Ecclesiastes 12:2

12:1-7 We should remember our sins against our Creator, repent, and seek forgiveness. We should remember our duties, and set about them, looking to him for grace and strength. This should be done early, while the body is strong, and the spirits active. When a man has the pain of reviewing a misspent life, his not having given up sin and worldly vanities till he is forced to say, I have no pleasure in them, renders his sincerity very questionable. Then follows a figurative description of old age and its infirmities, which has some difficulties; but the meaning is plain, to show how uncomfortable, generally, the days of old age are. As the four verses, 2-5, are a figurative description of the infirmities that usually accompany old age, ver. 6 notices the circumstances which take place in the hour of death. If sin had not entered into the world, these infirmities would not have been known. Surely then the aged should reflect on the evil of sin.

Ecclesiastes 12:2 . While the sun, or the light, &c. — Hebrews While the sun, and the light, and the moon, &c. That clause, and the light, seems to be added to signify, that he speaks of the darkening of the sun, and moon, and stars, not in themselves, but only in respect of that light which they afford to men. And therefore the same clause which is expressed after the sun, is to be understood after the moon and stars. And those expressions may be understood of the outward parts of the body, and especially of the face, the beauty of the countenance, the pleasant complexion of the cheeks, the liveliness of the eyes, which are compared to the sun, and moon, and stars, and which are obscured in old age, as the Chaldee paraphrast understands it. Or of the inward faculties of the mind, the understanding, fancy, memory, which may not improperly be resembled to the sun, moon, and stars, and all which are sensibly decayed in most old men. Or of external things, of the change of their joy, which they had in their youth, into sorrow, and manifold calamities, which are usually the companions of old age.

This interpretation agrees both with the foregoing verse, in which he describes the miseries of old age, and with the following clause, which is added to explain those otherwise ambiguous expressions; and with the Scripture use of this phrase; for a state of comfort and happiness is often described by the light of the sun, and a state of trouble is set forth, by the darkening of the light of the sun. Nor the clouds return after the rain — This phrase denotes a perpetual succession of rain, and clouds bringing rain, and then rain and clouds again. Whereby he expresses either the rheums or defluctions which incessantly flow in old men; or the continual vicissitude of infirmities, diseases, and griefs; one deep calling upon another.

(2) Here the style rises, and we have a figurative description of the “evil days;” but, as sometimes happens in the case of highly wrought poetry, it is much easier to perceive the general effect intended than to account for all the words which produce it. English readers generally have been deeply impressed by Ecclesiastes 12:6-7 , in a general way understanding them as speaking of the dissolution of the noble structure of the bodily frame; and they scarcely gain anything by the efforts of commentators to explain to them what exactly is meant by the “silver cord” and the “golden bowl.” After using all the help my predecessors have given me, I frankly own myself unable to give more than a vague account of the figures employed in this whole passage. Darkened.—See Ecclesiastes 11:8. On darkness of the heavens as a symbol of calamity, comp. Isaiah 13:10-11; Jeremiah 4:28-29; Ezekiel 32:7-9; Joel 2:1-10; Amos 8:9-10; and contrast Isaiah 30:26; Isaiah 60:10.)

2. Illustrating "the evil days" (Jer 13:16). "Light," "sun," &c., express prosperity; "darkness," pain and calamity (Isa 13:10; 30:26). clouds … after … rain—After rain sunshine (comfort) might be looked for, but only a brief glimpse of it is given, and the gloomy clouds (pains) return.

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, Heb. While the sun, and the light, and the moon , &c. That clause, and the light , seems to be added to signify that he speaks of the darkening of the sun, and moon, and stars, not in themselves, or in their own bodies, but only in respect of that light which they afford to men. And therefore the same clause which is expressed after the sun, is to be understood after the moon and stars, as is very usual in Scripture in like cases. And those expressions are to be understood either, 1. Literally, of the dim-sightedness of old men, by reason whereof the light of the sun, &c. seems dark to them; which seems not to agree with the context, partly because the dimness of their sight is expressed in the next verse, and partly because both his and the following verses are wholly allegorical. Or rather, 2. Figuratively, and that either, 1. Of the outward parts of the body, and especially of the face, the beauty of the countenance, the lightsome and pleasant complexion of the cheeks, the liveliness of the eyes, which are compared to the sun, and moon, and stars, and which are obscured in old age, as the Chaldee paraphrast understands it. Or, 2. Of the inward parts of the mind, the understanding, fancy, memory, which may not unfitly be resembled to the sun, and moon, end stars, and all which are sensibly decayed in most old men.

For it may seem improbable that Solomon in his description of the infirmities of old age should omit the decays of the most noble part of man, which are commonly incident to old age. And yet, with submission to those worthy persons who think otherwise, it seems not necessary that he should here speak of those inward decays, partly, because they are not so general in old men as the decays of the body are; partly, because he here directeth his speech to sensual men, who are more affected with corporal than with intellectual maladies; and partly, because both the foregoing and following passages concern the state of men’s bodies, and their outward condition. Or rather, 3.

2 . while the sun, or the light ] The imagery falls in naturally with the thought that the approach of death is represented by the gathering of a tempest. It does not follow, however, that this excludes the thought of a latent symbolism in detail as well as in the general idea. The thought that man was as a microcosm, and that each element in the universe had its analogue in his nature, was a familiar one to the Greek and Oriental mind, and was susceptible of many applications. So, to take an instance belonging to a different age or country, we find an Eastern poet thus writing, circ . a. d. 1339, “Of all that finds its being in the world Man in himself the symbol true may find. His body is as earth, and as the Heaven His head, with signs and wonders manifold, And the five senses shine therein as stars. The Spirit, like the sun, pours light on all. The limbs, that bear the body’s burden up, Are as the hills that raise their height to heaven. Hair covers all his limbs, as grass the earth, And moisture flows, as flow the streams and brooks. So on the day when soul and body part, And from the body’s load the soul is freed, Then canst thou see the body all a-tremble, As earth shall tremble at the last great day; The Spirit with its senses fall away, As stars extinguished fall on earth below; The last death-sigh with which the body dies Thrill through the bones, like tempest-blast and storm. As on that day the hills shall pass away, So does death’s storm break up our mortal frame

. A sea of death-damps flows from every pore: Thou plungest in, and art as drowned therein: So is thy dying like the great world’s death; In life and death it is thy parallel.” From the Gulschen Ras of Mahmud, quoted in Tholuck’s Blüthen-Sammlung aus der morgenländischen Mystik , p. 213. It will be admitted that the parallelism is singularly striking and suggestive. With this clue to guide us we may admit all that has been urged by Umbreit, Ginsburg and others in favour of the “storm” interpretation and yet not reject the more detailed symbolic meaning of Jewish and other commentators. We may have the broad outline of the phenomena that precede a tempest, sun, moon and stars, hidden by the gathering blackness. A like imagery meets us as representing both personal and national calamity in Isaiah 13:10 ; Jeremiah 15:9 ; Amos 8:9 . The sun may be the Spirit, the Divine light of the body, the moon as the Reason that reflects that light, the stars as the senses that give but a dim light in the absence of sun and moon.