THE DESTINY OF THE RIGHTEOUS IN WISDOM 3: 1-9

Introduction

The inevitable reality of death has resulted to man’s untiring quest to known what becomes of him at death. The destiny of man at the climax of his earthy existence is one of the perturbing and puzzling issues in the in the Old Testament precisely in the wisdom corpus. Many passages in the Old Testament lucidly show either disbelief or uncertainty about the notion of after-life, thus, it is not surprising that it is considered worth probing by the author of the book of Wisdom. In fact, it is the ability of the author to offer solution to this puzzling issue by proposing the immortality of the soul which constitutes the hallmark of the entire work.[1] The book of Wisdom offers a breakthrough in proper understanding of retribution.[2] It goes beyond the traditional wisdom via the discovering that justice is undying, meaning that wisdom leads to a life beyond death thus he introduced notion of the immortality (athanasia) of the soul.

This issue is quite sensitive since it constitutes the foundation on which the edifice of merit morality is erected. It necessity arose from the fact that our experience here on earth is often characterized by situations in which the unjust prosper and the just suffer. The nitty-gritty of the question rest of the assumption that both the souls of the just and the unjust face the same fate as Qoheleth asserts (Ecclesiates 9:2) if this is true, then what is the point of trying to live a just and moral life and obeying the commands of, and refraining from the prohibitions of Yahweh?  It is in this light of this, that we have undertaken an in-depth study of the text (Wisdom 3:1-9) which has at its heart the message of divine of retribution with emphasis on the fate of the righteous. However, to begin with we shall present the text itself after which we shall attempt an exegetical analysis of the text. Furthermore we shall also examine the theology of the text and it relation to the New Testament and then we shall draw close the curtain of the work.   

The Destiny of the Righteous and the Unrighteous in the Book of Wisdom 3: 1-9

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they appear to be dead, their departure is held as a disaster, and their going away from us total destruction, but they are in peace. Though seemingly they have been punished, immortality was their sure hope. After slight affliction will come great blessings; for God has tried them, and found them worthy to be with him, after testing them as gold in the furnace, he has accepted them as a holocaust. At the time of his coming they will shine, and run about like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will be their king forever. Those who trust in him will penetrate the truth; those who are faithful will live with him in love, for his grace and mercy are with his chosen ones, and his protection is with his holy ones.

Background to the text Wisdom 3: 1-9

St. Augustine of Hippo in his work De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos (The City of God) asserts that “merely to exist is, by the very nature of things, so pleasant that it is in itself enough to make even the wretched unwilling to die: for, even when they are conscious of their misery, what they want to put an end to is not themselves but the misery”[3] thus, it is clear that the human person is a being which desire life. Furthermore, contrary to traditional theology of retribution, (the view that Yahweh’s blessings comes on the just and his curse is the lot of the unjust), what seems to be the case is that the unrighteous prosper while the righteous suffer. The doctrine of retribution was also the cynosure of the book of Job. Such belief was held by the friends of Jobs (Job 4:7), for them there is adequate retribution on earth, this account for their failure in coming to terms with that fact that a just man can suffer, let alone of the death of an unjust man. In the same vein, the preceding books which constitute part of the wisdom corpus also had to grapple with the assumption that that same fate awaits the just and unjust alike.

Qoheleth, for instance rejects this traditional understanding and declare everything futile and meaningless (Eccl 1:2). Furthermore, he avers that same fate awaits all men just and unjust alike “everything is meaningless since the same destiny awaits all the virtuous and the wicked, the good and bad, the clean and the unclean... the good man and the sinner, the same fate comes to all...”  (Eccl 9: 2-4).  He seems to have given up hope in resurrection and immortality, thus he says, “we must eat and enjoy, for tomorrow we die and we are no more. (Eccl 2:24). In verse 19-20, he even admits that the fate of man and beast both culminates in death and therefore concluded that “everything emerges from dust and to it they returns”. Nevertheless, against such backdrop, this text, (Wisdom 3:1-9) proffers solution to this puzzling quest. Foremost, the author asserts certainty regarding the immortality of the soul. The author of the book of wisdom through his diligent quest for wisdom and meaningfulness of life and as well his interaction with the Greek thought came to the revelation of the “immortality of the soul”. This forms the foundation of his averment that the final justice will come in the afterlife. This discovering solves to a large extent the problem of innocent suffering, the prosperity of the wicked and the death of the just.

