Ecclesiastes 12:3

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 12:3 . When the keepers of the house — The body, which is often and fitly compared to a house; whose keepers are the hands and arms, which are man’s best instruments to defend his body from the assaults of men or beasts, and which, in a special manner, are subject to this trembling. And the strong men shall bow themselves — Either the back, or the thighs and legs, in which the main strength of the body consists, and which, in old men, are very feeble. And the grinders — The teeth, those especially which are commonly so called, because they grind the meat which we eat; cease — To perform their office; because they are few — Hebrew, כי מעשׂו , because they are diminished, either in strength, or in number, being only here one, and there another, and neither united together, nor one directly opposite to another, and consequently unfit for their work. And those that look out of the windows be darkened — The eyes. By windows he understands, either the eye-lids, which, like windows, are either opened or shut: or, those humours and coats of the eyes, which are the chief instruments by which we see.

(3) In this verse we have a description of an afflicted and affrighted house: the servants below (keepers of the house; comp. 2Samuel 20:3 ) in consternation [the word for “tremble” occurs twice more in Biblical Hebrew ( Esther 5:9 ; Habakkuk 2:7 ), but is common in Aramæan]; the masters (men of might, translated “able men “ Exodus 18:21 ; Exodus 18:25 ; comp. “mighty in power,” Job 21:7 ) in equal distress; so also the grinding maids below, discontinuing their work ( Exodus 11:5 ; Isaiah 47:1-2 ); the ladies, who look out at the lattices ( Judges 5:8 ; 2Samuel 5:16 ; Proverbs 7:6 ; 2Kings 9:30 ), forced to withdraw. (For the four classes, comp. Isaiah 24:2 ; Psalm 132:2 .) Expositors have generally understood the house here described as denoting the decaying body of the old man. To the English reader the “grinders” of our version suggest “teeth” in a way that the “grinding maidens” of the Hebrew does not; and the ladies looking out of the lattices can easily be understood of “the eyes.” But when it is attempted to carry out the figure, and to find anatomical explanations of all the other images employed, the interpretation becomes so forced that some have preferred to understand Ecclesiastes 12:3 as only a general description of the consternation produced by such a tempest as is spoken of in Ecclesiastes 12:2.

In the day when the {b} keepers of the house shall tremble, and the {c} strong men shall bow themselves, and the {d} grinders cease because they are few, and those that {e} look out of the windows shall be darkened, (b) The hands which keep the body. (c) The legs. (d) The teeth. (e) The eyes.

The body in old age and death is here described under the figure of a decaying house with its inmates and furniture. This verse is best understood as referring to the change which old age brings to four parts of the body, the arms ("the keepers"), the legs ("the strong men"), the teeth ("the grinders"), and the eyes.

The keepers of the house, i.e. of the body, which is oft and fitly compared to a house, as Job 4:19 Psalm 119:54 2 Corinthians 5:1 ; whose keepers here are either, 1. The ribs and bones into which they are fastened, which are the guardians of the inward and vital parts, which also are much weakened and shaken by old age. Or rather, 2. The hands and arms, which are man’s best instruments to defend his body from the assaults of men or beasts, and which in a special manner are subject to this trembling, by paralytical or other like distempers, that are most incident to old men. The strong men; either the back, or the thighs and legs, in which the main strength of the body doth consist, which in old men are very feeble, and unable both for the support of the body and for motion. The grinders; the teeth, those especially which are commonly so called, because they grind the meat which we eat. Cease, to wit, to perform their office, because they are few, Heb. because they are diminished , either, 1. In strength. Or, 2. In number; being here one, and there another, and not united together, and one directly against another, and consequently unfit for their work. Those that look out of the windows; the eyes. By windows he understands either, 1. The holes in which the eyes are fixed, Zechariah 14:12 . Or, 2. The eye-lids, which, like windows, are either opened or shut. Or, 3. Those humours and coats of the eyes noted by anatomists, which are the chief instruments by which the eye sees.

3. keepers of the house—namely, the hands and arms which protected the body, as guards do a palace (Ge 49:24; Job 4:19; 2Co 5:1), are now palsied. strong men … bow—(Jud 16:25, 30). Like supporting pillars, the feet and knees (So 5:15); the strongest members (Ps 147:10). grinders—the molar teeth. cease—are idle. those that look out of the windows—the eyes; the powers of vision, looking out from beneath the eyelids, which open and shut like the casement of a window.

3 . in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble ] Here, as before, there is a vivid picture which is also an allegory. The words represent (1) the effect of terror, such as that produced by tempest, or by earthquake, in the population of the city; and (2) the fact which corresponds to these in the breaking up of life. As in the previous verse the phenomena of the firmament answered to those of the higher region of man’s nature, so these represent the changes that pass over the parts of his bodily structure. Here accordingly the mode of interpretation which was rejected before becomes admissible. The error of the allegorizers was that they had not the discernment to see that the decay of mental powers would naturally take precedence of that of the bodily organs and that they would as naturally be symbolized by sun, moon and stars. The “keepers” or “watchers” of the houses are in the picture those who stand at the gate as sentinels or go round about the house to see that there are none approaching with the intention to attack. In the allegory they represent the legs which support the frame at rest or give it the power of movement. The trembling is that of the unsteady gait of age, perhaps even of paralysis.

Not a few features in the picture seem to indicate experience rather than observation, and this fits in with the thought, suggested in the Ideal Biography ( Introduction , ch. iii)., of a form of creeping paralysis depriving one organ after another of its functional activity yet leaving the brain free to note the gradual decay of the whole organism. and the strong men shall bow themselves ] As the previous clause painted the effect of terror on the slave sentinels of the house, so this represents its action on the men of might, the wealthy and the noble. They too cower in their panic before the advancing storm. Interpreting the parable, they are the symbol of the arms as man’s great instrument of action. They too, once strong to wield sword, or axe, to drive plough, or pen, become flaccid and feeble. The “hands that hang down” ( Job 4:3-4 ; Isaiah 35:3 ; Hebrews 12:12 ) become the proverbial type of weakness as well as the “feeble knees.” It should be added that the allegorizing commentators for the most part invert the order of interpretation which has been here adopted, finding the arms in the “keepers” and the legs in the “strong man.” Something may, of course, be said for this view, but the balance of probabilities turns in favour of that here adopted. and the grinders cease because they are few ] Both this noun and “they that look out” are in the feminine, and this determines their position in the picture.