Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

God’s Spirit and His breath
Job 34:14-15

"If He should set His heart on it, If He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath, ¹⁵ All flesh would perish together, And man would return to dust." (Job 34:14-15, NKJV)

According to the United Bible Societies' translators handbook "There are two problems here. First, the verb phrase translated "set his heart" can mean "pay attention, notice." Second, upon him may be taken to refer to God or to man".^F1 Hartley^F2 suggests omitting "his heart" altogether, arguing that it came in by accident to form a Hebrew idiom for "pay attention". The Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin have y-s-m "he places" (שוּם Strong's #7760) whilst the Greek and Syriac clearly had y-s-b "he returns" (שוּב Strong's #7725), before them. Job 2:3 already uses a similar combination of "set" and "heart" in the phrase addressed to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job", so there is no reason to abandon the Hebrew text as it stands.

UBS and NICOT both notice the possible textual problems and fail to examine a deeper theological problem, namely, that spirit and breath return to God upon death or should God will it, at an earlier occasion. Actually, this is not a biblical problem, the Old Testament is quite consistent on this matter:

"…for dust you are and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19)

"You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
³⁰ You send forth Your Spirit, they are created" (Psalm 104:29-30)

"Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it." (Ecclesiastes 12:7)

It is, however, a Christian or Church problem for many have formed a theology of the spirit of believers outlasting death and going to God upon death as a self-sustaining spiritual entity. This verse argues that the spirit of all, righteous and wicked alike, like man's breath, expires at death and rejoins God as something more akin to a vitality than a person.

Furthermore, at death man returns to dust. The components of man, flesh and breath, return respectively to their sources. Flesh decomposes to dust and breath/spirit return to the Creator. The spirit of man is not self-sustaining, it relies upon God to give it form and flesh, to give it breath and spark, and this is the argument of the wisdom books the soul-spirit is not immortal, as in Greek thought, but dependent upon God for its creation, sustenance and at the last judgement, for its reuniting with flesh.

The above discussion is not meant to deny any belief in the afterlife but rather to question the state of man after death and any time earlier should God so choose. The spirit mentioned by Job is a part of God and returns to him when it ceases to animate us, much as in reverse the spirit in Ezekiel 37:9-10 gives life to inanimate bodies. In the same way God can raise from the dust and restore life to bodies through his spirit, but man's conscious existence ceases without God's spirit.

FOOTNOTES:
F1: Reyburn, W. D., A handbook on the book of Job, UBS handbook series; UBS helps for translators, p.631 (New York: United Bible Societies, 1992)
F2: Hartley J., Job, NICOT, p.453 (USA: Eerdmans, 1988)

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