Abstract
Abstract Koh 11:7-12:8 is understood as the last part of Kohelet’s collected reflections, except for minor later additions. It resumes central topics addressed previously and correlates them to phases of human existence: youth and adulthood, (old) age and, finally death. It will be shown that the unique allusion to death by using the metaphor of “house of eternity” conveys the idea of a certain stability surrounded by examples how the beauty of creation and the products of human artistry are threatened by transitoriness, decay, and destruction. Consequently they become a paradigm of death—the way all human beings have to go. Joy pursued in the first decades of life and the “house of eternity” are not contradictory. Rather, both are regarded as positive options of human existence surrounded by the omnipresence of futility. It cannot even be excluded that Kohelet implicitly ponders a relation between the eternity God has given into the human heart (3:11) and the “house of eternity” (12:5). After all, these are the only significant instances of eternity in his collection.
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