ECCLESIASTES

CHAPTER 12

ADVICE TO THE YOUNG

NOTE: In Ecclesiastes Solomon’s advice to youth is found in Ecc 11:9-10; Ecc 12:1-7. A study of the first three of this nine verse section suggests:

1) That Solomon recognized that children had a spiritual need; and that it was important to address that need early in their life, before the evil days come, or the youthful period passes, Ecc 12:1; Pro 22:6; Deu 6:6-7; Mat 19:14; Mat 18:6; Eph 6:4.

2) That it was practicable for the young to know the joy of a right relationship with the LORD, Ecc 11:9; 1Sa 2:26; Mat 18:6; 2Ti 3:15.

3) That such young are susceptible to sin which will diminish their joy, Ecc 11:9 b; and that such should be put away by acknowledgment and forsaking, Ecc 11:10; Pro 28:13; 1Jn 1:9.

4) That all young, except the mentally incompetent, soon become accountable to God and will one day be brought to judgment, Ecc 3:17; Ecc 11:9; Ecc 12:14; Heb 9:27; Act 17:31; Rev 20:12.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

GETTING RIGHT WITH GOD, NOW

A Sermon to Children

Ecc 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 (Ecc 12:1).

I AM glad, boys and girls, to talk to you for a few minutes this morning. I suspect that if I should ask you what I should talk about, some of you might answer as one little chap did, when a certain preacher asked the same question. His reply was, Talk about a minute, mister.

I am going to talk to you about ten minutes. In other words, I am going to preach to you what we call a sermonette. A sermonette is a little sermon, a short sermon; and boys and girls are entitled to a little sermon or a short sermon.

I am going to talk to you about getting your hearts right with God while you are yet young. That is why I picked out this textRemember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.

I am going to give you some good reasons why it is easier to become a Christian while you are yet a child than it will be when you get to be a man or a woman.

When I was a small boy in the South, and yes, after I got to be a big boy as well, I raised tobacco. That is why I hate it so now. I had to work in it so constantly when I was a lad, and had to smell the vile stuff so often, that I havent wanted to see much of it since I became a man.

If people want to defile their bodies with tobacco smoke or by chewing, that is their business, I suppose; but I hope none of you will ever adopt that filthy habit.

Mr. Harry Maxwell who used to go with me in evangelistic work, had a little couplet that he taught the boys and girls. It went like this:

Tobacco is a filthy weed,

It was the devil that sowed the seed,

It dulls the senses, scents the clothes,

And makes a chimney out of your nose.

Now there is something about setting out tobacco, as we called it, that I want you to see as an illustration of what I am teaching this morning.

How many of you ever saw any tobacco? Well, how many of you have ever seen any cabbage? Oh, yes, lots of you have seen cabbage. All right, the principle is the same.

If you are going to set out cabbage plants, you have to pull them up when they are young, and it is just so with tobacco. We used to go to the tobacco bed and pull up the little plants, not longer than your finger, and after a rain we would stick our finger in the ground, make a hole, put in the root of the little plant, and then press the wet dirt around the root, and the little plant would live and grow right off.

Now someone might say, What did you pull up the little plants for? Why didnt you let them get big before you transplanted them?

Just because you cant transplant them so easily when they get big. They do not do so well when they get big. The reason is that their roots have gone down deeply into the ground and taken hold of sticks, roots and rocks and when you pull them up, you break these little tendrils that take hold on the ground, and at every break there is a bleeding. We call it sap, but it is the life blood of the plant. It is not like the red blood that comes out of your finger. It is white blood, but it is the life of the plant just the same.

If you walk around the field a day or two after you have planted the big plants, you will see them all wilting down, and many of them dying because of this bleeding or loss of sap. Not so, if you put out the little plants. If you go around a day or two after they are planted, you will find them sticking up just as pert as though nothing had happened to them. They stick up like rabbit ears. That is because their roots are not broken; that is because they have not taken such deep hold upon the earth.

That is the way with boys and girls. The tendrils of their hearts have not twined themselves around the things of this earththe things that are bad, the things that are gross, the things that are lowand when they are transplanted into the Church of God, they grow spiritually as they grow in stature and in wisdom, and become strong men and women for Christ.

So it is the time when it is easiest to make this change from the world and the flesh to Christ and the Church.

It is also the best time! Somebody has said that if you save a man or woman in old age, you have saved a soul; but if you win a boy or girl to Christ, you have saved a life, a man or a woman, body and spirit. All his days, then, belong to God and all his life is lived for Him.

