Death

Death is the appointed end of every living person, the wage of sin, and the last enemy that will be abolished. Scripture describes it under many figures — sleep, departure, the giving up of the ghost, the putting off of the tabernacle, the return of dust to dust — and frames it as the sovereign work of Yahweh, who "kills, and makes alive" (1 Sam 2:6). The whole movement of the canon runs from death's entrance through one man's sin (Rom 5:12) to its eschatological undoing in the lake of fire and the wiping away of every tear (Rev 20:14; Rev 21:4).

Universality and Appointment

Death is universal and appointed. "It is appointed to men once to die, and after this [comes] judgment" (Heb 9:27); "as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, for that all sinned" (Rom 5:12). Job calls death "the house appointed for all living" (Job 30:23), and David's wise woman at Tekoa puts it plainly: "we must surely die, and are as water spilled on the ground, which can't be gathered up again" (2 Sam 14:14). The Psalmist asks, "What [prominent] man is he who will live and not see death, who will deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?" (Ps 89:48).

The reach of death is total. "Wise men die; the fool and the brutish alike perish, and leave their wealth to others" (Ps 49:10). Qoheleth flattens the distinction even further: "that which befalls the sons of man befalls beasts; even one thing befalls them: as the one dies, so dies the other; yes, they all have one breath" (Eccl 3:19), and "all go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again" (Eccl 3:20). Sirach gathers the same thought: "Good and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from Yahweh" (Sir 11:14), and "the everlasting statute is, You will surely die" (Sir 14:17). Job confesses Yahweh's full sovereignty over the moment: "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked I will return there: Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away; blessed be the name of Yahweh" (Job 1:21); Paul echoes the same realism: "we brought nothing into the world, neither can we carry anything out" (1 Tim 6:7).

The Brevity of Life

Around this universal appointment the canon clusters the language of brevity. Life is a vapor, a shadow, a flower, grass that withers. "What is your⁺ life? For you⁺ are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away" (Jas 4:14). Job: "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope" (Job 7:6); "we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow" (Job 8:9); "my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good" (Job 9:25). The Psalter: "Look, you have made my days [as] handbreadths; and my lifetime is as nothing before you" (Ps 39:5); "all our days are passed away in your wrath: we bring our years to an end as a sigh" (Ps 90:9); "my days are like a shadow that declines; and I am withered like grass" (Ps 102:11).

The withering-grass figure recurs across testaments. "All flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls" (1 Pet 1:24). "As for common man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes" (Ps 103:15). Sirach: "as a budding leaf on a green tree, where one withers and another springs up; so are the generations of flesh and blood, one dies and one is weaned" (Sir 14:18). The patriarch sums it up at Pharaoh's court: "the days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years: few and evil have been the days of the years of my life" (Gen 47:9); David, in the same key: "we are strangers before you, and sojourners, as all our fathers were: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no hope [to remain on the earth]" (1 Chr 29:15).

Yahweh's Sovereignty Over Death

Death is not autonomous. "I, even I, am [the Speech], and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand" (Deut 32:39). Hannah confesses the same: "Yahweh kills, and makes alive: he brings down to Sheol, and brings up" (1 Sam 2:6). The Psalmist watches Yahweh withdraw the breath: "you take away their breath, they die, and return to their dust" (Ps 104:29); and gives the divine command its imperative voice: "you turn common man to destruction, and say, Return, you⁺ sons of man" (Ps 90:3). The verdict pronounced in Eden — "in the sweat of your face you will eat bread, until you return to the ground; for out of it you were taken: for dust you are, and to dust you will return" (Gen 3:19) — sets the pattern; Qoheleth closes the loop: "the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Eccl 12:7).

