One Fate for All

Ecclesiastes 9 is the darkest chapter in the book on the question of death. The righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him. It is the same for all: the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that the same event happens to all.

The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. There is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, where you are going. This is Qoheleth's starkest statement on what happens after death: silence, forgetting, no reward.

Out of this comes the carpe diem passage in its most urgent form: go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, where you are going. The chapter closes with an observation that has appealed to every reader since: time and chance happen to them all. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.