When I was a pastor at Lafayette, Indiana, my next door neighbor was William Levering, a grand old man in the seventies. One day we were visiting together. Just because he was such a useful Christian, one of the most outstanding Sunday School men on the American continent, I asked him the question, How long have you been a Christian? He said, Ever since I can remember. I gave my heart to Christ when I was seven years old. I am seventy now, and I have been a Christian for sixty-three years.

You see what that meant! He hadnt wasted any of his life. He hadnt given any of it to Satan. He hadnt squandered any of it on fleshly lusts. He had lived it all for God and for His Son and for the Church. How beautiful and how blessed! That is what it means for boys and girls to come to Christ. All of your life is thus saved and sanctified to Gods service.

But it is not only the easiest and the best time to get your heart right with God, but for most of you it is the only time.

You will either seek and find Him now, in your youth, or you will never find Him at all.

Older people are seldom converted. Old men and old women are very rarely converted.

When I was a pastor in Bloomington, Illinois, I said in my sermon one night, If there were a thousand men in Bloomington who had seen sixty summers or more, and I had them all in my audience and preached my heart out to them, there wouldnt be two out of the thousand saved.

At the close of the service, an old man came up to me and said, My boy, you know how much I love you; and you know I like to hear you preach. But you hurt me tonight.

I said, How so?

He said, I am sixty years old and five more. I am sixty-five. You told me I couldnt be saved. No, I answered, I didnt tell you you couldnt be saved. What I told you was that you wouldnt be saved. I said, If there were a thousand men over sixty years of age hearing me preach, and I preached my heart out, there would not be more than two of them ever saved, one in five hundred, but that is not Gods fault. That is their fault. They could all be saved if they would, but they wont, that is all. Old mens hearts are hard. Old mens habits are fixed. Old men seldom or never make a change.

The tears came into his eyes, and he said, Well, if that is so, then I will be saved. I will seek the Lord now. I will give my heart to Him tonight. And he did. I baptized him and his wife and another old man and his wife all on the same evening.

But now I have been in the ministry forty-seven years, and I have seldom baptized people of that age. In this time I have baptized hundreds, yes, thousands of boys and girls, and I have buried scores of old men and old women who lived without Christ, and they died without Christ; so seldom is it that an old man or an old woman seeks the Lord.

So I am saying to you, Either get right with God in your youth, or you will never get right.

I have tested it out in many audiences and asked, How many people are there here who were converted after sixty years of age? In an audience of 1,000, 1,500, or 2,000 there have been one or two rise.

How many were converted after fifty years of age? and three or four would get up.

How many were converted forty years of age or after? and possibly four or five would rise.

How many were converted after thirty years of age? and there would be five to ten.

How many were converted before they were eighteen years of age? and two-thirds of the house would rise.

What is that but positive proof that we either find the Lord in our youth or we never find Him at all? There are some exceptions to be sure, but exceptions prove the rule. The rule isa Christian in youth or never!

But, you say, why should I be a Christian? There are three or four reasons, any one of which would be sufficient.

First, Christ loved you and gave Himself for you. That certainly ought to beget your love in turn.

Second, Christ offers to receive you and is abundantly able to save you. That should make instant appeal, and bring quick response.

Third, the saved boy or the saved girl is the safe boy or the safe girl. You are safe in sickness and in health. You are safe whether you live or die, if you are only the Lords. Paul said, For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. So, in either, he found he was happy and content.

It is so with the true Christian. Many of you will live to be men and women. Some few of you will live to be old men and old women. A great many of you will die while you are boys and girls or young men and young women. It is beautiful to live right; it is blessed to be able to die content and without fear.

Little Annie Ashpurvis lived in New York city in a tenement house. Her mother was very, very poor, and the house a wretched old place. Annie used to go with her brother down to the riverside and pick up the logs and pieces of bark and driftwood that came along and struck shore. They carried this home, put it in the basement, and dried it out so that on the cold days they could have a fire.

One bitter day, Mrs. Ashpurvis said to Annie, Go down in the basement and get some wood and put it in the stove. It is cold here. You will have to take the lamp, for you know it is dark down there.

So Annie picked up the oil lamp, and started down to the basement for wood. It was so cold, somebody had spilled water on the steps, and it had frozen into ice. When Annies feet touched this ice, they slipped, and when she fell, she dropped the lamp, and broke it, and the coal oil splashed on her clothes and took fire, and in a minute or so, Annie was badly burned. Her mother ran to her assistance and carried her upstairs. A doctor and nurse were called. Annie lived until about the middle of the night. The doctor who had been out seeing other patients, came back to see Annie, knowing how near death she was. When he came in, he went over, picked up her hand and felt of her pulse. It was very feeble and missing occasionally. He turned around, beckoned the nurse over to the window and whispered to her, She will not live many minutes.

