Biblical Oddities: The Spirit Of The Beast

Everyone knows that animals don’t have souls. This is common knowledge throughout Christendom; it almost goes without saying. That is why I was greatly surprised to come across this passage:

Ecclesiastes 3:18: “I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?”

We know that when a person dies there is a part of him that lives on after death; although we usually refer to it as the person’s soul, Ecclesiastes calls it the “spirit of a man”. What is tremendously surprising is to discover that animals also have a spirit. The spirit of the man lives on after death – as does the spirit of the beast.

Now, before you get too excited, there are a lot of things that this passage does not say. We know exactly what happens to the human spirit after death: it either goes on to Heaven to be with the Lord, or else it is sent to Hell to be tormented. We also know that when Jesus returns our corpses will be resurrected and our spirit will be put back into our bodies – but that promise was given to men, not to animals.

This verse seems to indicate that the animal’s spirit goes “downward to the earth”. It doesn’t seem to go to God or to Hell. The verse also does not say that this spirit endures forever, or that one day the creature’s body will be resurrected and its spirit will be restored. It may be that the animal’s spirit just dissipates after death, but to be honest I don’t know. I haven’t found any other verses that talk about this and I don’t want to read too much into it.

But it’s an intriguing verse, all the same.