12:7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was,
and the life’s breath returns to God who gave it
Here the implicit distinction between Adam's "breath" and his body" is explicitly articulated..If fact, human mortality is a major and climatic theme in Qoheleth. The above statement immediately precedes a restatement of his opening and concluding theme that all of life is "vanity of vanities." Life is "vain" because man is mortal.
To rephrase Yahweh's warning, we could render it based upon what happens as, "in the day you eat of it, your ground-made body will begin to return to dust." Yahweh cursed Adam with mortality by cursing the ground of which his body was made and so explicitly states, "Dust you are . . ." From this perspective, "dying, you shall die" seems intended to express that his disobedience will lead to a "degeneration (dying) and death (you shall die), a "return to dust." That process and its ultimate result is what Qoheleth contemplates with such relish and detail in his closing allegory on aging and death. Such an interpretation avoids the problematic one that Yahweh is portrayed as lying, bluffing or equivocating and that the serpent told the truth yet somehow "deceived" Eve.Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.