Annie, although covered with cotton batting in which they had wrapped her, heard what he said. She was a mission girl and had given her heart to Christ and was a true Christian. Immediately upon hearing that, she commenced to sing,

Jesus, Lover of my soul,

Let me to Thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll,

While the tempest still is high.

Hide me, O, my Saviour hide,

Till the storm of life is past;

Safe into the Haven guide,

O receive my soul at last.

She sang the first verse in good voice, and the doctor was amazed at her strength. He walked over to the bed and looked at her, and she commenced on the second verse.

Other refuge have I none;

Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;

Leave, oh, leave me not alone,

Still support and comfort me,

All my trust on Thee is stayed,

All my help from Thee I bring;

Cover my defenseless head

With the shadow of Thy wing.

Her voice had weakened some, but it was still clear. She then picked up the last verse, for she knew them all.

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,

Grace to cover all my sin;

Let the healing streams abound;

Make and keep me pure within.

Thou of life the Fountain art,

Freely let me take of Thee;

Spring Thou up within my heart,

Rise to all eternity.

She ended the verse in a whisper. The doctor looked down into her face. It was still. He picked up her hand, and felt of her pulse. It had ceased. He turned around and walked to the window, and as the tears coursed his cheeks, he said to the nurse, I have seen lots of people die, but this is the first time I have ever seen anyone just sing their way from earth to Heaven.

Isnt it beautiful to be able to do that? Every boy and every girl who gives his or her heart to Christ will be blessed, and whether you live or die, you will be the Lords and you will be happy in Him.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL NOTES.

Ecc. 12:1. Thy Creator.] The Hebrew word is in the plural form, denoting the fulness and wealth of the Divine nature. While the evil days come not.] The time of joyless old age as contrasted with the glad season of youth.

Ecc. 12:2. While the sun, or the light, or the stars be not darkened.] The separate mention of the sun and light is not to be considered as tautology. Aben Ezra explains that by the light is signified the morning light, which, though identical with that proceeding from the sun, is yet poetically different. The darkening of these natural lights signifies the diminishing of joy and the coming of the season of adversity. (Isa. 13:10, Amo. 8:9, Eze. 32:7.) Nor the clouds return after the rain.] A description of what often happens, in those countries, during the rainy season of winter. After a great discharge of rain, the clouds gather again, the signal for another storm. One trouble follows closely upon another.

Ecc. 12:3. The keepers of the house shall tremble.] The human body, being the habitation of the soul, is often compared to a house or tent. (Job. 4:19, Wis. 9:15, Isa. 38:12, 2Co. 5:1, 2Pe. 1:13.) The description given here is that of a rich mansion or castle, not that of an ordinary house. It is a house having the necessary things of war and luxury; soldiers to defend it and keep watch on the turrets; servants for attendance, and to prepare food for a large household. The furniture and surroundings are those of a magnificent and lordly dwellingthe hanging lamps, the golden bowl, the splendid fountain. (Ecc. 12:6.) By the keepers of the house are signified the arms, one of whose chief uses is defence. In old age they become weak and tremulous. And the strong men shall bow themselves.] These are the legs which, from failing strength, bend under the weight of years. And the grinders cease because they are few.] The millers or grinders are the teeth, which in old age become few. They cease, in the sense of failing in ability to perform their proper function. In Hebrew, the form of the word is feminine, in allusion to the custom by which the grinding for the household was performed by female slaves. And those that look out of the windows be darkened.] Not ordinary windows, but some opening in a lofty part, such as a turret. The castle, which would have its strong men, would also have its watchers on the heights. These answer to the eyes, which are placed aloft as on a watch-tower. Dimness of sight is the common infirmity of old age.

Ecc. 12:4. And the doors shall be shut in the streets.] Some expositors say that by the doors the mouth is intended. But this is scarcely likely, as the mouth had been sufficiently described before. The description answers better to the ears, for a double organ is plainly signified, and one by which we hold intercourse with the outer world. When the sound of the grinding is low.] This refers not to the failure of the powers of mastication, but to the failure of hearing. The old man but feebly hears the most familiar household sounds, such as those of the maids grinding corn. And he shall rise up at the voice of the bird.] In allusion, probably, to the sleeplessness of old men,

