and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Here is, I. A call to young people to think of God, and mind their duty to him, when they are young: Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. This is, 1. The royal preacher's application of his sermon concerning the vanity of the world and every thing in it.
Commenting on Ecclesiastes 12:1-7
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was,.... The body, which is made of dust, and is no other in its present state than dust refined and enlivened; and when the above things take place, mentioned in Ecc 12:6, or at death, it returns to its original earth; it becomes immediately a clod of earth, a lifeless lump of clay, and is...
dust--the dust-formed body. spirit--surviving the body; implying its immortality (Ecc 3:11).