When God created the creatures on the sixth day, he told the earth to bring for the living creatures. In order for a creature to be living, it must have the breath of life (spirit). So God commanded the earth to bring forth living creatures with breath of life included and the earth obeyed his will.
Genesis 1:24 - God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;” and it was so.
When God created man, he crafted man out of the earth just like every other creature, but breathed the breath of life into his nostrils himself.
Genesis 1:26 - God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
2:7 Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
This distinction between the origin of the spirits of man and beast seems to be what Solomon had in mind when he said:
Ecclesiastes 3:21 - Who knows the spirit of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, whether it goes downward to the earth?”
When every man dies, his spirit returns to where it came from, God (cf. Ecclesiastes 12:7). On the other hand, when an animal dies its spirit returns to where it came from, the ground. Yet, Ecclesiastes also teaches us that man and beast are the same in terms of the essence of their being:
3:19 For that which happens to the sons of men happens to animals. Even one thing happens to them. As the one dies, so the other dies. Yes, they have all one breath; and man has no advantage over the animals: for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.
Our spirit is no different in essence than the beasts, as it serves as our life force, so to speak, just as it does them. We all have one breath. So why is it that our breath of life returns to God, while that of the animals goes downward? Resurrection. There is coming a day when the spirit of every man will be breathed back into his nostrils. It returns to the God who gave it until then.
Luke 23:46 (ESV)
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
Good job showing the continuity of truth in the Bible. A firm understanding of our creation and the wisdom in Ecclesiastes makes reading Luke 23:46 so very clear!
Muchos gracias. The Luke passage is usually interpretted in very odd ways. Oh yeah I almost forgot, Ecclesiastes is basically a worthless book because it speaks from a human perspective…it can’t aid us in interpretting Luke, so we have to interpret it in a way that fits our whimsical presuppositions. ;)