Ecc. 12:5. Afraid of that which is high.] Referring to the difficulty which an old man feels in ascending a hill. Fears shall be in the way.] The smallest dangers are magnified by his weakness till they become formidable. The almond tree shall flourish.] The almond tree flourishes in the midst of winter, and bears its blossoms on a leafless stem. These blossoms, notwithstanding their red colour, have, as they fall, the appearance of white snow-flakes. Dry, bleak, barren old age, with its silvery hair, is thus represented. The grasshopper shall be a burden.] Some explain this of their singing and chirping, which may easily annoy the old man. Otherstaking the word in the strictly literal sense of locustsay that the reference is to these as an article of food which is too strong for the impaired digestion of the aged. Others, again, say that they represent that which devours, hereby signifying those forces which are hostile to life. Various other interpretations are given, more or less fanciful, but all are foreign to the simplicity of the figure. Here, it will be found that the meaning that would occur to the simplest reader is the best. The old man cannot bear the least weight. Desire shall fail.] Every kind of desire, whether it be the appetite for food, or that of the sensual passions. Because man goeth to his long home.] Lit. to his eternal house. This is inserted parentheticallyall these things are signs that life is shortly about to cease. The expression is found in Tob. 3:6, and was familiar to Roman literature. As the word rendered eternal also signifies the world, it may be that the idea of time is not prominent here, and that we have but a form of the phrase the other world.

Ecc. 12:6. Or ever the silver cord be loosed.] Mans living organism is here described by a new figure. It is now a golden lamp, hanging by a silver cord. Hereby is signified the thread of life, and that life is a noble and precious thing. Or the golden bowl be broken.] The vessel containing the oil which supports the flame. This answers to the brain, the organ of the noblest functions of man, and also the source of that stimulus by which all the processes of the body are carried on. Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain.] This gives a different idea from the golden bowl, and evidently refers to that organ which draws nourishment from something outside the body. Like the broken pitcher, the lungs are no longer able to draw in the vital air. Or the wheel broken at the cistern.] The same figure as the last, but representing a different part of the arrangement for drawing waterthe cistern wheel for raising and lowering the bucket. Life is represented under the image of a wheel in constant motion. This, probably, suggested Jas. 3:6, The wheel of nature.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Ecc. 12:1-7

INCITEMENTS TO EARLY PIETY

The Royal Preacher now leaves speculation, as leading to no substantial result, and turns, with better hopes, to practical matters. He had observed much of this scene of man, and thought deeply upon the mysteries of life and destiny; but he has no brilliant discovery of ultimate wisdom to announce which could settle these questions. He is more inclined to give those few and simple counsels which are far more profitable for himself and for all who hear him. A man always returns gratefully to these when he has grown tired of the conflict of thought and controversy. Thus the Epistles of Paul the Aged deal more with the faithful sayings than with the deep things of doctrine. Experience teaches a man to rely only upon what is sure. As a master in the school of heavenly wisdom, Solomon calls his young friends around him, exhorting and entreating them to early piety. He lays before them those motives and reasons which commend the fear of God to youth.

I. It is a Rational Duty. (Ecc. 12:1.) The whole of what we understand by piety is made to consist of the remembrance of our Creator. Nor is this too narrow a basis: it really includes all duty. The fact that God is our Creator is the foundation fact upon which lies all what we know and feel, or are capable of. Practically, to recognise our relationship to God herein is the sum of all duty. If God is our Creator, He will make provision for our sustenance, for our preservation, for our spiritual education and improvement. After the reflection, Thy hands have made me and fashioned me, how natural is the prayer, give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments. (Psa. 119:73.) To remember God is to keep Him always before us, to be mindful of what He is, to obey His will, and to pay Him thanks. It is like the sons remembrance of his fathers home, bringing back tender associations fresh to his mind, acting as a restraint from evil ways, and strengthening the motives of filial duty. God as our Creator has certain rights which we must acknowledge. The only rational service for man is to do what is right in accordance with the relations in which he is placed. This makes early piety the only consistent and reasonable course. All late coming to the knowledge of a God is a culpable forgetfulness. Though the mercy of God be not hereby overtasked, there is in this tardy recognition of duty something ungracious.

1. God has a right to our entire and life-long service. The obligation to the loving service of our Creator never ceases for a moment, but always remains with us. Why should we either heedlessly thrust that obligation aside, or keep it in abeyance until we are sated with the worlds pleasures, and fondly hope to return to it as a last resource when all else has failed? The service of God should fill the whole area of duty, and the whole course of our time. The true and complete model of the religious lifeGods ideal of humanityis that which was manifested in Christ, whose whole life was devoted to His Fathers business. In that life there were no violent changes, no painful struggles to recover lost ground; but from the earliest dawn of thought and feeling, duty was accepted, and the communication with Heaven kept open. The perfection of this model should not appal us, for it is our duty to make as near an approach to it as possible. The measure of Christ is the limit to which we ought to tend, though that limit stretches so far beyond us.

