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Chapter 3:  The reward of following wisdom is length of life.
This often comes true literally. In the fourth commandment God
had promised that those who honor Father and Mother would live
long on the land. But even if that does not happen in the
literal way, there is better reward in the next life.

When did the Jews come to know of future retribution?

     First,we must examine whether they knew of survival after
death at all.In spite of many denials,it is entirely certain
that the people of the Old Testament did know of survival
after death. Our Lord Himself in replying to the imaginary
case proposed by the Sadducees, of a woman who had seven
husbands, not only said there would be no marriage in the next
life, but added that God "is the God of Abraham,of Isaac,and
of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
The erroneous belief of some about early Jewish beliefs on
survival comes from the conviction that the ancient Hebrews
had a merely unitary concept of a human being: we consist of a
body with the breath of life:no mention of a soul. It is
likely that the ancient Hebrews did have some such a concept.
And that could readily lead to saying: the body decays, the
breath goes into the air - nothing is left.

     But yet we know that the Hebrews held tenaciously to a
belief in necromancy, divination by the dead. This was
prohibited several times in the Old Testament (Lv 19:31; 20:6;
Dt.18:10-11) yet they held on to it.

     In holding on to a survival in spite of a unitary
concept,they were following correct theological method. In
divine matters,we are apt at times to meet two conclusions,
which seem to clash head on. We recheck our work, but they are
still at hand. Then we must refrain from forcing either
conclusion. We must hold to both, hoping that someone one
sometime will find out how to reconcile the seeming opposites.
So they seem to have had a concept of a unitary nature of man,
but they also held for necromancy, which implies the dead
survive.
    
     They did not know how to put these two things together
until the time of Antiochus IV, Epiphanes (l75-64), yet they
held on. Then, God led them by means of two things to see the
truth.On the one hand, the terrible deaths of some of the
martyrs under Antiochus forced them to see that at least in
such cases they could not say that God would make all right
before the end of the life of a person. (They had bravely
tried to hold on to such things, e.g., in Psalm 73, which 
said in effect: I was distressed at the prosperity of the
wicked until I came into the sanctuary and saw what an end
they came to). At about the same time they came into contact
with Greek thought which helped them to see there are two
parts in a human, body and soul. (The Greek notions were not
entirely correct - Plato held that the body is not a part of a
man, just a prison; Aristotle held that the body is only the
first matter, the soul the substantial form: He seemed at
least unclear about whether or how the form could survive by
itself after the dissolution of the body). Even though the
Greek ideas were not fully correct, yet they would start the
Jews thinking in the right direction. As a result, starting at
about this time many of the Jews came to clearly understand
survival. Others denied it, yet most of the  Jews did accept
it. Already before the time of Christ, the Pharisees and their
followers clearly held afterlife: St.Paul proclaimed Himself
such, cf.Acts. 23:6.

(Antiochus named himself Epiphanes, "a god who appears"
to men. The Jews among themselves called him instead
Epimanes:insane).

Later, the Book of Wisdom 3:1-8 clearly speaks of
survival. Daniel 12:2-3 taught a resurrection, probably for
all.

And of course, the fullest and clearest revelation on
immortality comes from Christ Himself. And it is also from Him
that comes the clearest revelation of unending hell.

But when did they come to know also of retribution in
the future life? Most exegetes think it was not until the time
of that persecution of Antiochus IV that they came to know it.
The terrible deaths of the martyrs forced a reappraisal,as we
said, and the contact with Greek thought of two parts to a
human being helped provide the opening.

     We need to work with care and precision here.  The
commentators commonly forget that before the death of Christ,
heaven was closed (cf.DS 780,1000) even to those who were just
and fully prepared. So what was existence like in Sheol? There
was no praise of God. Psalm 6:6 asks: "Who in Sheol can give
you praise?" Sirach 17:27-28 has the same thought. Again,
Isaiah 38:18-19 says: "Death cannot praise you. Those who go
down into the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness." M.Dahood
(Anchor Bible, Psalms 16,p.38) comments that the writer of
Psalm 6 does not suffer from an inability to remember God in
Sheol, but from not being able to share in the grand
liturgical praise of God as in the public worship, which the
people of Israel sincerely loved. (They loved the externals so
much that God complained in Is 29:13: "This people honors me
with their lips, but their hearts are far from me").  We could
add that the very Hebrew words used in Isaiah 38:18-19 for
praise or thanks of God also appear in 1 Chron 16:4 and 2
Chron 5:13 and 31:2 for the liturgical praise of God.

Is 38 says they cannot hope for God's faithfulness: it
is because the covenant does not extend to Sheol - the word
used is regular for God's faithfulness to the covenant. But
this does not mean that God does not watch over Sheol: Job
26:6 says: "Sheol is naked before God." Cf.Prov.15:11.

Qoheleth 9:10 says: "There is no work or reason, or
knowledge, or wisdom in Sheol." Of course the dead in Sheol do
not work. Nor have they any natural means of knowing what goes
on on earth - they get this only if God chooses to reveal
something to them. Cf.Job 14:21.

We do not see in Sirach any positive indication of 
retribution in Sheol. But that does not mean the dead were
non-existent (these are two separate questions: survival, and
retribution in the future life). Jesus Himself answered the
Sadducees on this point (Mt.22:29-33) by citing from the
Pentateuch - perhaps the only part of the OT they accepted -
from Ex 3:6, the words of God to Moses: "I am the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob" and Jesus added:
"He is not the God of the dead but of the living." The
Sadducees were silenced, they could not answer His reasoning.
Further, it was necessary to give repeated commands in the OT
against necromancy, consulting the dead, which indicates it
was being done, and done persistently: e.g., Lv 19:31;
20:6,27; Dt.18:11 and many more texts. Saul himself had a
medium bring up the spirit of Samuel in 1 Sam 28:8-19. Even if
we say the mediums were fakes, it remains true that there was
persistent belief that the dead did exist. (We will consider
some added problem texts in Job and Qoheleth in treating each
book).

There are some Psalm lines that seem to reflect a belief
on the part of the writer that he will be with God even after
death, for his union with Him has been so close in this
life,that it cannot be interrupted.

Psalm 49:16: "But God will rescue my soul from the hand
of Sheol; surely He will take me." Right after this the fate
of the wicked rich is pictured: he cannot take his riches with
him.

Psalm 73:23: "But I am always with You, You hold my
right hand by Your hand; you guide me with counsel and
afterwards you will take me to glory." The word "take" in
Hebrew is  laqah, which is the same word used when God took
Enoch (Gen 5.24) without dying, and when He took Elijah (2
Kings 2.3 and 5). In the first part of the psalm, the author
said he was tempted to think God was not just. But he
understood the fate of the wicked when he went into the
sanctuary. After that, he gained the confidence he expressed
in verse 23. He continued: "Whom do I have in the heavens but
you? Being with you, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and
my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and my
portion forever (le olam)."

Psalm 17.15: "In righteousness I will be see your
face,when I awake,  I will be satisfied with your likeness."

Mitchell Dahood, in the introductions to his three
volume commentary on the Psalms in Anchor Bible, proposes
revised translations of about 30 Psalm lines, in the light of
Ugaritic language discoveries. If one accepts them, there are
more lines like those we have just cited. We will see more
evidence on belief in after life and on future retribution in
our consideration of individual wisdom books later.

There follows advice on not despising the Lord's
discipline. The Lord loves the one whom He disciplines,for
that is for the good of the man.