Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear Pere:

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 10:44 PM, <pporta AT oham.net> wrote:

> In Ecc 12:7 the RWX is described as "acting". RWX returns to God. And God
> gave RWX to the human being.


Here you are reading into the text something that is not specifically said.
"Human beings" are not specifically mentioned in this verse.

RWX could be either "spirit" or "wind", the context gives the clues which to
read. Usually the context is clear, though sometimes not.

The wind, at least in the languages I studied, is verbalized as an active
force, even though it is an inanimate action. As such, it can return to God
who gives it.

I see this verse as a symbolic reference to the fact that after a person has
died, his continuing action is like the dust that settles down on the ground
after the wind has stopped.

>
> Is it right to deduce from this that RWX is something that really exists?
> Or this statement is nothing else than a mere symbolic way to depict the
> fact of death: at a given moment God gave life to the human being and at a
> given moment this life vanishes, desappears, ceases from being?
>

No. This is a theological interpretation, an eisagesis, that may or may not
be accurate.

>
> REMARK: By no means I intend to start a discussion about the (autonomous)
> existence of the/a "soul". I merely ask what does the verse 7 really say.
>
> Pere Porta
> Barcelona (Spain)
>

Karl W. Randolph.