Ecclesiastes Chapter Eight, The War With Death

Ecclesiastes 8:8 No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit, and no one has power in the day of death. There is no release from that war, and wickedness will not deliver those who are given to it.

The Hebrew in this verse is certainly worth pausing to consider. Twice the word, “power,” is used in this verse, with slightly different Hebrew words employed each time. The first is, “shalliyt,” and means, “potent,” also meaning, “a prince or warrior.” Its root is the Hebrew word, “shalat,” which means, “to dominate, govern or permit.” The second usage of the word power is the Hebrew, “shiltown,” meaning, “potentate.” It also has an Aramaic counterpart, essentially defined the same way.

The Tanakh takes the pragmatic solution with this translation, rendering the term, “authority.” This is a clearer rendering, since the English word for power often denotes strength rather than authority. Simply put, the preacher cautions and reminds his readership that no person on earth has authority, lordship, or sovereignty over their own spirit. Our life, saved or unsaved, belongs to God; He is the Father of spirits, Hebrews 12:9. The Tanakh, while rendering the term power more accurately, does a disservice to the Hebrew word, “ruwach,” translated spirit or Spirit 232 times out of 378 in the KJV; a term translated “lifebreath” in the Tanakh. Conversely the word is translated “breath,” a mere 27 times in the KJV, and is the word employed when the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit) is spoken of in Scripture.

The verse goes well beyond the Tanakh’s lifebreath, referring to the cognitive, vital essence of man’s person. This is not the air that fills our lungs and fills it no more when we breathe our last. No, when God breathed into man, and he became a living being, He imbued mankind with a spirit, and we became spiritual beings. Genesis 2:7 records the event: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” The living being refers to the seat of human reason and thought, the invisible nature of man that creates a vast gulf, separating him from animal kind forever. The spirit of man is what binds him to his Maker. It is possessing a spirit, and having the awareness of good and evil, and human volition that brings moral accountability into focus. Yes, the preacher is touching upon the reality of physical death in this verse, and how no one is exempt. But why? Why must man die, and how is one delivered? Wickedness will not forestall death’s advance, so what hope is there? 

The preacher’s point is simple but obscenely profound. You and I do not own our spirits. They are given by the gift of God’s grace, formed by the might of His limitless power, and subject to the governance of the Creator, in whose domain we dwell. I once told someone, in response to them telling me, “It’s my life,” to refuse death, then. If life is ours, as in we own it, then we may do with it as we please, and surrender it to no one. But we die, which is tacit proof that we do not own our lives; it’s not, “my life,” to live as carefree as I wish. Life is God’s domain, because God IS life. Apart from Him there is only spiritual death. To refuse God is to refuse life, and then by choice we MUST go to a place where there is no life, because there is no God there. Twice we are informed that man does not have power over the spirit, or rulership over the day of his death. Death, one might say in modern lingo, is like a repo man. A repo man is a person contracted by a debt collection agency to reclaim possessions from individuals unable to pay their debt.

Retention of the spirit is impossible. Death is the agent of sin, who ushered it in when man chose rebellion and self over obedience and God. It comes to each of us to reclaim that which we were lent, and upon which an impossible debt now stands. Christ paid that infinite debt for those who hear and believe the gospel. But for those who have not, physical death is the doorway to permanent separation from the One who died for them.

The preacher informs his readership that we are at war, and in time every individual, including the preacher himself, will become a casualty of it. Every death is a reminder that we are quite literally living on borrowed time. The finite draws short and the infinite expanse of eternity draws ever closer; for the saint this is a great relief because it means conscious and eternal bliss in the presence of our God and Savior, who has redeemed us for Himself with His own blood, Acts 20:28. For the lost, they are, “raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever,” Jude 13. This correlates with the finale of our current verse, where the preacher warns that wickedness will not deliver or save the one practicing it. In fact, it marks us out especially, reminding us as we indulge in wickedness that death is its consequence, and when we collude with sin we demonstrate our fitness for death. Jude referred to false Christians fomenting discord and false teaching in the church, but every soul that refuses Christ will suffer this same fate. Our works testify of us, that man is evil. If it were not so, if we were not spiritually dead and incapable of saving or improving ourselves, Christ did not have to die. But He did, providing for our race the only means of escape from the true death, the Second Death, the permanent end to man and all of his vainglory, should we continue to reject and despise the God who died to set us free.