Psalm 104:29

In "Psalm 104:29" Jefferson Vann compares various reflections on this verse and explains its significance in the debate over the state of human beings at death.

"You hide your face: they are troubled; you take away their breath: they die, and return to the dust" (Psalm 104:29 WEB).

This bit of Old Testament poetry is a description of the basic fact of life and death, a reminder that all God's creatures rely on him for life, and that God reserves the right to remove that life from them.

Yet religion has refused to acknowledge that basic fact. It has looked square in the face of this dependence and insisted that human life is independent and continues beyond death. Our theologians have come to the rescue of religion and helped us to find a way to maintain personal identity beyond the dust.

The word of God does offer hope for the dead to live again. The hope of a resurrection is validated by many texts in the Old Testament and the New. But the temptation for theologians has been to read into the Bible a hope not only of life after death, but of survival and life in an intermediate state beyond death.

Psalm 104:29 does not allow for survival. It states categorically that all creatures (including humans) actually die when their breath leaves them, returning to the dust from which they were made.

Otto Kaiser commented that if "one looks at Genesis 2:7, Ecclesiastes 12:7, and Psalm 104:29-30, one can get the impression that Israel indeed only distinguished between the body that is vivified by God’s breath and the body that has been abandoned by God’s breath and therefore has fallen into decay; there is no recognition of a third entity that maintains one’s personal identity (39). Yet he concluded that "it must be maintained that the conception of an intermediate state after death could develop organically on the basis of the Old Testament belief about death and the soul (41).

We conditionalists suggest that the current theological concept of survival at death did not happen organically. It is the result of syncretism. When we look at Old Testament texts like Psalm 104:29, we are reminded of the apostle Paul's conclusion that if there will be no resurrection from the dead, our faith is useless. Death is real, and nothing survives it consciously.

Kidner claims to have found the missing link in the theological chain. He says "Breath or spirit... is the life God gives to animals and men alike, whose withdrawal means their death, as Psalm 104:29 f. points out. Clearly, we have at least that much in common with the beasts; but whether 'spirit' implies anything eternal for us, no one can decide by observation. Yet the echo of Psalm 49, which makes the same comparison between men and beasts, reminds us that there is an answer. There the man of faith can say, 'But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me'" (43).

Kidner infers that Psalm 49 adds new information about human destiny. Yes, and no. It affirms the basic fact stated in Psalm 104 that "man" is "like the animals that perish" (v. 12, 20). The believing psalmist affirms that this is "the destiny of those who are foolish, and of those who approve their sayings" (v. 13). But of himself, he says "God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me" (v.15).

The new information that Psalm 49 adds does not contradict the basic fact of human dependence upon God for life. In fact, it merely clarifies the hope of resurrection as the only hope. Psalm 49 does not affirm conscious survival of the human spirit. It does not mention the spirit (or breath) (Hebrew ruach רוּחַ) at all. Instead, it describes the hope of the believer as God's redemption of his soul (Hebrew nefesh נֶפֶשׁ). The human soul (living throat) is the combination of the body and the breath (Genesis 2:7). Death is the dissolution of that combination (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Neither of these Old Testament passages assume that life continues in any way after the dissolution of death. The redemption of the soul that Psalm 49 announces is the resurrection.

Kidner's assumption is that when the psalmist affirmed that God would receive him, he was referring to the reception of his disembodied soul. Yet the psalmist speaks not of being rescued from life on earth. He is being rescued from Sheol — the state of being dead. The foolish will be consumed in Sheol. But the righteous will be rescued from it. Such language describes the hope of resurrection, not survival of death in a disembodied state.

The word for receive in Psalm 49 is the Hebrew word lakach (לָקַח), which can imply fetching something or someone and bringing it (or him, her) to where you are. Note how the word is used in these texts:

"Abram took (לָקַח) Sarai his wife" (Genesis 12:5).

"Abraham ran to the herd, and fetched (לָקַח) a tender and good calf" (Genesis 18:7).

"His mother said to him, 'go get (לָקַח) them for me'" (Genesis 27:13).

"he took her up (לָקַח) on the donkey; and the man rose up, and went to his place" (Judges 19:28)

"He said, "Bring (לָקַח) me a new jar, and put salt in it." They brought (לָקַח) it to him" (2 Kings 2:20).

"Then Zedekiah the king sent, and fetched (לָקַח) him" (Jeremiah 37:17).

In all these examples, the reception was active, not passive. For God to receive a person's soul from Sheol requires him to bring that person back to life. Kidner and others read Psalm 49 as if God passively receives living souls into heaven. He does not. Once dead, people need to be revived and actively retrieved from Sheol via resurrection. Until then "there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where" they are go (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

Lea notes that ruach — the word for breath in Psalm 104:29 -- "has several other uses in Scripture. It sometimes denotes a "power" or "influence," and sometimes a condition of mind; but in neither case does it lend any support to the doctrine of natural immortality" (51). In fact he says that neither nefesh nor ruach "gives the slightest support to the doctrine of the conscious, immortal existence of the soul or spirit after death" (52). Those theologians who try to find wiggle room for the doctrine of conscious survival of the dead can only do so by reading into those biblical words meanings which are not inherent in the words themselves as used by the biblical authors.

