Ecclesiastes 12:4

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 12:4 . And the doors be shut in the streets — Or toward the streets: which lead into the street. This may be understood, either of the outward senses, which, as doors, let in outward objects to the soul; or, rather, of the mouth, or the two lips, here expressed by a word of the dual number, which, like a door, open or shut the way that leads into the streets or common passages of the body, as the gullet, stomach, and all the bowels; as also the wind-pipe and lungs, which also are principal instruments both of speaking and eating. And these are said to be shut, not absolutely, as if men did never eat, or drink, or speak, but comparatively, because men, in old age, grow dull and listless, having little appetite to eat, and are very frequently indisposed for discourse. When the sound of the grinding is low — When the teeth are loose and few, whereby both his speech is low, and the noise which he makes in eating is but small. And he shall rise — From his bed, being weary with lying, and unable to get sleep. At the voice of the bird — As soon as the birds begin to chirp, which is early in the morning, whereas young men can lie and sleep long. And all the daughters of music — All those senses or parts of the body, which are employed in music, shall be brought low — Shall be cast down from their former excellence, and become incapable either of making music, or of delighting in it.

(4) The first two clauses continue the description of the afflicted house; all communication with the outer world broken off: the double doors towards the street shut, the cheerful noise of grinding not heard without ( Jeremiah 25:10-11 ; Revelation 18:22 ). If a more minute explanation of the double doors is to be given, we may understand the verse as speaking of the closing of the lips on the falling away of the teeth. (See Job 41:14 ; Psalm 141:3 ; Micah 5:7 .) He shall rise up.—No satisfactory explanation of this clause has been given. The following are three of the best interpretations that have been proposed: (1) The old man, whose state has been figuratively described before, is said to sleep so badly that the chirping of a bird will awake him. (2) His voice becomes feeble like the chirping of a bird (Isaiah 29:4). (3) The bird of ill omen raises its voice (Psalm 102:6-7; Zephaniah 2:14). Each of these interpretations is open to serious objections, which I do not state at length, having myself nothing better to propose.

And the {f} doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the {g} grinding shall be low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the {h} bird, and all the {i} daughters of music shall be brought low; (f) The lips or mouth. (g) When the jaws will scarce open and not be able to chew any more. (h) He will not be able to sleep. (i) That is the wind pipes or the ears will be deaf and not able to hear singing.

And the doors ... is low - The house is viewed from without. The way of entry and exit is stopped: little or no sound issues forth to tell of life stirring within. The old man, as he grows older, has less in common with the rising generation; mutual interest and social contact decline. Some take the doors and the sound of the mill as figures of the lips and ears and of the speech. He shall rise ... - Here the metaphor of the house passes out of sight. The verb may either be taken impersonally ( "they shall rise," compare the next verse): or as definitely referring to an old man, who as the master of the house rises out of sleep at the first sound in the morning. All the daughters of musick - i. e., Singing women Ecclesiastes 2:8. Be brought low - i. e., Sound faintly in the ears of old age.

The doors be shut in the streets; or, towards the streets ; which lead into the streets. This is understood either, 1. Literally; because men, when they are very old, keep much at home, and have neither strength nor inclination to go abroad. Or rather, 2. Allegorically, as all the other clauses are understood. And so the doors are either, 1. The outward senses, which, as doors, let in outward objects to the soul. Or rather, 2. The mouth, or the two lips, here expressed by a word of the dual number, which are oft called a door , both in Scripture, as Psalm 141:3 Micah 7:5 , and in other authors, which, like a door, open or shut the way which leads into the streets or common passages of the body, such as the gullet, and stomach, and all the bowels, as also the windpipe and lungs; which also are principal instruments both of speaking and eating. And these are said to be shut , not simply and absolutely, as if they did never eat, or drink, or speak; but comparatively, because men in extreme old age grow dull and listless, having little or no appetite to eat, and are very much indisposed for discourse, and speak but seldom. When the sound of the grinding is low; or, because the sound, &c. So this may be added, not as a new symptom of old age, but only as the reason of the foregoing symptom. The sense is, When or because the teeth, called the grinders, Ecclesiastes 12:3 , are loose and few, whereby both his speech is low, and the noise which he makes in eating is but small.

