Ecclesiastes Chapter Three, What Comes After

Ecclesiastes 3:21 Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth? [22] So I perceived that nothing is better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his heritage. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

The preacher is asking a poignant question here. The NASB renders verse 21 thus: “Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?” It is an existential or philosophical question that has pricked the hearts of humanity since the dawn of our existence. Does man possess a soul? Does a person survive death? Do we, like the animals, simply fall asleep and return to the primordial dust?

If one is considering all wisdom and knowledge under the sun, then the very best answer one can give is, “I don’t know.” Or perhaps to frame it more optimistically, “I hope so.” The preacher already wrote earlier that humanity has eternity in our hearts, meaning we instinctively know that we are meant to live on, Ecclesiastes 3:11. We crave eternity; this is one of the reasons, perhaps the primary reason, mankind finds death to be so unfair. It robs us of our ability to go on, as we expect we should. God did not create mankind to die; the curse of sin invited death into our bodies, and because we sin, we die. But that is knowledge above the sun, which precludes its usage when considering these questions.

Even in this verse the author makes a difference between man and animals. He wonders if man’s breath really goes up, implying that our souls upon death will return to our Creator. Then he wonders if the life breath of animals simply is the exhalation of gasses as flesh dissolves into its constituent elements. Without looking above the sun, is there any evidence indicating that man’s destiny is not intertwined with the animal’s? Well, I would propose that man, unlike the animals, can abstract. We emote, ponder, consider and create on a scale the animal kingdom does not and cannot replicate. There is something profoundly non-carnal about humanity. What I mean by this is that people can and do think about, talk about or pursue things that have no physical or material corollary. We aspire to brilliance. We appreciate art or music. We love or hate, and expound on its merits or demerits. The intellectual side of humanity reveals that there is a non corporeal presence about humanity since we can envision and conceptualize things that, if measured by purely material standards, do not actually exist. But we know music is real, and are often deeply moved by it. We know poetry exists; more than words on paper, it is the expression of the artist venting his thoughts on a subject that may have no physical counterpart or point of reference. Mankind is much more than the sum of our flesh, blood, and bone. These die, but what becomes of the person animating it all?

Since the preacher cannot honestly answer this question posed in verse 21, he commends momentary achievement once more. He advises his readership that they ought to rejoice in the works of their hands, although he had already spent time dismantling this spurious line of thought as fleeting fancy that has no genuine or enduring merit, see Ecclesiasters 2:21-23, etc.

What seems to be proposed is an alternative in lieu of a genuine answer for purpose. Since man may have no eternal destiny and shares a similar fate to animal kind, divert your attention from this morbid and fatalistic reality and bury yourself in work. Work is one’s inheritance, and man may indulge in and enjoy both it, and the reward such work reaps. But even then he can’t seem to help but add in a final, sorrowful caveat as he ponders about the future in the wake of the individual’s death: what comes after? The Tanakh renders verse 22, “I saw that there is nothing better for man than to enjoy his possessions, since that is his portion. For who can enable him to see what will happen afterward?” So despite the fact that the preacher systematically removed this argument from the table early in chapter 2 (see Ecclesiastes 2:3-11), he has nothing of substance to take hold of. Thus he reverts back to man taking satisfaction in accomplishment and material acquisition. When life under the sun forbids a search for existential meaning above the sun as well, all that we have left is material gain. 

Further pondering death and what would happen afterward, he can only propose, “Who knows?” Or perhaps it would be better framed as, “Who can know?” Man is reduced to the pitiful state of being a self aware animal, condemned to a like fate, relegated to enjoying his toys until such time as death claims him and life goes on, forgetting that he even was while his body molders in the grave. One might even suggest that the preacher was looking at the future and saying, “Who cares what happens after you die, and what becomes of your things since you have no power there? Just enjoy them for what they are, because if you focus on what will be, and what will become of your legacy after death, you rob yourself of any pretense of comfort that remains.”