Have you heard the term “silver cord” before? Do you know where it comes from? It’s an interesting term to me because it’s unique. The phrase comes from one single place in history: Ecclesiastes 12:6-7:
“Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” – Ecclesiastes 12:6-7
It doesn’t show up anywhere else in the Bible, and yet it’s the term used to describe many metaphysical studies today: the link between the body and the spirit. What does it mean? We can tell from the verses themselves that it’s being used poetically to describe the process of death. But why a silver cord?
E.W. Bullinger’s Companion Bible describes each of these elements via comparing them to actual body parts:
the silver cord: i.e. the spinal cord.
the golden bowl: i.e. the head, or skull.
pitcher: the failure of the heart.
Commentaries typically make similar assertions and leave it at that. However, I think that this is too much of a scholarly explanation, and lacks the powerful, poetic message of Christ. There is more to the silver cord due to the simple fact that it’s different from the rest. Consider the following:
- When a wheel is broken at a well, it is useless and everything stops. No water can come up, and everything falls down
- When a pitcher shatters at the spring, the water falls down
- When a golden bowl is broken, whatever it was holding falls down
- When a silver cord is severed, one side stays up, and the other side falls down
(The above image is from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, where his hair is in a museum holding up a weighted ball)
Solomon said that the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. The silver cord is the only item in the list that has two sides: it binds and it looses, one side goes away and the other side remains. So we know that it is specifically focused on the connection between the body and the spirit. But why is it silver? Shouldn’t the spirit be more valuable than our bodies? Why would a golden bowl be used to describe our body, when our spirit is eternal? Since this term was invented by the culture of the time of Solomon, lets engage with his language and his culture.
Silver & the Appointed Time
The word “silver” used by Solomon in Hebrew is kesef (כֶּסֶף). This word is derived from the Assyrian word kaspu (ܟ݁ܶܣܦ݁ܳܐ), which means “pale metal.” 1
What makes this special is that there is another word in the Bible that shares this same root word. This word is keseh (כֶּסֶא), which means “full moon,” “pale moonlight,” or “appointed time.” Keseh is very unique, as it is a hapax legomenon, a word that only occurs once in the entire Bible. Where does it occur?
My husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey.
He took his purse filled with money and will not be home until the appointed time.
With persuasive words she led him astray; she seduced him with her smooth talk. – Proverbs 7:19-21
Depending on the translation you read, the highlighted words will say full moon, or appointed time. This will depend on how a given translation treats literal word-for-word translation versus original author intent. What if the woman’s husband came home early? His appointed time would certainly have turned into an hour of reckoning. We understand the literal word for “full moon” here to mean that it is the appointed time, or the hour of reckoning. Passover, for example, always begins on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, which lines up with the lunar cycle and guarantees that a full moon will be present every time. Passover is a time to remember the hour of reckoning for Egypt, the appointed time when God would deliver his people out of slavery. A full moon is highly significant in Jewish culture, and many other traditions surround it.
So, what does the connection between silver and the “appointed time” mean? It helps us understand why the silver cord is not made out of gold. Silver, a pale metal as the Assyrians would describe, is a much smaller denomination of currency than gold. Gold is something that the average person at that time would have never touched. Gold was used to fund wars, vast building projects, and to pay kings. A debt of gold is especially burdensome, and Jesus compares the debt of sin owed to God to ten thousand bags of gold:
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
At this the servant fell on his knees before him. “Be patient with me,” he begged, “and I will pay back everything.” The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me!” he demanded. – Matthew 18:23-28
Silver, on the other hand, is an order of magnitude lower in value than gold. See how the servant has other people owing him merely silver? The difference is our debt of sin to God compared to our earthly debts with our neighbors. Silver is of mortal concern, debts we make with one another on earth. Silver is used to buy or rent smaller things, temporary things that come and go, like a field:
Abraham agreed to Ephron’s terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver. – Genesis 23:16
Or information:
Judas asked, “How much will you pay me to betray Jesus to you?” And they gave him thirty pieces of silver. – Matthew 26:15
Or people:
So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph’s brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for twenty pieces of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt. – Genesis 37:28
Silver is used to signify our fleeting life, a pale metal, a memorial for something greater. God used silver trumpets to call the Israelites during any possible time, even times when the moon wasn’t present:
The Lord said to Moses: “Make two trumpets of hammered silver, and use them for calling the community together and for having the camps set out.” – Numbers 10:1-2
“Also at your times of rejoicing—your appointed festivals and New Moon feasts—you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you before your God. I am the Lord your God.” – Numbers 10:10
We see these silver trumpets foreshadowing the final return of Jesus, the day of reckoning, when the spirits of Christians are returned to God, and the silver cord is severed:
Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. – Matthew 24:30-31
Conclusion
Throughout scripture we see a pattern of silver being used to signify things that are borrowed, things that are temporarily in our possession. While we live, our bodies and spirits are connected through the silver cord. But we must remember God. God gave the Israelites silver trumpets to be used as a memorial of all he has done for them, and to call them out of the wilderness. One day, Christians will be called with the same silver trumpets to return to God what is owned by God: our spirits. Our spirits belong to him, and will return to him when we die.
When the silver cord is severed, everything we owe to God will be reckoned. Our bodies belong to the dust, and our spirits belong to God. Remember that your life is borrowed from God, and we owe him an unsurmountable debt due to our sinful lives. And yet, Jesus paid the same debt in the parable, ten thousand bags of gold, with his very life so that we could be free.
The silver cord serves as a reminder of who we as Christians belong to, how fleeting and pale our lives and possessions are, and how we should be desperately forgiving those who are indebted to us:
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” – Matthew 18:32-35
If you’re not sure where to begin with forgiving other people, Jesus gives us a simple answer: we should pray. Pray and remember God before the silver cord is severed.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'”
– Matthew 6:9-13
1. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003) p. 493.
Dave Aldon 