Selected Verses on DEATH by Tuese Ahkiong
…"Naked I came from my mother's
womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may
the name of the LORD be praised."
"Man born of woman is of few days
and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a
fleeting shadow, he does not endure. Do you fix your eye on such a one? Will
you bring him before you for judgment? Who can bring what is pure from the
impure? No one! Man's days are determined; You have decreed the number of his
months and have set limits he cannot exceed. So look away from him and let him
alone, till he has put in his time like a hired man.
If it were his intention and
he withdrew his spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and man
would return to the dust.
"LORD,
make me to know my end And what is the
extent of my days; Let me know how
transient I am. "Behold, You have made
my days as handbreadths, And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; Surely every man at his best is a mere
breath. Selah. "Surely every man
walks about as a phantom; Surely they make an uproar for nothing; He amasses
riches and does not know who will gather them.
What man can live and not see
death, or save himself from the power of the grave ? Selah
You turn men back to dust, saying, "Return to dust, O sons of
men." For a thousand years in your sight are
like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the
sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning- though in the morning it springs up
new, by evening it is dry and withered. We are consumed by your anger and
terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence. All our days pass away under your
wrath; we finish our years with a moan. The
length of our days is seventy years— or eighty, if we have the strength; yet
their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Who knows the power of
your anger? For your wrath is as great
as the fear that is due you. Teach us to number our days aright, that we
may gain a heart of wisdom.
For He knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As
for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the
wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.
When you hide your face, they are
terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust.
your eyes saw my unformed body. All the
days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow.
I saw
that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.
The
wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came
to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.
Then I
thought in my heart, "The
fate of the fool will overtake me also.
What then do I gain by being wise?"
I said in my heart, "This
too is meaningless."
For
the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both
will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!
I also
thought, "As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like
the animals. Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate
awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man
has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the
animal goes down into the earth?"
Naked
a man comes from his mother's womb, and as he comes, so he departs.
He takes
nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand.
This
too is a grievous evil: As a man comes,
so he departs, and what does he gain, since he toils for the wind?
It is
better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for
death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.
Since
no man knows the future, who can tell him what is to come? No man has power over the wind to contain
it;
so no one has power over the day of his death.
All
share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, …
As it
is with the good man, so with the sinner; …
This
is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny
overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is
madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. Anyone who is among the living has hope —even a live dog is better off
than a dead lion!
For the
living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further
reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.
Their
love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will
they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.
Enjoy
life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that
God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your
lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the
grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge
nor wisdom.
Moreover,
no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or
birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall
unexpectedly upon them.
