed by the law…
Literally, "For the sons of men (Adam) are a mere chance, as also the beast is a mere chance." These words can only be the sentiments of the skeptical oppressors. God's delay in judgment gives scope for the "manifestation" of their infidelity (Ecc 8:11; Psa 55:19; Pe2 3:3,4). They are "brute beasts," morally (Ecc 3:18; Jde 1:10); and they end by maintaining that man, physically, has no pre-eminence over the beast, both alike being "fortuities." Probably this was the language of Solomon himself in his apostasy. He answers it in Ecc 3:21. If Ecc 3:19-20 be his words, they express only that as regards liability to death, excluding the future judgment, as the skeptic oppressors do, man is on a l…
All go unto one place,.... The earth (w) from whence they came;
all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again; Adam's body was made of the dust of the earth, and so all his posterity, all of them; in which they agree with beasts, who are made of the dust also; and, when they die, return to it; see Genesis 2:7.
(w) "Magna parens terra est", Ovid. Metamorph. l. 1. Fab. 7.
Keil & Delitzsch on Ecclesiastes 3:20
The Church Fathers
[Daniel 7:17-18] "These four great beasts are the four kingdoms which shall arise from the earth. But the saints of the Most High God shall take the kingdom." The four kingdoms of which we have spoken above were earthly in character. "For everything which is of the earth shall return to earth" (Ecclesiastes 3:20). But the saints shall never possess an earthly kingdom, but only a heavenly. Away, then, with the fable about a millennium! (Revelation 20:4-6) "...And they shall possess the kingdom unto eternity, even forever and ever..." If this be taken to refer to the Maccabees, the advocate of this position should explain how the kingdom of the Maccabees is of a perpetual character.
The resurrection as a fact is not to be rejected because of an exceptional situation. Yet, since all things earthly return and crumble into the earth, I wonder how there can be any doubt even concerning the instances noted. For the most part, the sea itself also casts up on neighboring shores whatever human bodies it has swallowed. And if this were not so, it surely would not be difficult for God to join what has been scattered and to unite again what has been dispersed. Could it be maintained for a moment that God, whom the universe and the silent elements obey and nature serves, did not perform a greater miracle in giving life to clay than in joining it together?
In order, indeed, that you may have the fullest and clearest assurance that what is the soul is in the usage of the Holy Scriptures also called spirit, the soul of a brute animal has the designation of spirit. And of course cattle have not that spirit which you, my beloved brother, have defined as being distinct from the soul. It is therefore quite evident that the soul of a brute animal could be rightly called "spirit" in a general sense of the term; as we read in the Book of Ecclesiastes, "Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of men, whether it goeth upward; and the spirit of the beast, whether it goeth downward into the earth?" In like manner, touching the devastation of the deluge, the Scripture testifies, "All flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: and all things which have the spirit of life." Here, if we remove all the windings of doubtful disputation, we understand the term spirit to be synonymous with soul in its general sense. Of so wide a signification is this term, that even God is called "a spirit;" and a stormy blast of the air, although it has material substance, is called by the psalmist the "spirit" of a tempest. For all these reasons, therefore, you will no longer deny that what is the soul is called also spirit; I have, I think, adduced enough from the pages of Holy Scripture to secure your assent in passages where the soul of the very brute beast, which has no understanding, is designated spirit.
Dictionary and topics
Animals · Nature ofJob 39; — Nature ofJob 39;
Corruption · .After — .After
Dust · Man ma — Man ma
Man · MORTAL — MORTAL
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
"All goes hence to one place; all has sprung out of the dust, and all returns to the dust again." The "one place" is (as at Ecc 6:6) the earth, the great graveyard which finally receives all the living when dead. The art. of the first העפר is that denoting species; the art. of the second is retrospective: to the dust whence he sprang (cf. Psa 104:29; Psa 146:4); otherwise, Gen 3:19 (cf. Job 34:15), "to dust shalt thou return," shalt become dust again. From dust to dust (Sir. 40:11; 41:10) is true of every living corporeal thing. It is true there exists the possibility that with the spirit of the dying man it may be different from what it is with the spirit of the dying beast, but yet that is…
from dust . . . to dust: The Teacher refers to God’s judgment against human rebellion in Eden (see Gen 3:19).
Rashi on Ecclesiastes 3:19
For the fate of men, etc. This is the reason for the matter, that the Holy One, Blessed Is He, gave a fate and a mishap to mankind, and there is a fate and a mishap to the beasts, and He gave one fate to them both, for just as this one dies, so does that one die.
And the superiority of man over beast is nil. And the superiority and the success of man over beast is not apparent after he dies, for everything is converted to nothingness by returning to the dust.40This is true when a person spends his life only in the accumulation of wealth. (Metsudas Dovid)
