They have all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast

They have all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast is a scriptural expression that makes shared mortality the measure of human and animal life. Its two appearances place the same claim beside the Berlin slaughterhouse and Job’s recovery, turning a general maxim into a link between human suffering and the fate of animals.

Wording and Meaning

The expression appears first in the wording, “For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; as the one dieth, so dieth the other”. It then returns in a second formulation: “Yea, they have all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast”. Both versions set human and animal life alongside one another, emphasizing not merely resemblance but a shared condition: each lives and dies.

The Slaughterhouse Context

The first formulation leads into a description of the Berlin slaughterhouse and cattle yard, a large complex in the city’s north-east. The narrative gives its extent as 47.88 hectares and records the separate sums spent on the cattle yard and slaughterhouse. This shift from scriptural language to civic infrastructure grounds the statement in an actual place where animals are brought to be killed.

The following livestock-market figures count 11,543 pigs, 2,016 cattle, 1,920 calves, and 4,450 sheep. The narrative then narrows from inventory to one calf: led into the hall on a rope, lifted onto a bench, and tied by the rope to the wall. The animal waits without knowing what is about to happen. Against this concrete scene, the expression’s denial of human pre-eminence acquires a stark physical context: the animal’s vulnerability is described at the point where its life is in human hands.

Job and the Return of the Expression

The second formulation follows Job’s silence and the healing of his first boils. The text thus places the shared-breath maxim beside a human body marked by suffering and beginning to recover, just as the earlier version leads into the threatened calf. The juxtaposition does not make their circumstances identical: it brings them under one statement about life and death.

Narrative Significance

Across the two appearances, the expression connects a scriptural generalization to distinct, material scenes: an animal awaiting slaughter and a suffering man whose boils have begun to heal. Its recurrence carries the thought from the scale of a crowded market to the singular body, while refusing to reserve mortality or the claim to life for humans alone.