The Idioms of Dying

The UPDV preserves a thick layer of idiom for the moment of death. Patriarchs are repeatedly described as giving up the ghost and being gathered to their people. Abraham "gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, old and satisfied, and was gathered to his people" (Gen 25:8); Isaac "gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered to his people, old and full of days" (Gen 35:29); Jacob, after blessing his sons, "gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered to his people" (Gen 49:33). The same idiom is applied to siege casualties: Lamentations laments that "my priests and my elders gave up the ghost in the city, while they sought food for them to refresh their souls" (Lam 1:19).

Yahweh tells Abraham, "you will go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried in a good old age" (Gen 15:15). Aaron is told that he "will be gathered to his people; for he will not enter into the land" (Num 20:24); the same word comes to Moses about Midian: "afterward you will be gathered to your people" (Num 31:2).

A second layer of idiom calls death sleep. "You will sleep with your fathers" (Deut 31:16); "David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David" (1 Kgs 2:10); "Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father" (1 Kgs 11:43); "when your days are fulfilled, and you will sleep with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you" (2 Sam 7:12). Jesus uses the same speech of Lazarus — "our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep" (John 11:11) — and of Jairus's daughter: "the child is not dead, but sleeps" (Mark 5:39). Paul carries it forward: "more than five hundred brothers at once, of whom the greater part stay until now, but some have fallen asleep" (1 Cor 15:6); "we would not have you⁺ ignorant, brothers, concerning those who fall asleep; that you⁺ do not sorrow, even as the rest, who have no hope" (1 Thess 4:13). Daniel's resurrection promise speaks the same vocabulary: "many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan 12:2). Job inverts the sleep-figure: "so man lies down and does not rise: until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep" (Job 14:12).

Other idioms cluster around the same event. Death is the king of terrors — the wicked man "will be brought to the king of terrors" (Job 18:14). It is going down into silence — "the dead don't praise Yah, neither any who go down into silence" (Ps 115:17). It is the putting off of the tabernacle — "knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle comes swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ signified to me" (2 Pet 1:14) — and Paul develops the metaphor at length: "for we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens" (2 Cor 5:1). It is the requiring of the soul — "you foolish one, this [is] the night they demand back your soul from you" (Luke 12:20). It is a change and a release — "if a [noble] man dies, will he live [again]? all the days of my warfare I would wait, until my release should come" (Job 14:14), set against the framing question, "is there not a warfare to common man on earth? And are not his days like the days of a hired worker?" (Job 7:1). And it is a cutting down: "he comes forth like a flower, and is cut down: he flees also as a shadow, and does not continue" (Job 14:2).

Sheol, the Grave, and the Shadow

Death's landscape in the Old Testament is Sheol — the underworld of the dead — and the grave, often the same word. Job pictures it as a household: "if I look for Sheol as my house; if I have spread my couch in the darkness" (Job 17:13). Sheol has gates: "have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?" (Job 38:17); "you who lift me up from the gates of death" (Ps 9:13); Hezekiah's lament, "I said, in the noontide of my days I will go into the gates of Sheol: I am deprived of the remainder of my years" (Isa 38:10); and Sirach's prayer of deliverance, "from the gates of Sheol I cried" (Sir 51:9). Sheol has a belly and a mouth — "from the deep of the belly of Sheol" (Sir 51:5); "as a millstone broken on the earth, our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol" (Ps 141:7). Bodies broken in battle rest "in the place of jackals" under "the shadow of death" (Ps 44:19); prisoners and outcasts sit "in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron" (Ps 107:10). Job paints his anguish in the same colors: "my face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death" (Job 16:16); yet he also testifies that Yahweh "uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings out to light the shadow of death" (Job 12:22).

Inside Sheol there is no work and no praise. "There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you go" (Eccl 9:10); "the dead don't know anything, neither have they a reward anymore; for the memory of them is forgotten" (Eccl 9:5); "for in death there is no remembrance of you: in Sheol who will give you thanks?" (Ps 6:5); "what profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it declare your truth?" (Ps 30:9). And yet Sheol is also a great leveller: "there the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; they don't hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there: and the slave is free from his master" (Job 3:17-19).

