Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
The dust - the dust-formed body; so called because formed from the dust, and also because of its weakness and pettiness.
And the spirit - surviving the body; implying its immortality.
Shall return unto God - not as the Pantheists think, to be absorbed into the Spirit of God, and thereby to lose its individual existence. Being, "created in the image of God," and having the "breath of lives," so as to be a "living soul," man partakes of the imperishableness of God. The fact of the "judgment" to come (Ecclesiastes 12:14) disproves Pantheism. The Chaldaic Targum paraphrases it, 'the spirit of thy soul shall return to stand in judgment before the Lord who gave it to thee.' This consideration is the grand one by which the youth is urged (Ecclesiastes 12:1), "Remember now thy Creator." This verse is quoted by the advocates of Creationalism against Traducianism; because it shows that each soul owes its origin to God directly, and not to the human parents.