Gentzler says Psalm 104:29 teaches that "at the core of the biblical understanding of death is the fact that both life and death are part of God’s created order" (84). But then Gentzler reads Romans 8:11 and Romans 4:17 as if they teach that Jesus has already raised believers from the dead (84-85). Those passages both teach that our rescue by Christ is future, as Jesus himself taught in John 6.

Knauft states that such passages like Psalm 104:29 are "certain, complete and explicit." He says that "God’s explanation is complete. To say that at death man goes anywhere else but to the grave to disintegrate into dust, is to categorically contradict what God Himself has plainly said. Man is a “psychophysical” unit created by a miracle out of the earth’s elements. Mention of a separate, immortal soul is observably absent. Why? It does not exist" (63). He also warns that popular tendency to sugar-coat death is a reason so many turn to suicide (67).

Boonstra also looks at Psalm 104:29 and a host of other passages, and confirms that they teach "when you live, it is because God has granted the gift of life. When that gift is gone, you stop breathing and turn back into dust" (39). But he admits that his discovery from scripture did not match up with what he was taught. He says "I was told that the spirit was my ghost, and that when I died, my “spirit” would immediately go to be with God. My body was just a shell in which my spirit lived for a time, and once my body was gone, I would live more freely. But that idea, as prevalent as it has become in Western society, is at odds with the picture actually given in the Bible. It’s a concept that seems more likely to have come from Socrates than from the biblical psalmist, who quite clearly emphasized that we do not move to another conscious existence when we die" (39-40).

Goldstein says that in both Psalm 104:29 and Ecclesiastes 12:7 "'Breath' and 'spirit'... are the same thing, and neither is a conscious entity composed of our thoughts, memories, and mental abilities. In both texts the Hebrew term translated 'breath' and 'spirit' is the same word, one that means 'wind' or 'breath' or 'spirit.' It's just a way of expressing the idea that God gave us life, and when we die that life goes back to God" (136).

Huffer explains what the breath is and is not: "Man receives his breath of life or spirit from God’s power, the Holy Spirit (Job 33:4; 27:3). Animals also have breath of life (Gen. 7:21, 22). Animal’s breath is the same as man’s (Eccl. 3:19). At death man’s breath of life returns to its Giver (Psalm 104:29, 30; 146:4; Eccl. 12:7; Job 34:14,15). Man’s breath of life or spirit is not a being or an entity in itself. It enables man’s mind to work, but it does not possess a mind independent of man’s brain. The breath of life causes the brain and nervous system to function, but it has no ability to think, feel, or will in itself. The breath of life is not something that has consciousness apart from man’s body. The breath of life leaves man’s body at death. ‘‘His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish’’ (Psalm 146:4). When the spirit leaves man’s body it continues to be the impersonal, unconscious power of God that causes man to live. Man’s brain and nervous system are parts of man’s body. They are buried in the grave and return to the earth. When the breath of life has left his body, man is dead. When his brain and nervous system are separated from that power of life which caused them to function, man becomes unconscious. ‘‘In that very day his thoughts perish" (141-142).

Yet Cross insists that "die and return to dust" refers to only the body. He says "though the body dies, the Bible says the spirit goes on living — it will continue to exist forever" (65). Not only is he denying what the text of Psalm 104 actually says, he appears to be affirming that all creatures have immortal spirits, since the text he quotes refers to all animal life.

Just one text — Psalm 104:29 — is all it takes to expose the blatant eisegesis that is popular among those who teach the survival of human beings at death. At stake is the gospel itself. Not until people are ready to admit their own mortality will they seek the one who is the resurrection and the life.

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Boonstra Shawn. Draining the Styx: Taking the Mystery Out of Death and Hell. Pacific Press Publishing Association 2014.

Cross John R. The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus; Who Was the Man? What Was the Message? GoodSeed International 2015.

Gentzler Richard H. Aging & Ministry in the 21st Century: An Inquiry Approach. Discipleship Resources 2008.

Goldstein Clifford. Life Without Limits: Powerful Truths for Your Journey to Hope and Meaning. Review and Herald Pub 2007.

Huffer Alva G. Systematic Theology. Restitution Herald 1965

Kaiser Otto et al. Death and Life. Abingdon 1981.

Kidner Derek. The Message of Ecclesiastes: A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance. Inter-Varsity Press 1973.

Knauft Daniel. Search for the Immortal Soul. Torchlight Intel 2006.

Lea John William. The Atonement: Or Human Nature and Redemption. Lea 1909.