One Spirit in Them

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1866

One Spirit in Them.

ThE following interesting remarks on the "spirit in man," are from the notes in Geo. R. Noyes' translation of Eccl. iii, 19. They contain truth that all Bible students should know. These remarks are more valuable, because coming from an able Hebrew scholar who believes in the immortality of the soul. He very sagely remarks in his notes, "It ought not to appear strange to any one, that the writer (Solomon) did not believe in doctrines which had never been revealed to him, or to his countrymen." But we may well say it would be very strange that the Lord should withhold all evidence of the immortality of the soul or spirit, from his people, and from Solomon so noted for his wisdom, and leave them to learn the doctrine from the heathen.

When speaking of the meaning of the word rendered spirit in Eccl. iii, 19, Dr. Noyes says:

"One spirit in them: i. e. the spirit of life. Compare chap. viii, 8; xii, 7; Judges xv, 19; 1 Sam. xxx, 12; Ezek. xxxvii, 8; Hab. ii, 19. Sometimes this vital spirit is called the spirit or breath of God, as having been imparted by him, breathed by him into the nostrils of men, and as returning to him again. See Job xxvii, 3. In Job xxxiv, 14, he is said to take back his spirit when men die. Compare Psa. civ, 29, 39. From a comparison of the preceding references, it will appear that, according to Hebrew usage, the return of the spirit to God denotes simply death, and not a return to a happy existence with God.

Whether it goes upward, etc. This is the rendering of the Septuagint and all the ancient versions, as also of Luther, and appears to agree better with the ancient idiom, and with the connection, than that of the common version. The term spirit in this verse, is the same in the original as in verse 19, where it is said that one spirit is in men and brutes. In both cases I understand it as denoting the animal or vital spirit. It seems to me improbable, that, in a sentence so closely connected with verse 19, there should be any change in the meaning of the term spirit, especially as it is here applied to brutes as well as to men, and as the spirit of all mankind, the bad as well as the good, seems to be spoken of in comparison with that of brutes. The preacher seems to me to express a doubt whether man, whom he represents to be like the brutes in many respects, differs from them in this, that the spirit of man ascends upward, or returns to God, and that of brutes goes downward, or mingles with the dust. I do not understand him to refer to the personal, conscious immortality of either; for in verse 19, he says, 'One lot befalls both. As the one dies, so dies the other. Yea, there is one spirit

in them, and a man has no pre-eminence above a beast.' The doubt is whether the vital spirit of man is more honorably disposed of after death than that of a brute. In chap. xii, 7, it is true, he positively affirms that the spirit of man 'returns to God.' But it is not very probable that he doubts here what he affirms there. The doubt is, whether any different disposition is made of the soul of a man and that of a brute; whether the latter may not go upward as well as the former. The foregoing exposition of the passage seems to be confirmed by the inference which is drawn from it in verse 22. If the writer had believed that man was distinguished from beasts by a destiny to an immortal conscious existence, and to a state of righteous retribution, and had, as many suppose, intended to express his surprise that so few regarded, as the writer did, the different destiny of the spirits of men and brutes, would his inference from the passage have been exactly what it is in verse 22? Is not this inference rather drawn from what the writer considers as the resemblance of men and brutes in all the points in which he compares them? It ought not to appear strange to any one, that the writer did not believe in doctrines which had never been revealed to him, or to his countrymen."