Death Desired

Several saints across the canon ask for death. Moses, overwhelmed by the people, says, "kill me, I pray you, out of hand, if I have found favor in your sight; and don't let me see my wretchedness" (Num 11:15). Elijah, fleeing Jezebel, "requested for his soul to die, and said, It is enough; now, O Yahweh, take away my soul; for I am not better than my fathers" (1 Kgs 19:4). Job longs for hiding: "Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret, until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!" (Job 14:13). Jonah, hot under the gourd, "requested for his soul to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live" (Jonah 4:8). Jeremiah foresees a remnant for whom "death will be chosen rather than life by all the remnant that remain of this evil family" (Jer 8:3). Paul phrases his version of the longing as desire rather than despair: "for to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil 1:21); "I am in a strait between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better" (Phil 1:23); and again, "we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord" (2 Cor 5:8). The end-times witness an inversion of the desire — "in those days men will seek death, and will in no way find it; and they will desire to die, and death flees from them" (Rev 9:6).

The Death of the Righteous

Death takes a particular character for those who die in faith. "Precious in the sight of Yahweh is the death of his saints" (Ps 116:15). Balaam's reluctant blessing: "let my soul die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" (Num 23:10). The Psalmist's confidence: "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for [your Speech is with] me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me" (Ps 23:4). Solomon: "the wicked is thrust down in his evildoing; but the righteous has a refuge in his death" (Prov 14:32). Lazarus dies and "was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom" (Luke 16:22). The patriarchs of faith "all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar" (Heb 11:13). Paul reduces it to its essentials: "whether we live, we live to the Lord; or whether we die, we die to the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's" (Rom 14:8). And the heavenly voice pronounces the formal blessing: "blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on: yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow with them" (Rev 14:13).

Qoheleth, who otherwise weighs life as vanity, finally reckons "the day of death" as preferable to "the day of one's birth," and the house of mourning as more instructive than the house of feasting: "a [good] name is better than precious oil; and the day of death, than the day of one's birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all man; and the living will lay it to his heart" (Eccl 7:1-2).

The Death of the Wicked

For the wicked, death wears a different face. Yahweh disclaims any pleasure in it — "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? says the Sovereign Yahweh; and not rather that he should return from his way, and live?" (Ezek 18:23) — but the canon does not soften the verdict. The fool of Jesus' parable hears, "you foolish one, this [is] the night they demand back your soul from you" (Luke 12:20). The undisciplined man "will die for lack of instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray" (Prov 5:23). Wicked rulers vanish: "but one passed by, and, look, he was not: yes, I sought him, but he could not be found" (Ps 37:36). Disaster overtakes them suddenly: "at evening, look, terror; [and] before the morning they are not. This is the portion of those who despoil us, and the lot of those who rob us" (Isa 17:14). Their burial is described as humiliation: "so I saw the wicked buried, and they came [to the grave]; and those who had done right went away from the holy place, and were forgotten in the city: this also is vanity" (Eccl 8:10); and Jeremiah pronounces, "they will die grievous deaths: they will not be lamented, neither will they be buried" (Jer 16:4). Sirach adds the leveling truth: "in death man will inherit: the maggot and worm, lice and creeping things" (Sir 10:11).

Preparation for Death

Because death is universal, sudden, and irreversible, the canon urges preparation. Hezekiah is told, "set your house in order: for you will die, and not live" (2 Kgs 20:1). Moses prays, "so teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom" (Ps 90:12). Qoheleth: "whatever your hand finds to do, do [it] with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you go" (Eccl 9:10), and "if man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many" (Eccl 11:8). Jesus presses the same urgency: "we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work" (John 9:4); "let your⁺ loins be girded about, and your⁺ lamps burning" (Luke 12:35). Peter sets the stakes: "if you⁺ call on him as Father, who without favoritism judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your⁺ sojourning in fear" (1 Pet 1:17). Sirach: "before death, do not call a [noble] man blessed; for at his end, a man will be recognized" (Sir 11:28).

