The Pulpit Commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:20

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

All go unto one place. All, men and brutes, are buried in the earth (Ecclesiastes 12:7). The author is not thinking of Sheol, the abode of departed spirits, but merely regarding earth as the universal tomb of all creatures. Plumptre quotes Lueretius, 'De Rer. Nat.,' 5.260—

"Omniparens eadem rerum commune sepulchrum."

"The mother and the sepulcher of all."

Thus Bailey, 'Festus'—

"The course of nature seems a course of death;

The prize of life's brief race, to cease to run;

The sole substantial thing, death's nothingness."

All are of the dust (Genesis 3:19; Psalms 104:29; Psalms 146:4). So Ecclesiasticus 41:10, "All things that are of earth shall turn to earth again." This is true of the material part of men and brutes alike; the question of the destiny of the immaterial part is touched in the next verse.

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