2. God has a right to our constant love and gratitude. His character is such as to demand and win our love. He does not use the instruments of terror to lash us into a tender regard for Himself, but seeks to attract us by His loving kindness. Therefore, our love to Him should be deep, simple, and free, as nature. In O.T. times, the love of such an awful Being would be that of a distant, reverential love, represented by the phrase (which is there the prevailing element) the fear of Godthat wholesome dread of offending Him. But in the latter revelation, mediation comes to our help; and in Christ, God is brought closer to our human heart and sympathy. We are drawn with the cords of a man, with the bands of love. (Hos. 11:4.) Hence our heart is under the stronger obligation to answer back to God. As we were made in His image, we are capable of these high favours and solemn duties. Gratitude is but one of the forms of love. It is love contemplating favours, and grasping the hand that blesses. The energy of the living God still goes forth, working in nature, Providence, and grace. Hence the demand upon our gratitude is constant, and ever will be so while our relations with our Creator last. It is irrational to deprive Him of this service during any part of our lives.

3. God has a right to be glorified in us. The heavens declare the glory of God, because they are obliged to obey those eternal conditions which he has laid upon them. They have no power to resist His will, or to conspire against universal order. But man glorifies God, not as conquered by force, but as submissive to His will. Our nature should act as a mirror to the Divine nature, reflecting His truth, His love, His righteousness. When we shine with that heavenly light, thus falling upon our soul, God is glorified. We return, though somewhat dim and impaired, the graces of His image. God has a right to find in every man an answering mind and heart. To refuse the homage of these is to expose ourselves to the penalty of Divine judgments, by which it is likewise possible for God to be glorified in us. Early piety avoids so disastrous a risk.

4. It is not a reasonable thing that we should give the mere dregs of our life to God. It is not grateful conduct towards the Author of our being to drive a close bargain with Him, practically asking the question, How little service can we render consistent with our final safety? This is base ingratitude, sins against every law of love, and lacks that nobility of spirit which is essential to our true dignity. If we put off the service of God till it is late in our day of life, and troubles thicken, and we are cut off from consolations elsewhere, we are but offering to Him a miserable remnanta wasted heritagewhat is blind, halt, and lame. Besides, we cannot be sure that even this shall be possible to us. The most ardent and vigorous youth cannot reckon with certainty upon long life. Hence, if delay shows a will most incorrect to heaven, it is also dangerous. The uncertainty of life, as well as the reason of the thing, preaches early piety.

II. It Assuages the Sorrows of Age. (Ecc. 12:2-6.) In youth, the power to taste pleasure is strong. The more complicated evils of lifesorrowful regrets, the sense of loss and failure, dissatisfaction with the worldas yet lie far in the future. But they will come, those evil days that yield no pleasure. The joyous light within will grow dim, darkening and rendering cheerless the world without. The summer of life was not quite free from troubles, but these were slight and passing as a summer shower. The clouds quickly opened again, and there was the clear shining after rain. But it is far otherwise in winter. The storm is gloomier and more sweeping now, and the brief pauses of it are but the preparation for a more merciless deluge of rain, for a louder and more melancholy wailing of the winds. In old age, troubles come apace. Even before this time there are evil days and the light begins to fail. (Ecc. 12:1-2.) The description of old age given here is general, being in certain respects true of all, but the picture is too dark and melancholy to represent the old age of the righteous. The character which the writer had in view is evidently that of a man of the world, who had lived for pleasure, who is now no longer able to enjoy, and who has no consolations within to assuage his sorrows. Such, at least, is the original of the picture; yet it may be considered as aptly describing the main features of old age, as they appear to an ordinary spectator. These infirmities and calamities lead to the outer chambers of death, where man awaits his conflict with the last enemy.

1. Death approaches the aged with many terrors. To the young man whose strength is overwhelmed by violence, death is indeed terrible. But to old age, death seems to come with all the refinements of slow torture.

(1.) There is the failure of those powers which carry out the purposes of human activity. The arms, those keepers of the house, so valuable for defence, now begin to tremble, and are powerless against the foe. They were once able to shape the stubborn material around to the minds purpose and design, but now they have lost their cunning. The legs, which once ministered swiftly to the will, stood firm against assault, imparted the sense of freedom, and gave a man sovereign command over the whole area of his work, now bow themselves for very feebleness.

(2.) The failure of the nobler senses. The eyesthose windows by which the soul looks upon the outer worldare darkened, for the old man brings to them no longer the power of seeing. The earsone of the entrances for intelligence, and ways of communication with the world outsideare closed, so that they obstruct the paths of sound. The most familiar sounds are scarcely distinguished, the sweet music of speech at length dies away, and the old man becomes completely shut up within himself.

(3.) The failure of the powers of enjoyment. The power to taste all pleasures, coarse or refined, now fails. Savoury meats and luscious entertainments now pall upon the sense. Singing men and singing women cease to charm.

