Words from the Collector rewrite 2026
I recently completed a rewrite of my reader’s guide to Ecclesiastes, including an update of the translation.
Here is a preview of one of the chapters:
9 – Words about Mortality
In chapter nine of Ecclesiastes, Solomon continues reflecting on the same issues he has already raised—wisdom, justice, reward, and the unpredictability of life. But then he throws a wrench into the whole discussion by confronting the ugly, unavoidable fact of human mortality.
Death interrupts every tidy theory. It refuses to cooperate with our expectations. It exposes the limits of both wisdom and wickedness. You can live skillfully, make good choices, and walk in integrity—and still die. You can live foolishly, ignore God, and harm others—and still die. Mortality levels the playing field in a way that feels unfair, unsettling, and deeply humbling.
Solomon wants us to feel that tension. He wants us to see that death is not just a philosophical problem; it is the great boundary marker of human existence. It reminds us that we do not possess life in ourselves. We cannot secure our own future. We cannot guarantee outcomes. That is the quiet pulse of conditional immortality beneath the chapter: our lives are borrowed, not self‑sustaining, and death exposes that truth with brutal clarity.
But Solomon does not raise the subject of mortality to push us into despair. He brings it up to anchor us in reality. When we accept the truth about our limits, we are freed to live wisely, gratefully, and joyfully—not because life is predictable, but because God holds the future we cannot control.
Death may be the monkey wrench, but it is also the doorway to humility. And humility is the soil where true wisdom grows.
Ecclesiastes 9
9:1 All this I gave to my heart, trying to figure it all out, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether God responds with love or hate, a man cannot know; both are possible with him.
9:2 It is the same for everyone, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one fares, so fares the sinner, and someone who swears is just like someone who never promises anything.
9:3 This is an evil that affects everything that is done under the sun, the fact that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of human children are full of evil, and delusion is in their hearts while they live, and after that, they go to the dead.
While gathering wisdom from many sources, Solomon encountered a popular religious teaching: that after death, people enter a conscious intermediate state where every wrong is punished and every good deed rewarded. According to this tradition, justice happens immediately after death, before the final judgment. But Solomon saw no evidence for this claim. What he did see—what anyone can observe—is that death comes to both the righteous and the wicked in the same way. No special treatment. No visible reckoning. Just silence.
To Solomon, this was deeply troubling. It felt wrong that the wicked could live carelessly, die peacefully, and leave behind the illusion that their lives were blessed. It felt wrong that the righteous could suffer and die without seeing justice. This reality, he said, lulls the wicked into a false sense of security and discourages those who want to do good. It creates a world where people assume they can get away with anything, and where “the hearts of the children of man are full of evil.”
Yet Solomon refused to deny what he saw. He would not invent an intermediate state to make the world feel fair. He would not create a comforting doctrine to patch over the problem of death. He faced the truth honestly: death ends conscious existence, and without divine intervention, the story stops there.
Jesus faced that same reality—and He did not deny it either. He did not teach a conscious intermediate state as a way to solve the problem. Instead, He brought life and immortality to light by promising something far greater: the resurrection of the dead and a final judgment at the end of the age. He did not erase mortality; He conquered it. He did not redefine death; He reversed it.
Without that light, the world would remain trapped in the despair Solomon described—death as the final word, justice unresolved, hope extinguished. Solomon posed the question that human wisdom could not answer. Jesus supplied the answer that human wisdom could never imagine.
Solomon said, “Death ends it all.”
Jesus said, “I will raise the dead.”
Solomon saw the problem.
Jesus revealed the solution.
And in doing so, He affirmed Solomon’s realism about death while opening the door to a future where the redeemed will live again—not in an intermediate state, but in resurrection life when He returns.
9:4 Whoever is partnered with all the living has hope, because a living dog is better than a dead lion.
9:5 The living ones are aware of the fact that they will die, but the dead ones are aware of nothing, and they get no more wages, because people forget even to mention their name.
9:6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already been erased, and they have no more involvement in all that is done under the sun permanently.
Solomon had once concluded that it was better to be dead than alive. But after looking more closely at the human condition, he changed his mind. Now he argues that it is better to be alive—even though life is temporary. Life means awareness: the living know what is happening around them, while the dead know nothing. Life means the ability to enjoy the fruit of your labor: the dead enjoy nothing. Life means being remembered by others: the dead are eventually forgotten.
These observations led Solomon to reject the religious speculations of his day—especially the idea that people somehow survive death in a conscious state. He saw no evidence for that belief. What he did see was that life is a precious gift from God, and that we should enjoy it while we have it. If there is to be any life after this one, that too will have to be a gift from God. Immortality is not automatic. It is conditional. That is the biblical truth behind the doctrinal label conditional immortality.
The conditions for life beyond death were met not by us, but by Christ. He is our only hope for resurrection life.
Without a resurrection, even great lions like Solomon end up as lifeless as any other creature. But those of us who feel more like humble dogs are still better off while we are alive, because life gives us the opportunity to align ourselves with the God who gives life. And that alignment makes all the difference.
The eternal difference is not found in our strength, our status, or our accomplishments. It is found in our relationship to God. Those who trust Him have a future—not because they survive death, but because they will overcome death when Jesus raises them to immortality at His return.