An Exegetical Analysis of Wisdom 3: 1-9

This text, (wisdom 3: 1-9) is perhaps one of the notable hallmarks in the entire book of Wisdom. It constitutes part of the section (1-5) which deals with the issue of wisdom and eschatology. Thus, it is not surprising that the text sought to resolve the problem of retribution, which was one of the greatest for his predecessors. His primary concern was to ascertain how the unrighteous and the righteous to obtain their reward. Thus, in verse 1 he corrected faulty philosophy or ideology which holds that the same fate is the lot of the just and unjust. Thus he says, “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them”(Wisdom 3: 1).

He employs word psychai, which has varied meanings, such as the ‘breath of life, the soul’, earthly life itself, the mind, the heart, the self et cetera. Nevertheless, the use of the word here denotes the life-principle of a person. It says that no basanos (torment, harm or torture) will ever touch the soul of the righteous because they are safe in the hand of God. This perfectly aligns with the Church’s teaching, when she avers in her liturgy that “for your faithful people life is changed, not ended. When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven”.[4]

This passage (frequently applied in Christian liturgy), ranks the first to make a clear pronunciation to the notion of immortality, this idea makes it first appearance in the Bible with this text, at least in reference to the mortals loyal to God.  Furthermore, it address the issue of just-suffering and death, unlike the traditional Jewish understanding, suffering is seen by the author not as a sign of God’s displeasure but as an experience of purification

“In the eyes of the foolish they appear to be dead, their departure is held as a disaster, and their going away from us total destruction, but they are in peace. Though seemingly they have been punished, immortality was their sure hope. After slight affliction will come great blessings; for God has tried them, and found them worthy to be with him, after testing them as gold in the furnace, he has accepted them as a holocaust” (3:2-6).  

This denotes an advance from early Judaism which would attribute such circumstances of life as either a divine endorsement of punishment. However the text comes out more clearly on the notion regarding the reward of the just as distinct from the wicked even though both face death, thus he says “At the time of his coming they will shine, and run about like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will be their king forever.” (3:7-8). In the Hebrew understanding, life culminated with death (or at best the dead merely existed in an intermediate state, separated from God) but with the book of Wisdom precisely this pericope brought the notion of (immortality of the human soul) after-life to lamplight. It shed more light into the issue of retribution by proposing that the just will enjoy immortality and peace (that is, Shalom in Hebrew, a total well-being) the author suggest a real after-life of the soul (the imperishability) of the just person, though he does not speak of any bodily resurrection. The author in employing philosophical expressions and ideas offer solution to the perturbing problem of retribution by making use of the Platonic distinction between body and soul.

In a nutshell, the text refutes and corrects the faulty traditional faulty ideology which holds same fate awaits the righteous and the unrighteous. Such ideology was of cause a fertile soil for, and a fertilizer to the desire to give in to wayward life, since there is no seems to it proponents that there is no life after death, “who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of beast descend earthward?”  (Eccl 3: 21). If this is the case then morality is murdered, everyone can simple do whatever he likes. This ideology may have influenced the author of Ecclesiastes who had earlier asserted the absurdity and futility of life when he was faced with eschatological uncertainty. But the author of the Book of wisdom found life purposeful and the death of the just even more meaningful, “Those who trust in him will penetrate the truth; those who are faithful will live with him in love, for his grace and mercy are with his chosen ones, and his protection is with his holy ones”.