(4.) The increased power of little things to annoy. The grasshopper is now a burden, the slightest obstacle is magnified into an object of dread, and every little hill becomes a mountain of difficulty. Short breath, dim eyes, failing limbs, give man a painful sense that he is vanquished by nature.

2. The event of death to the aged suggests the most melancholy images to the mind. It is the destruction of the palace of the soul, with all its appliances for defence and luxury. It is the breaking of the golden lamp of life. It is the fatal arrest of that revolving wheel by which we draw what is to us the water of life. The permanent cessation of motion in physical nature means death. The exact meaning of this is, that the body as an organism ceases to exist. There are other movements set up, even when the body lies still in death. The dust returns to the earth as it was. Of the earthly side of mans nature, we have here an end. The grave is the goal of all that is mortal. The body goes a progress from dust to dust, from a lowly origin to cold dishonour.

3. Without spiritual consolations the condition of old age is most lamentable. The perpetual joy that reigns in the breast of the godly man can mitigate the sorrows of old age. The worst evils become disarmed when we can afford to set them at naught by the consciousness of strong consolation within. When the eye grows dim, and the ear ceases to be charmed by sweet sounds, celestial light shines inward with richer effulgence, and the soul listens to diviner harmonies. With the spiritual man, the power to enjoy God increases as his human strength decays. Godliness even modifies some of the physical conditions of age by saving a man from the penalties of sensuality and vice. He who has learned to preserve the honour of his body by temperance and sobriety of behaviour, when he comes to grey hairs will not be such a deplorable ruin as the sinner who has grown old in sin. Thus early piety assuages the sorrows of age, and raises a joy within the breast which no calamities can dislodge.

III. It Deprives of Terror the Souls Inevitable Appearance before God. (Ecc. 12:7.)

1. To appear before God is the destination of every human soul. The flesh ends in dust. Man sinks down to that from which he arose. But man is made in the image of God, and therefore in the image of His immortality. There is a part of him that can never die. While the flesh goes down to dust, there is another movement of the spirit upward to God. Each human soul must take that solemn journey to God. However much it may dread the meeting, it cannot pass one side of Him, or in any way avoid Him, but must go straight into His presence. In their long homethat other house of lifeall men, for good or ill, must await God.

2. That appearance must bring the ungodly into conflict with the Divine Judgments. Sin leaves a mark upon the soul that death itself is not able to efface. God changes mans countenance and sends him away, but the spiritual character of the soul cleaves to it still. Man in that other world must for ever live with himself; and what he is, so shall be his condition. None but the pure and holy can remain in Gods sight, and enjoy the comfort of His presence. If a man has not answered the purpose intended by his Creator, he cannot be approved, but must suffer the Divine displeasure.

3. The godly will come to his Creator in peace. To be summoned into the presence of God is sufficiently solemn, even for the purest and holiest of mankind. But such will come, not to an offended, but to a reconciled God. The solemn meeting will be peace, and prosperity, and endless refreshment. In the dread passage out of life into eternity, the good man learns to say, Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. And when his spirit takes its everlasting flight unto Him who gave it, he shall find that the light which was sown for him springs up into a harvest of blessedness. He who has remembered his Creator in the days of his youth shall be able, in his time of age and decay, to utter with confidence the prayer, Lord, remember me. Early piety is the only perfectly graceful conduct towards the Author of our being, the most acceptable sacrifice, the best provision against the sorrows of life, and the terrors of the last trial. The soul needs the strongest ground for courage and hope when this present world vanishes, and there is nothing to intercept its vision of the throne of God.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Ecc. 12:1. Practically considered, the root of all moral evil is forgetfulness of God.

Remembrance imparts to great facts and impressions the beauty and influence of presence. Thus the truth of Gods nature and our duty comes upon us with fresh power.
The mention of the Creator, here, shows the right which He has in us, and our obligation.
Your own happiness is concerned in your compliance with this counsel. That happiness is unworthy of the name which is disturbed by the remembrance of God. The contemplation, and enjoyment, and service of the Divine Being, must be the honour and the blessedness of every rational nature. There is a propriety, a beauty, and a glory in early piety [Wardlaw].

Of his last years this old man says, I have no pleasure in them. Once on a time existence was a gladness, and the exuberant spirits overflowed in shouts and songs of hilarious ditties. So abundant was the joy of life, that, like the sunbeams in a tropic clime, it was needful to shade it, and with a Venetian lattice of imagined sorrows and tragic tales, the young man assuaged the over-fervid beams of his own felicity. Now there is no need of such artificial abatements. It is not easy for the old man to get a nook so warm that it will thaw the winter of his veins. To say nothing of a song, it is not easy for him to muster up a smile; and as he listens with languid interest to the news of the day, and, in subtile sympathy with his own failing faculties, as he disparages this modern time and its dwindled men, it is plain that, as for the world, its avocations and amusements, its interests and its inhabitants, he has little pleasure in them [Dr. J. Hamilton].

