To really answer that question we must go back to Gensis 2 where we have the more detailed account of how God created the human being (Adam). He formed him from the ground (Adamah) and blew into his nostrils the breath of life (neshma hiim) and he becomes a living soul (nefesh hayah).
We are from that moment composite creatures adam from the Adamah, linked to the earth, bodily, physical; and the same time we are spritual, creatures linked to God, creatures with a soul. And so we spend our lives pulled in both directions.
But at the moment of death, the two parts separate.
In first Kings 17 Elijhah prays three times for God to send the soul (nefesh) of the child back into the body. And God does just that the soul and the body are reunited.
Now rememeber that all of the Old Testament is preparation for the New Testament. And this story is not just the foreshadowing of the resurrection of Jesus, but the foreshadowing of what will happen to all of us at the end of time.
As St. Paul explains in. 1 Cor 15
If there is no resurrection from the dead, then Jesus was not raised from the dead.
At the end of time we too will experience the fullness of the resurrection of the dead. But the resurrected body will no longer be tied to the earth, it will be spiritual. We will be body and soul forever but with the new body, we will be single minded, drawn solely to the one who created us.
