Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ecclesiastes · About this commentary
All Go to One Place
Ecclesiastes 3:16-22
16 Moreover I saw under the sun, in the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there. · WEB
Injustice in the courtroom is answered by judgment rather than by explanation, and then men and animals are put side by side to make one point about breath.
Verse 16 locates the wrong precisely: in the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and in the place of righteousness, that wickedness was there. Said twice, because the offense is the location. Wickedness in a marketplace is ordinary; wickedness on the bench is the failure of the last remedy.
The book's answer in verse 17 is not an explanation but a date: God will judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work. The poem's word for season is applied to a court that has not sat yet. This is the first of three such statements Ecclesiastes 11:9 Ecclesiastes 12:14, and each places the settlement outside what can be watched.
Then verses 18 through 21 press a comparison meant to sting. God tests men so that they may see that they themselves are like animals, and the likeness is spelled out: one event happens to both, as the one dies, so the other dies, they have all one breath, and man has no advantage.
Verse 20 states the shared destination in nine words — all go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again — which is the sentence spoken over the first man Genesis 3:19.
And verse 21 is a question, not a claim: who knows the spirit of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, whether it goes downward to the earth? The same noun is used of both in one breath.
The passage is not arguing that man is only an animal. It is refusing to locate his advantage in his mortality, where readers keep looking for it. The advantage, when the book names it, is the judgment of verse 17 — and verse 22 goes back to work.
settled What this mark means