Ecc. 12:2. The conditions of external nature, in their aspect towards ourselves, are determined by our own state. Nature is gay, or sad, or languishing, according to the several moods of our soul. When we lose the power of enjoying it, the world itself may be said to pass away.

As the light declines, the gayest colours of life fade, and, at length, all is reduced to a dreary blank. So it shall be with the youth who vainly depends upon the continuance of the worlds happiness.
He only is preserved from bitter disappointments and long regrets, who seeks that light of heavenly joy which increases while all other lights grow dim.
We should use our mercies and privileges which are common to us with other men, to wit, our bodily sight, our reason, and all other comforts, which may be signified by the lights here mentioned, so as we may be still mindful of the decay and failing of them at death; and often think with ourselves what a comfort it will be to see by faith Him that is invisible favourable to us, to behold Christ the Sun of Righteousness shining in mercy upon us, and to have the Day-Star, His Spirit, arising in our hearts never to set again, even when all other lights and outward comforts will be darkened [Nisbet].

In youth, troubles come like rain, which, though inconvenient while it lasts, leaves no devastation behind. But in age, troubles are like rain falling upon a flood already threatening and which, at length, carries away man into eternity (Psa. 90:5).

Old age is a Tierra del Fuegoa region where the weather never clears. Once, when a trivial ailment came, the hardy youth could outbrave it, and still go on with his daily duties. But now, every ailment is important, and they are never like to end. The cough is cured only to be succeeded by an asthma, and when the tender eyes have ceased to trickle, the ears begin to tingle. Once upon a time a few drops might fall into the brightest day, like a settling shower in June; and there were apt to be hurricanes, equinoctial gales, great calamities, drenching and devastating sorrows. But now, the day is all one drizzle, and life itself the chief calamity, and there is little space for hope where the weather is all either clouds or rain [Dr. J. Hamilton].

Ecc. 12:3. As each power and sense fails, man descends by so many steps into the grave.

By the failure of sightthe noblest of the sensesa man has already entered the valley of the shadow of death.
In old age, a man is compelled, in a terribly real sense, to retire from the world. Shut in from outward joys, he must live with himself. How cheerless if he has no Divine Comforter!
When old age, with its ever-increasing feebleness, draws on, the keepers of the housethe once-powerful arms that shielded the body from every hostile assault, that triumphantly defended it even in the shock of battleshall tremble. Their force is gone; they can no longer grasp a weapon, or strike a blow. The strong men too, that were like the pillars of the buildingthe firm and well-jointed limbs that bore the body up, unconscious of its weightshall bow themselves, and sink down helpless beneath the load. And the grinders shall cease because they are fewthe toothless jaws shall at length refuse their officethe very mechanism by which the waste of natures energies was wont to be repaired, losing its power to act, and thereby accelerating the progress of decay. And those that look out of the windowsthe sentinels that kept watch in the lofty towers, and whose function it was to descry and announce the approach of dangerthose bright and beaming eyes that, erewhile, looked forth far and wide on surrounding things, shall be darkened; their range of vision will become contracted, and blind Isaac shall not know his younger from his elder son [Buchanan].

In the consciousness of failing strength, the good man feels that he belongs the more to God.

Ecc. 12:4. When hearing fails, a man is shut in from more than half the world. Even affection and love can only minister to such by some other and more difficult entrance.

But not only is the door of audience closed, the door of utterance is also shut. The grinders have ceased, and with lips collapsed and organs all impaired, it is an effort to talk; and bending silently in on his own solitude, the veteran dozes in his elbow-chair the long summer hours when younger folks are busy. But, if he dozes in the day, he does not sleep at night. At the voice of the bird, at the crowing of the cock, although he does not hear it, he can keep his couch no longer. He rises, but not because he has any work to do, or any pleasure to enjoy [Dr. J. Hamilton].

Aristotle hath observed it well, that by hearing, the things of others are made known to ourselves, as by our voice and tongue we are able to make known our own things to another. But when old age cometh, the glory of this most excellent work is humbled and brought low, the anvil is worn, the hammer is weak, the drum is unbraced, the pure air is grown thick, the music is marred, the doleful toll of the passing bell being ready to sound, and to ring out [Jermin].

He can afford to part with the delights of music who has learned to make melody in his heart.