9:7 Go on, eat your bread with gladness, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, because God has already shown approval of your works.
9:8 Let your clothes stay white all the time, and let not oil be lacking on your head.
9:9 Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your temporary life which He has given to you under the sun; because this is your reward in life, and for your work which you have done under the sun.
9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your strength, because there is no working or thinking or knowing or being wise waiting in Sheol where you are heading.
Solomon is not telling us that life is futile, far from it. He is telling us that life can be wonderful—but also warning us that it does not last. Because of that, he does not urge us to withdraw from the world or hide in some self‑made monastic retreat. Instead, he challenges us to engage fully in life. If God has blessed you with meaningful work, a loving marriage, or any of the other good gifts this world can offer, receive them as rewards. Do not ignore them. Enjoy them. Celebrate them. Just remember that none of these gifts is permanent.
Life’s rewards are temporary, but they are still real. Enjoy them while you can, and at the same time seek a permanent kingdom.
We all need the good sense to enjoy these few days we are given and the blessings that come with them. But we also need the wisdom not to turn away from the eternal hope that comes only through a relationship with God in Jesus Christ. Solomon’s message is simple and sobering: if you are fortunate enough to have a good life today, enjoy it—because it will not last forever.
And that is where conditional immortality quietly comes into view. The joys of this life fade, but the hope God offers does not. Life’s temporary gifts point us toward the greater gift God intends to give: resurrection life in His eternal kingdom.
9:11 I turned to see that the race under this sun does not go to the swift ones, and the battle does not go to the warriors, and neither does bread go to the wise, nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to men of ability; because time and chance overtake them all.
9:12 A man does not recognize his time: like fish caught in a treacherous net, and birds trapped in a snare, so the children of men are ensnared by an evil time when it suddenly falls upon them.
Conventional wisdom says that life is a game: learn the rules, work hard, play smart, and you’ll win. Solomon calls that nonsense. He learned that life rarely works out that neatly. Seasoned warriors lose battles they should have won. Strong, capable athletes fail in the arena. Brilliant, competent people end up unemployed, overlooked, or hungry. Life is not a predictable game—it is more like a fish suddenly caught in a net or a bird trapped in a snare. While we are still learning the rules, life sneaks up behind us and knocks us flat.
The older you get—and the wiser you become—the less you obsess over strategies for success. You begin to see that “winning” isn’t the point. Once you move past the middle‑age panic, if you are mature enough, you realize that the game itself is not ultimate. Success loses its shine. Achievement loses its grip. You stop trying to master life, and you start focusing on what actually matters.
And what matters is your relationship with God.
That is the only thing you truly need to succeed at. Everything else is temporary, unpredictable, and fragile. But your alignment with God—your trust in Him, your obedience to Him, your hope in the life He alone can give—carries eternal weight. That is where the theme of conditional immortality quietly surfaces: earthly success cannot preserve you, but God can raise you. The game ends for everyone, but those who belong to Him will live again.
Solomon’s wisdom leads us away from chasing the illusion of control and toward the only pursuit that lasts—walking faithfully with the God who holds our future.
9:13 I also came across this wise saying under the sun, and it impressed me.
9:14 There was a small city with few men in it, and a great king came to it, surrounded it, and laid large siege works against it.
9:15 But there was found in it a poor wise man, and he delivered the city by means of his wisdom. But no one remembered that poor man.
9:16 So I said, "Wisdom is better than strength." But the wisdom of the poor man is going to be despised, and his words are not heeded.
9:17 Listening to the words of the wise in quietness is better than listening to the shouting of a ruler among stupid people.
9:18 Wisdom is more valuable than weapons of war, but one sinner can destroy much that is valuable.
Solomon learned that it is better to be wise than to be a fool. Wisdom can help you in a crisis, just as it once saved the small city in the story he loved to tell. But he also learned that wisdom is temporary. It does not last. The wisdom of a poor man may rescue a city, yet afterward, people forget him. His words go unheeded. His insight is ignored. People are fickle—they applaud wisdom one day and dismiss it the next.
For Solomon, this realization was a breakthrough. He had spent his life pursuing wisdom, only to discover in old age that even wisdom is not the greatest treasure. Wisdom is good, but it is not eternal. It cannot outlast death.
Living well means learning how to gain wisdom without losing our walk toward holiness. In Hebrew wisdom literature, wisdom and righteousness are woven together. Doing what is wise is doing what is right. It is walking with integrity in all our relationships—including the vertical one. But that vertical relationship, between our Creator and us, is the most important of all. It is the only thing that will outlast our mortal existence.
No matter how strong we become, no matter how smart we get, death is waiting to take it all from us. But death cannot steal our relationship with God. It cannot erase His promise of an eternal future after the resurrection. Mortality is a present fact, but it does not have the last word. When Jesus returns, mortality will be swallowed up by eternal life—eternal victory.
So Solomon encourages us to seek wisdom, but also to recognize that wisdom is not the ultimate gift. Because we are mortal, the ultimate gift from God is Jesus Christ, who has brought the hope of eternal resurrection life to light through the gospel.
Seek wisdom to live well in this life.
Seek Christ because this life does not last.