Ecclesiastes 12:1-7
Ecclesiastes
12:1
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while
the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no
pleasure in them;
If a person lives their life in the light of knowledge of
God who is the Creator, then they will make proper decisions and will eschew
evil in those days knowing that eventually that evil actions will result in
eternal penalties. If a person
regards the Creator in their youth then they will live a life that will not have
consequence because of their actions which are the evil days.
There are times in every life, even in the life of a believer, when
calamity or hard times may come but they can be weathered especially if they are
not sinfully engendered. Then when
a person becomes older, they may have trouble with their memories and forget the
evil things they did but if they began to live a godly life when in their youth,
then into old age they will still practice those things.
Train up a child in the way he
should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
(Proverbs 22:6) When
godly training takes place at a young age, then those things stay with a person
until death. In the days of youth,
there are many things which give pleasure including sinful things but as we get
older those things do not hold the same desires as they did when we were young.
I was speaking with a friend of mine recently and we were talking about
when we used to go out when we were younger.
We said that 10 PM we were just walking out the door but now 10 PM we are
ready to crawl into bed. How the
years can change our outlook.
Ecclesiastes
12:2
While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars,
be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
Then Solomon continues his treatise on old age from the
previous verse. He speaks to those
in youth that while they still have the light of day within them that they
should not forget the Creator because if the light goes out, that is, the light
of the mind begins to dim then the Creator would not be remembered because old
age has crept in along with its fading mentality.
There will come a day when the universe will be darkened because it will
be judgment day but this verse deals with the debilitating effects of aging.
The clouds returning after the rain
speaks about one problem after another especially as our bodies age and our
immune system becomes weaker. We
not only have a problem talking care of ourselves because of bodily weakness but
we also have physical problems which limit us.
Ecclesiastes
12:3
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble,
and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are
few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,
The keepers of the house are those who guarded the house
because they were strong and had the ability to repel any invaders.
Now they have become fragile and would be incapable of making any kind of
defense, so fear sets in knowing they cannot do anything to stop someone.
Then the strong men would bow meaning they have lost their youthful
strength and would find themselves capitulating to the age of their bodies and
to the treatment from the outside world.
Then the grinders cease because they can no longer handle such a heavy
wheel or bags of milled goods. This
also has reference to the loss of teeth because by time we reach old age, we may
have lost all or most of our teeth and eating would be a chore without only a
few teeth left. Then there would be
dimness of the eyes which would be represented by the windows as our eyesight
deteriorates as we get older especially in ancient times when they did not have
glasses or ophthalmologists.
Ecclesiastes
12:4
And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the
sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and
all the daughters of music shall be brought low;
Then the door shall be shut in the streets means that
older people tend to stay close to home for security purposes and also because
of physical ailments. The grinding
being low refers to the teeth we saw in the previous verse and because there is
an inability to eat and speak as one did when they were younger, so therefore
they do not engage in much going out.
Then they rise at the voice of a bird which means as soon as the birds
awake in the early morning, they hear it and wake up because they do not sleep
as soundly as they did when they were younger simply because there is not much
body activity to make them tired.
Then they will be unable to enjoy music and the fine arts as they did when they
were younger because they may become hard of hearing and as a result they cannot
hear the music of mirth they once did when they were young.
I know if I could not hear the old hymns played, I know I would feel
disheartened. As we get older, if
we had a good voice, it may be out of tune or just not there anymore or if we
played an instrument, maybe arthritis took the use of our hands and we can no
longer play the instruments.
Ecclesiastes
12:5
Also when they shall be afraid of that which is
high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall
flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because
man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:
Then as the body ages there will be a fear of those
things which are high which means that an elderly person will have trouble
climbing stairs and going to the second floor.
The legs will also become weak as the rest of the body does.
Having to go upstairs or to a place which is higher will cause them much
consternation. This is why senior
citizen villages are created with everything on one floor for ease of mobility.
They shall need to get something that is high up but the fear of falling
or injuring themselves will prevent them from using the mobility they do have.
Then the almond tree flourishes and that happens when it is spring time.
When we were young we looked forward to spring time especially knowing
that the school year was coming to a close.
Now that we are older we view it as just another season and it does not
give us any joy as it did in the past.
The grasshopper being a very light and innocuous insect
represents the slightest burden that the elderly would not be able to endure.
If a person’s immune system is compromised, then even a simple cold could
turn deadly. The desire failing
they possess no more desire to do the things when they were younger simply
because they now have understanding of the traps the world can set for a person
plus their frailty would not allow them to do much of anything.
Then as people get older they begin to reflect upon the fact that they
must physically die and soon that would happen as time goes by so fast when you
are older even though it moves no faster than it ever did since time is a
constant. Then the mourners will
mourn the person for a while and then after the sorrow wears off, they will go
about their daily routines heading toward their own day of death. This type of
commentary can be very discouraging but let me add this that if you are saved in
Christ, then physical death is the beginning of life in its ultimate form.
Ecclesiastes
12:6
Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be
broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the
cistern.
The silver cord may represent the soul of man which at
the point of death is loosed from the physical body otherwise known as the
burden. It is because our physical
body which hosts sin wars against the soul of man, even in the believer there is
a war between the cleansed soul and the sinful flesh.
This is plainly taught in the next verse.
In Zechariah the bowls were placed on top of the candlestick which
continually fed them. The golden
bowl here may represent the intellect of man as he once had great knowledge and
wisdom which directed his body and life’s decisions but now in death that bowl
is broken which means it no more can hold the precious oil of thought and
direction. Then it speaks of the
pitcher which would be the heart as the pitcher holds water and other liquids
and nourishes the body when its contents are drunk.
Here the heart is in view as the organ that nourishes all the other
organs by circulating the blood which strengthens the organs and removes waste
from them. No longer can the heart
feed the other organs since it has now been stopped because of death.
It is no longer the life giving fountain.
The wheel continues to turn which represents the circulatory system of
the body as it circulates blood to all the organs going into the heart and then
coming out to do its ordained job.
The cistern is definitely another metaphor for the heart as it gathers the blood
and then pumps out the blood.
The days of our years are threescore
years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is
their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
(Psalm 90:10)
Ecclesiastes
12:7
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and
the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.