And this is one great cause of his indisposedness both to eating and to speaking. Some understand this of concoction, which after a sort doth grind the meat in the stomach, and in the other parts appointed by God for that work. But that is transacted inwardly, and without all noise or sound. He shall rise up, to wit, from his bed, being weary with lying, and unable to get sleep, at the voice of the bird; either, 1. Upon the smallest noise; which doth not consist with that deafness incident to old men, and described in the next words. Or rather, 2. As soon as the birds begin to chirp, which is early in the morning, whereas children and young men can lie and sleep long in the morning. The daughters of music; all those senses or parts of the body which are employed in music and song, as well those which make it, as the parts of and within the mouth, as those which receive it, to wit, the ears. Shall be brought low; shall be cast down from their former excellency; they are become incapable either of making music, or of delighting in it.

4. doors—the lips, which are closely shut together as doors, by old men in eating, for, if they did not do so, the food would drop out (Job 41:14; Ps 141:3; Mic 7:5). in the streets—that is, toward the street, "the outer doors" [Maurer and Weiss]. sound of … grinding—The teeth being almost gone, and the lips "shut" in eating, the sound of mastication is scarcely heard. the bird—the cock. In the East all mostly rise with the dawn. But the old are glad to rise from their sleepless couch, or painful slumbers still earlier, namely, when the cock crows, before dawn (Job 7:4) [Holden]. The least noise awakens them [Weiss]. daughters of music—the organs that produce and that enjoy music; the voice and ear.

4 . and the doors shall be shut in the streets ] The picture of the city under the terror of the storm is continued. The gates of all houses are closed. None leave their houses; the noise of the mill ceases. The bird (probably the crane or the swallow) rises in the air with sharp cries (literally, for a cry ). Even the “daughters of song” (the birds that sing most sweetly, the nightingale or thrush, or possibly the “singing women” of ch. Ecclesiastes 2:8 , whose occupation is gone in a time of terror and dismay) crouch silently , or perhaps, chirp in a low tone. Few will dispute the vividness of the picture. The interpretation of the symbols becomes, however, more difficult than ever. The key is probably to be found in the thought that as we had the decay of bodily organs in the previous verse, so here we have that of bodily functions . The “doors” (the Hebrew is dual as representing what we call “folding doors”) are the apertures by which the life of processes of sensation and nutrition from its beginning to its end is carried on, and the failure of those processes in extreme age, or in the prostration of paralysis, is indicated by the “shutting” of the doors. What we may call the dual organs of the body, lips, eyes, ears, alike lose their old energies. The mill (a better rendering than “grinding”) is that which contains the “grinders” of Ecclesiastes 12:3 , i.e. the mouth, by which that process begins, can no longer do its work of vocal utterance rightly.

The words “he shall rise up at the voice of the bird” have for the most part been taken as describing the sleeplessness of age, the old man waking at a sparrow’s chirp, but this interpretation is open to the objections (1) that it abruptly introduces the old man as a personal subject in the sentence, while up to this point all has been figurative; and (2) that it makes the clause unmeaning in its relation to the picture of the terror-stricken city, below which we see that of the decay of man’s physical framework. Adopting the construction given above, we get that which answers to the “childish treble” of the old man’s voice, and find a distinct parallel to it in the elegy of Hezekiah “Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter” ( Isaiah 38:14 ); the querulous moaning which in his case was the accompaniment of disease becoming, with the old or the paralysed, normal and continuous. The “daughters of song” are, according to the common Hebrew idiom, those that sing, birds or women, as the case may be. Here, their being “brought low,” i.e. their withdrawal from the stage of life, may symbolise the failure either of the power to sing, or of the power to enjoy the song of others. The words of Barzillai in 2 Samuel 19:35 paint the infirmities of age in nearly the same form, though in less figurative language. “Can thy servant taste what I eat or drink?