Ecclesiastes 3:19-21

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts.

Man and beast

It is difficult to determine the exact object of Ecclesiastes in instituting this comparison: partly because the Hebrew is capable, in one or two places, of different translations; and partly because it is possible to take very different views of the connection between the two things which Ecclesiastes had “said in his heart.” One view which may be taken of this connection is that Ecclesiastes, having recorded his conviction that the righteous God will yet judge between the righteous and the wicked, goes on to record how he had speculated as to the reason why God does not always execute this judgment here and now. It had occurred to him that the reason of this might be to “prove” or “test” men, and to show them that, in and of “themselves,” they were liable to degenerate into a mere animal life. There is for man both probation and self-revelation in the fact that God does not visit all wickedness with immediate and manifest punishment. If a man thrusts his hand into the fire it is at once burnt: the suffering follows immediately on the action, and the man is not likely to do the same thing again. Now, if all violations of the moral law were followed likewise by such immediate and manifest consequences, there might be a test of human prudence, but there would scarcely be any test of human virtue. If, for example, every man who should commit an act of dishonesty were--at once and without fail--to be stricken with paralysis, there would be no more virtue in honesty than there is now in keeping one’s hand out of the fire. But the fact that God often postpones the manifest punishment of iniquity, and allows wicked men sometimes even to trample upon the righteous with apparent impunity, affords a test of moral character, and leaves room for the exercise of virtues which are the result, not of mere prudence, but of an actual allegiance to God and righteousness. And this kind of probation, to which men are subjected, becomes an instrument of self-revelation. Men see how much of the animal there is in their nature. The spirit of man, indeed, “goeth upward” at death; and the spirit of the beast “goeth downward to the earth”: but “who knoweth” the exact difference between the two? The difference of destination does not make itself manifest to the senses. To all outward appearance the dissolution of the man and of the beast is exactly the same kind of thing; the human being does not appear to have any pre-eminence in this respect over the mere animal. Now, all these circumstances and appearances put men to the proof; they test men as to whether they will allow themselves to sink down into a mare animal, selfish life, or whether they will follow those Divine inspirations which link them to God, beckon them to righteousness, and point them to immortality. But there is another and very different view which may be taken of the passage. According to this view, Ecclesiastes is here recording a mood of materialistic scepticism through which he had passed. The two things which he had “said in his heart” were like the “two voices” of Tennyson’s poem--voices conflicting with one another for the mastery, and plunging the soul for a time into doubt and perplexity (verse 21, R.V.). Supposing this, then, to be the real drift of the passage before us, we surely need not be surprised that Ecclesiastes, in presence of the problems of life, should have passed through some such mood of materialistic scepticism. But it would seem that Ecclesiastes did not remain permanently in this sceptical attitude. We may regard him as here telling his readers what he had “said in his heart” about man and beast: he is not necessarily endorsing it at the time when he writes this book. On the contrary, it would appear from other passages that he was now clinging to the assurance that God would yet judge between righteous and wicked men, and that the spirit of man does not perish at death. Now, if Ecclesiastes could thus, with the light he had, arrive at the final conviction that the human spirit survives the dissolution of the body, surely we, in the fuller light of the Christian revelation, may well overcome the chilling doubts which may sometimes creep in upon our souls. Events, indeed, sometimes occur in the providence of God, which utterly baffle our understanding, and which seem almost to deal with men as if they were mere animals. Catastrophes happen, in which men seem to be taken as if they were “fishes of the sea.” The most brilliant thinker suddenly meets with a blow on the head which robs him, for a time, of all power of thought. Such things as these may stagger us. But we recover faith when we look to Jesus Christ as the Light of the World, and the Revealer of the Father. He who gave His Son to die for us, and who has led us to trust in His own fatherly love will not let us go down into nothingness. He who “died for us and rose again” has shown Himself to be the conqueror of death; and, “because He lives, we shall live also.” Glorying in His character and cross, and receiving into our hearts somewhat of His own spirit, we become conscious of thoughts, motives, and aspirations which raise us above our mere animal nature and contain within themselves the earnest of immortality. (T. C. Finlayson.)