-- before the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be shattered at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern;
Ecclesiastes closes its long look at life with four snapshots of a household breaking down. A cord snaps. A bowl smashes. A pitcher shatters at the spring. A wheel breaks at the cistern. Each picture says the same thing in a different way: the body wears out and stops. And each one stands under one small word — before.
The verse does not name death. It shows it. One commentator answers those who deny any picture-language here, and admits that some details stay unclear:
Although many now doubt and deny that there is a picture with a deeper meaning here, in itself it seems clear, suitable to the writer, and worthy of the inspiring Spirit. There may be difficulty about every detail in the application. But this is so true of Scripture in general that no one need wonder if it is so here.
Two of the four pictures come from the water supply of an ordinary home. Cisterns stored rain water, and deeper ones used a wheel and rope:
These were widely used in Palestine for collecting rain water. ... Some were really pits, since we read of the "wheel" being broken (Ecclesiastes 12:6).
The first image is closer to home. The cord stands for life itself:
THE SILVER CORD in Ecclesiastes 12:6 seems to refer to "the thread of life," which is loosed, or removed, when death happens.
Some read the four images as parts of the body shutting down one by one. That reading ends in a question:
Age has come and man is ready to go to his "age-long home." The silver cord is snapped — the spinal column. The gold bowl is broken — the brain. The pitcher is broken at the fountain — the heart. The wheel is broken at the cistern — the blood and its circulation. But if he speaks of an age-long home, what is that home? There is no answer, no light on these questions, for the natural man, even at his best, cannot find the truth for himself about that "home."
Another reading follows what each object did. A pitcher goes to the spring because thirst keeps coming back. A wheel turns at the well to keep the house in water. When both break, the daily round of need and supply ends. For the believer, a known hand ends it:
Now that hand which was pierced on the cross has loosed the silver cord that bound body and soul together. The golden bowl is broken (Ecclesiastes 12:6-7) — the casket that held the jewel. The pitcher is broken at the fountain, which points to a need that kept coming back. Dependence is now no longer required. The wheel is broken at the cistern. All activity of upkeep has now ceased; all is still! "Our earthen vessels break." So we commit the dust to the earth it came from, but the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes stops at the parting of dust and spirit. The New Testament answers the question it leaves open:
In 2 Corinthians 5:8 we see with what confidence the apostle speaks about those who have died... so that we are assured that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. What security, comfort and bliss there is in that state out of the body, since it is "present with the Lord"! That is not a lifeless condition, but freed from the suffering and sorrow tied to the body, and at home with the Lord.
The images are not there to be admired. They are a deadline, and putting things off is the folly:
Where the word of God is honoured, such a sharp description of human decay may well warn us. It shows the danger of putting off the attention we owe to Him, being what we are. If fallen man, made in God's image, sinks into weaknesses more crushing than those of any creature God set under him, what folly to put off the first piece of wisdom — fearing God!
That deadline reaches your possessions as well as your soul:
Give away your silver and gold to the poor before "the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken" (Ecclesiastes 12:6). Make your hands your executors. Do not do as some do, who hold back everything they give until life is about to end. And what is given then is not given away but taken away by death. It is not charity but necessity.
- Before — the whole verse hangs on one word. Every image sits on the far side of a deadline you cannot move.
- Cord — the silver cord is the thread of life. The wheel and cistern are ordinary household water tools. Death looks like familiar equipment breaking.
- Break — the pitcher spoke of need that kept coming back, the wheel of daily upkeep. When they break, all that ceases and all is still.
- Beyond — dust goes back to the earth and the spirit returns to God. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
- Now — the warning is against delay. Fear God today, and let your own hands, not your executors, do your giving.
and the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return unto God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes closes its long search with a picture of death. In one short line the Preacher separates what dies from what does not, and says where each part goes.
The verse divides a person into two parts with two destinations. The book of Job speaks the same way.
"The preacher," speaking of death, also refers to the two parts of man — the material and the spiritual. He says, "and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Elihu refers to the material and the spiritual too. Speaking of God, he says, "If He set His heart on man, if He gathered to Himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust" (Job 34:14-15). This Scripture gives us further light, because the spirit is linked with the thought of breath. That suggests that the breath of life in Genesis 2:7 is the spirit of a man.
Human wisdom searched this out and reached only a question. Verse 7 answers it.
This is not a man taught by the Spirit. The Spirit of God leads in no such path. The result is that, when a man searches by human wisdom, the grave into which all go stays a mystery he cannot see into. Men die as the beast dies. They have one breath, one ruach, and they go to the dust alike. As to what is beyond, no mere human knowledge can pierce it: who knows the spirit of man that goes upward, or the spirit of the beast that goes downward to the earth? That word, ruach, means either breath or spirit, and it suits the doubtful questioning of the passage. But this is the uncertainty of mere human knowledge. The Spirit of God could not doubt or question… he says finally and clearly that the spirit of man does not "go downward to the earth."
Death can look like the end of the whole person. The word "returns" says otherwise, and it teaches two things.
Here we have the truth — not that the spirit ceases to exist at the death of the body, but that it returns to the God who gave it. That teaches two things. The spirit lives on after death. And it does not depend on the body to keep existing; it is responsible to the One who gave it.
The dust goes back to the earth "as it was." The verse does not say that of the spirit.
Now if that is the conclusion of the whole matter, does it look as though the matter he drew it from ends with the blank silence of the grave? Rather, does it not show plainly what that return of the dust to the earth "as it was" is for? It is only what brings the spirit into the presence of the God who gave it — not "as it was," but with the character it gained in its earthly tent.
Another writer follows the same line back to where a man's life began.
Finally: man came from God's hand at his creation. God sustains his life as long as he lives, for in God "we live and move and have our being." At death the spirit will return to the God who gave it, and then we must give an account to Him.
The verse names God as the destination. One writer says more about what this spirit is, and about who receives it.
The spirit is a person's highest part, and it links him with God. It gives the body life and controls it, and it comes from God Himself; without it the body is "dead" (James 2:26). At death it returns to God who gave it. For the believer, the Lord Jesus receives it (Acts 7:59), and it stays conscious apart from the body (Hebrews 12:23)… Death is separation: never extinction.
Verse 7 closes a long picture of a body wearing out.
The sign of old age is the grey head and the shrinking from burden or effort. It marks the approach of the grave and all that comes with it. The inner powers all fail, the body returns to the dust it belongs to, and the spirit goes to Him who breathed into man alone on earth the breath that makes him immortal. Where the word of God is honoured, so sharp a description of human decay may well warn us. For people like us, putting off the attention we owe Him is a real danger.
- Given. The spirit was never the body's own property; it was God's gift, breathed into man alone on earth.
- Divided. Death splits the man in two — the dust goes down to the earth it came from, the spirit goes up.
- Kept. "Returns" means the spirit survives; it does not depend on the body to keep existing.
- Answerable. The spirit does not come back as it went out. It carries the character it gained in life, and an account to give.
- Urgent. The Preacher sets this at the end of a picture of decay so the living will not put off what they owe God.