Ecclesiastes 3:16-22

Man no Better than the Beasts.

Ecclesiastes 3:16. Both in the administration of the law and the observances of religion, wickedness is prevalent; righteousness is here equivalent to piety.

Ecclesiastes 3:17 is the insertion of the orthodox glossator; Qoheleth does not regard God as vindicating the godly.

Ecclesiastes 3:18 links on to Ecclesiastes 3:16; the corruption already alluded to is God's way of showing that man, despite his vaunt of intelligence, is really on a level with the beasts. They share the same breath, and when it leaves them, the same end, death. Note mg., reminding us of Solon's saying quoted by Herodotus, Man is altogether a chance. In Psalms 49:12 it is only the unworthy man that perishes like the beasts; here all men. The one place (Ecclesiastes 3:20) is not Sheol, but the earth whence all spring and whither all return.

Ecclesiastes 3:21, like Ecclesiastes 3:9, throws a negative into the form of an interrogative. Qoheleth combats the idea that man's breath goes back to God who gave it (though in changed mood he allows this in Ecclesiastes 12:7). No one can prove that it takes a direction different from that of the breath of beasts. No man knows what will happen after he is gone, so the best thing to do is to have a good time now.