revent man gaining the gift of immortality he is driven out of the garden, and the tree of life guarded, Gn 355.
(2) In the Pentateuch.—The ordinary word for ‘life’ is wo} (LXX ψυχή), as in Gn 94 ‘but flesh with the life (w53) thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.’ This recurs repeatedly throughout the whole of the legal writings, and the narrative that is coloured by the priestly tradition (see, e.g., Lv 174 9418 Dt 12%). Life is used in the familiar absolute sense in Dt 30! ‘See, I have set before ze this day life and good. and death and evil’ (οἴ. Sir 1517).
(3) In the Prophets.—The main prophetic teach- ing on this subject is found in Isaiah and Ezekiel. In a poetical (probably late) passage of the former we read, Is 255 ‘ He hath swallowed up death for ever’ (cf. 2 Ti 110), and in Is 26 ‘Thy dead shall live, thy dead bodies shall arise . . . and the earth shall cast forth the dead (lit. the Rephaim, ἐ.6. shades).’ In another poetic passage, the psalm of Hezekiah, recorded in Is 381°-%°, there is much important material, but it is probably late, and should be classed with the teaching of the poetic books (see below). The passage speaks of ‘the gates of Sheol’ (v.!). Death is presented as the end of all communion with God and men, ‘I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living : I shall behold man no more with the in- habitants of the world’ (v."). But God speaks to him, and he cries, “Ὁ Lord, by these things men live, and wholly therein is the life of my spirit.’ And again, ‘Sheol cannot praise thee, death can- not celebrate thee ; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living he shall praise thee as I do this day’ (νν. 18 19),
In the teaching of Ezekiel there is frequent reference to life in the pregnant sense of enjoying rod’s favour, and the Scop penyans earthly pro- sperity that is its sign. Thus Ezk 33, the teaching of which is summarized in vy." 19. as follows: ‘When the righteous turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall
even die therein. But if the wicked turn from his wickedness and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby’ (cf. 318-30 18*-27 204), In the prophetic portion οἵ the Bk. of Daniel there is one reference, though probably of very late date, te ‘eternal life’ in 12°‘ many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to ever- lasting life.’
(4) In the Poetical Books.—References are much more numerous in the Psalms and in Job. Thus in various passages of the Bk. of Job we have presented the popular conception of the existence of the dead, e.g. 915. 19. where the ‘ wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest,’ where ‘the prisoners are at ease together, and the servant is tree from his master’; or 10*-**, where that world is described as being ‘of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as dark- ness’ ; yet the writer rises to the vision of something much higher and brighter, as in 145, where he asks, ‘If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time would T wait till my release should come.’ Cf. 33% ‘He hath redeemed ΤΩΣ soul from going into the pit, and my life shall behold the light.’ His ‘blood’ is used for his wrongful death (see legal idea of identity of the blood and the life, below) in 1018 “Ὁ earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no resting- place’ (cf. Gn 419, Ezk 247-8, Is 26%). As to the great passage 19%-*7, and in what sense it denotes personal immortality, see A. B. Davidson’s com- mentary on Job, in doco, and Appendix.
In the Psalms we read of ‘the path of life’ in an ethical and spiritual sense as the way of obedience to God (cf. Ps 16"); of God as the ‘fountain of life,’ Ps 36° (cf. Jer 213); Ps 305 ‘in his favour’ ; Ps 214 ‘he asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him’; Ps 27? ‘the Lord is the strength of my life’ ; Ps 3413 ‘What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?’ 42°‘ the God of my life’; 66°‘God . . . which holdeth our soul in life.’
Death has all the gloom and disappointment it had in Job, e.g. Ps 65 ‘In death there is no remem- brance of thee: in Sheol who shall give thee thanks?’ In 49 death is personified.
(5) In the Wisdom Literature.—(a) In the Bk. of Proverbs the same poetic figures of life fre- quently occur, e.g. ‘ the paths of ‘life,’ 219 58; ‘tree of life,’ 318 118 13"; ‘well or fountain of life,’ 10" 134 14°7, In the absolute sense the word occurs, e.g. 3° ‘so shall they be life unto thy soul’; 855 ‘whoso findeth me findeth life.” Contrast the use of ‘death’ in 8% ‘all they that hate me love death.’
By a figure ‘light and darkness’ are used for ‘life and death’ in Ec 117-8.