Sense: life (birth–death)
n. — the period during which something is functional, as between birth and death.
For who knows what is good for a man in his life during the few days of his fleeting life, which are fleeting as a shadow? For who can tell anyone what will happen in the future under the sun?
Ecclesiastes 6:12 (LEB)
Some lexical concepts in the Bible come across as obvious until we stop to consider other senses. The word life expresses the general concept of a person’s lifetime, but it can have very different meanings. If I said, “All my life I’ve never seen a cookie that big,” I’d be referring to my life from birth until the present time. But if I said, “I’ve got a plan for my whole life,” I’d probably mean my life from now until I die—I can’t make a plan for the past. In Ecclesiastes 6:12, the writer expresses his concepts generally, so his usage of life is likely from birth to death. While his focus may be on the future, his general way of speaking indicates his perception of a whole life. The Bible Sense Lexicon captures this sense and marks it as such. This helps the reader to stop and consider the complexity of a more common concept like “life.”
What is the Bible Sense Lexicon?
Sense of the Day is based on content from Logos’ Bible Sense Lexicon, which organizes biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words by meaning based on a variety of semantic relationships. Sense of the Day provides examples of senses in context, along with insight into their application for theology and interpretation.
The Bible Sense Lexicon is a Logos dataset available in Logos 5 Gold and higher base packages. If you’re enrolled in the Logos Academic Discount Program, you can also find the Bible Sense Lexicon in the Biblical Languages base package. Take your studies even further by exploring semantic domains, engaging the biblical text like never before.
Learn more about the Bible Sense Lexicon.