Burial and the Care of the Dead

Scripture pays close attention to the disposition of the body. The patriarchs ask to be buried with their fathers. Abraham buys the cave at Machpelah and is told, "in the choice of our tombs bury your dead. None of us will withhold from you his tomb that you may bury your dead" (Gen 23:6). Jacob's last charge: "but when I sleep with my fathers, you will carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place" (Gen 47:30); and again, "I am to be gathered to my relatives: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite" (Gen 49:29). Joseph is embalmed: "Joseph commanded his slaves the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel" (Gen 50:2); "so Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt" (Gen 50:26). The Egyptian mourning rites for Jacob occasion "a very great and intense lamentation" — "and there they lamented with a very great and intense lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days" (Gen 50:10).

Funerary monuments are also recorded — "Jacob set up a pillar on her grave: the same is the Pillar of Rachel's grave to this day" (Gen 35:20) — and Moses' burial is by Yahweh himself: "and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab across from Beth-peor: but no man knows of his tomb to this day" (Deut 34:6). The torah requires that an executed body "will not remain all night on the tree, but you will surely bury him the same day; for he who is hanged is accursed of God" (Deut 21:23). To die unburied is the curse: "your dead body will be food to all birds of the heavens, and to the beasts of the earth; and there will be none to frighten them away" (Deut 28:26).

In the Gospels, Lazarus comes out of the tomb "bound hand and foot with grave-clothes" (John 11:44), and the women come at dawn to anoint Jesus' body: "very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb" (Luke 24:1). Sirach counsels honest grief: "my son, let tears fall for the dead; show yourself sorrowful, and mourn with a lamentation" (Sir 38:16); and remembers the godly: "their bodies were buried in peace, but their name lives to all generations" (Sir 44:14).

Capital Death

Death also functions in the Mosaic legislation as a judicial sanction. The principle is grounded in the image of God: "whoever sheds man's blood, by man will his blood be shed: for in the image of God he made man" (Gen 9:6). Specific capital crimes follow — premeditated murder ("if a man comes presumptuously on his fellow man, to slay him with guile; you will take him from my altar, that he may die," Exod 21:14), adultery ("the adulterer and the adulteress will surely be put to death," Lev 20:10), incitement to idolatry ("you will surely kill him; your hand will be first on him to put him to death," Deut 13:9), contempt of priestly judgment ("the man who does presumptuously, in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before Yahweh your God, or the judge, even that man will die," Deut 17:12), the rebellious son ("all the men of his city will stone him to death with stones," Deut 21:21). Stoning is the typical mode (Num 15:36; Josh 7:25); divine fire executes Nadab and Abihu — "there came forth fire from before Yahweh, and devoured them, and they died before Yahweh" (Lev 10:2); the earth swallows Korah's company — "the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households" (Num 16:32); Haman is hanged on his own gallows — "so they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai" (Esth 7:10).

Death as a Judgment

Beyond the legal sanction, death falls as judgment in the great storyline. "So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against Yahweh, because of the word of Yahweh, which he did not keep; and also for asking counsel of a spiritist, to inquire" (1 Chr 10:13). Foretold deaths recur — Aaron at Hor ("Aaron will be gathered to his people; for he will not enter into the land," Num 20:24), Saul on Mount Gilboa ("tomorrow you and your sons will be with me," 1 Sam 28:19), the child of Jeroboam ("when your feet enter into the city, the child will die," 1 Kgs 14:12), Ben-Hadad ("Yahweh has shown me that he will surely die," 2 Kgs 8:10), Hezekiah ("set your house in order: for you will die, and not live," 2 Kgs 20:1), Antiochus Epiphanes ("So King Antiochus died there in the year one hundred and forty-nine," 1 Macc 6:16). The visionary horseman is named explicitly: "I looked, and saw a pale horse: and he who sat on him, his name was Death; and Hades followed with him" (Rev 6:8).