The Theology of Wisdom 3:1-9

The book of Psalms and other Old Testament books not excluding some of the books that constitute the wisdom corpus, have had to struggle with the existential reality which seems to suggest that the just suffer the same fate with the wicked. For instance, the Psalmists aver “what man can live and never see death? “Who can evade his soul from the power of Sheol (underworld)” (Ps 89:48). For in death there is no remembrance of the: in Sheol who can give you praise (Ps 6:5). The book of Job also holds this ideology it says “as the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up” (Job7:9), in other words, death is considered by him a total annihilation. However, in the later advancement, although there seems to be hope of after-life for the just, but how that will come to be remains mystery, as such the psalmists assert “For you will not abandon my soul to the underworld (Sheol), nor will you allow your holy one (here the use ‘holy one’ does not denote Christ Jesus though it is proper to him, but connotes ‘the just or the righteous’) undergo decay or corruption.

Furthermore, there are evidences that death was greatly dreaded in the Old Testament.  For instance, Hezekiah exercised such when he was sick (Isaiah 38:1-6), the type of song he sang also illumines the kind of belief people had about death. In verse 18, he says “for Sheol cannot give you thanks, death cannot give you praise, those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your kindness” it was a place total annihilation in which the person whether just (like Hezekiah) or unjust was considered doomed. But the text of Wisdom refutes such beliefs, for him death is not annihilation because there is life after bodily death, for it says “for the souls of the righteous are in the hand of the lord and no torment shall touch them” (Wisdom 3:1).

The book of Job also seems to have made allusion to the concept of life after death in the his quest regarding the suffering and death of the just, Job says “for I know my redeemer lives, and at last He will stand upon the earth, after my skin has been destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God” (job 19:35-26). Daniel also holds such faith “many of those who are asleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life but others to eternal horror and shame” (Daniel 12:2). This same thought is expressed in 2 Maccabees 7:9, in which of the martyrs said “Murderer, you now dismiss us from this present life, but the king of the world will raise us up. He will give us eternal life since we die for him”.

 The hallmark of the book Wisdom rest on this thesis in which he provided a definitive solution to the problem of retribution in the expression of the immortality (athanasia) of the soul. The soul is design to be imperishable, after death, the soul (psyche) of the just continues to enjoy the beatific vision but the wicked will be punished. Thus the death of the just is at best an exodus not a destruction, a journey and not an annihilation.

The Relation of the Text to the New Testament

In the New testament, saint Paul makes pellucid the idea of resurrection, in fact he avers that, if there is no resurrection, meaning that all Christian hope is for this life, the he say that they would have been the most unfortunate of all people (1 Corinthians  15: 16-19). Furthermore, he says that the living will not have any merit over the dead at the Parousia. In 2 Corinthians 5 : 1-5, he developed the idea is a life oriented towards our heavenly home, which we hope for and we have to live in this tension between this earthly life and the life to come. This idea became more pronounced by his admonitions, “we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and in the same vein, God will bring back with him those who have died with Him” ( 1 Thessalonians 4: 14) This idea is summed up in Christ own words addressed to Martha “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, though he die, shall live” John 11: 26. His own resurrection validates this averment “why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen”.

Conclusion

From the foregoing, it is quite pellucid that the notion of afterlife was actually a subject worth examining because the reality of death is one which no mortal can circumvent. This text elucidated the fact that the ancient understanding Jewish understanding that the same fate await the just and the unjust was erected on a faulty philosophy of life. This work therefore shows that ‘the four last things’ (Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell) are to be accorded serious attention by the manner of life we live here and how. The process of beatification and canonization in the Catholic Church and her teachings regarding purgatory all points to the fact that every man will be rewarded according to his or her conduct during his or her earthly existence, hence, there is no truism in the assertion that the fate of the just and unjust is same.

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[1] Cletus U. Obijiaku, Biblical Wisdom Books and the Psalms: A Quest for Wisdom and Intimacy with God, Abuja: Ugwu Publishing Company, 2016. p. 172.

[2] Cletus U. Obijiaku, Biblical Wisdom Books and the Psalms: A Quest for Wisdom and Intimacy with God, p. 186.

[3] St. Augustine of Hippo. City of God, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1958. BK XI, Chapter 27, p. 236. 

[4] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1012 , Kenya: Paulines Publications, 1994(also see Roman Missal , Preface of Christian Death1), p. 234.