Spiritual Death and Death in Sin

Beneath physical death the canon traces a deeper one. The first warning at the tree was, "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will not eat of it: for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die" (Gen 2:17); the Pauline analysis: "for the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 6:23); "for the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace" (Rom 8:6). James names the genealogy: "then the desire, when it has conceived, bears sin: and the sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death" (Jas 1:15). Ezekiel makes the principle individual: "the soul who sins will die: the son will not bear the iniquity of the father, neither will the father bear the iniquity of the son" (Ezek 18:20). Solomon: "but he who sins against me wrongs his own soul: all those who hate me love death" (Prov 8:36).

Those still in sin are described as already dead. "And you⁺ [he made alive], when you⁺ were dead through your⁺ trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:1); "and you⁺, being dead in your⁺ trespasses and the uncircumcision of your⁺ flesh, you⁺, he made alive together with him" (Col 2:13); "but she who gives herself to pleasure is dead while she lives" (1 Tim 5:6). The prodigal's father confesses the same diagnosis in reverse: "for this your brother was dead, and is alive [again]; and [was] lost, and is found" (Luke 15:32). Paul's logic: "for the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died" (2 Cor 5:14). The summons follows: "Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" (Eph 5:14). And the warning of the second death stands at the end: "their part [will be] in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; which is the second death" (Rev 21:8).

Life Out of Death

The canon turns the figure inside out. Death becomes the means of life. "Truly, truly, I say to you⁺, Except a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it stays alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). "For whoever would save his soul will lose it; but whoever will lose his soul for my sake, the same will save it" (Luke 9:24). Paul: "we were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life" (Rom 6:4); "and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20); "for we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh" (2 Cor 4:11); "for you⁺ died, and your⁺ life is hid with Christ in God" (Col 3:3). The agricultural figure carries the principle: "you foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not quickened except it dies" (1 Cor 15:36). Sirach remembers Elisha as the one "who raised up a corpse from death, and from Sheol by the favor of Yahweh" (Sir 48:5), and adds that "from his grave his flesh prophesied" (Sir 48:13).

Exemption from Death

A handful of figures are exempted from dying. "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for [the Speech of] God took him" (Gen 5:24); "by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God translated him" (Heb 11:5). Elijah likewise is taken: "[there appeared] a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which separated them both apart; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kgs 2:11). Paul promises a similar exemption to the saints alive at the end: "look, I tell you⁺ a mystery: We all will not sleep, but we will all be changed" (1 Cor 15:51). And resurrected saints are exempted permanently: "for neither can they die anymore: for they are equal to the angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection" (Luke 20:36).

Christ's Conquest of Death

The decisive turn comes in Christ. By sharing flesh and blood, "that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver all those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to slavery" (Heb 2:14-15). Christ "abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the good news" (2 Tim 1:10). The risen Lord declares, "I became dead, and look, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Rev 1:18). Death's status under his reign is fixed: "the last enemy that will be abolished is death" (1 Cor 15:26).

The apostrophes in the canon ring with this victory. Hosea: "I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from death: O Death, [my Speech] will be your plague. O Sheol, I will be your destruction" (Hos 13:14). Isaiah: "He has swallowed up death forever; and the Sovereign Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces" (Isa 25:8). Paul, picking up both: "but when this corruptible will have put on incorruption, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law: but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 15:54-57).

The Final Disposition

At the end of the canon's death-arc, the dead themselves are raised for judgment, and Death and Hades are themselves cast into the lake of fire. "The hour comes, in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come forth; those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have participated in evil, to the resurrection of judgment" (John 5:28-29). "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan 12:2). "And the sea gave up the dead who were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, [even] the lake of fire" (Rev 20:13-14).

The closing word is the abolition of death itself: "and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, anymore: because the first things are passed away" (Rev 21:4).