Ecc. 12:5. He has neither enterprise nor courage. Once it was a treat to press up the mountain side and enjoy the majestic prospect. Now there is no high place which is not formidable; and even to the temple, it is a sad drawback that it stands on Zion, and that it is needful to go up. The almond tree flourishes, and the grasshopper is burdensome. Teaze him not with your idle affairs. In that load of infirmities he has enough to carry, and though it be not the weight of a feather, do not augment his burden who totters under the load of many years. For desire has failed. You can grapple with heavy tasks; you can submit to severe toil and protracted self-denial, for you have a purpose to serveyou have an end in view. But with him there is no inducement, for there is no ulterior [Dr. J. Hamilton].

The hoary head of old agethe flourishing of the almond treeforebodes the dreary winter that shuts the scene of mortal life.
In this present statethis earthly houseman is but as a guest that tarrieth for a night; but in that house of eternitythat other worldto which he is hastening, man has his final and permanent habitation.
It should be our aim to make preparation for our comfort, peace, and joy, in that world where we shall dwell the longest.

Ecc. 12:6. Though death involves the destruction of the entire mortal frame, yet it may begin in any one of the great centres of lifethe brain, the heart, or the lungs. The silver cord of nervous matter may be loosed, and the delicate mechanism by which the body is supplied with blood and air may be rendered useless.

Science has thrown much light upon those wonderful processes by which physical life is maintained. But its greatest discoveries are chiefly the clearing, and settling into more definite form, of that knowledge which was held in solution by mankind for ages. Poetry has often anticipated science, and the prophet comes before the investigator.
The fountain of natural life remains for the race, but the individual is only permitted to draw from it for a short time.
The bucket and the wheel are broken; the water can no longer be drawn; and instead of the busy and lively scene that was wont to surround the wells mouth, all is solitude and silence, the ground untrodden, the water stagnant [Wardlaw].

Ecc. 12:7. However fairly it may be garnished, man lives but in a house of clay whose end is dust.

The humble destination of the mortal part of us should be a rebuke to pride.

Some rationalistic expositors maintain that these words teach that the soul loses its individuality, and is absorbed into God. But we are plainly taught that man, as a spirit, returns to God, not to perish by dispersion in His infinity, but to be judged. (Ecc. 12:14.) Hence moral responsibility will remain, and this is not possible unless the conscious selfhood in each man remains.

Natural likeness to Godfor we are spirit as well as fleshmakes us capable of appearing before Him in a spiritual world. But moral likeness to Him can alone turn that solemn necessity into blessedness.

We know not what mysterious things await the spirit when it returns to God; but we know that the law of love holds good, as the condition of happiness, in all worlds.

Our spirits are Gods free gift, and therefore all the powers and faculties thereof ought to be employed to the honour of the Giver. (Rom. 11:36.) He is to be depended on, and acknowledged for the preservation of them (Job. 10:12); and all crosses upon body and spirit to be submitted unto. (Heb. 12:9.) [Nisbet.]

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

3. Remember God in your youth. Ecc. 12:1

TEXT 12:1

1

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, I have no delight in them;

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 12:1

404.

At what time in life should one remember God?

405.

What are the evil days? (Cf. Ecc. 11:8)

406.

Young people are to enjoy and find delight in life. Is this same delight available all through life? Discuss.

PARAPHRASE 12:1

The evil days are coming! When they do come you will be unable to enjoy or find delight in them. My advice is to remember God the Creator while you are a young man and not wait until the joy of living is past,

COMMENT 12:1

Ecc. 12:1 Young people are to have fun, but they are also to keep in mind who made them and why they were made. Since it is God who is the Creator, He has the right to speak through His servant and admonish toward wise behavior. Thus, not only should one remember God, he should allow God to influence all of life. Since God made man, He knows what will bring man happiness. The term Creator is definitely a reference to God as it is the participle form of the same word translated in Gen. 1:1 which speaks of Gods creative work. It is also a plural form which suggests to many a reference to the work of the Godhead.

Since youth and strength are both marked by vanitythat is they are very fleetingit is foolish to waste them. There is not a better time to follow God than in ones youth! The open grave invites all men too soon, even as the Psalmist said, My days are like a lengthened shadow; and I wither away like grass (Psa. 102:11). Now, however, life is vigorous, the accent is on youth, the joys are sweet, the time to be alive is now. Soon the joys which are now within the reach of youth will slip away. Man always moves into the period of decline. One has wisely expressed the experience of growing old as his last days sloped gently toward the grave.

The evil days are obviously a reference to the following graphic pictures presented by the Preacher of the final, crippling stages of old age. Previously The days of darkness (Ecc. 11:8), referred to the grave, but this is not the meaning here. I have no delight means that such closing years of life have lost the pleasure of youth and the prime of life. One does not find pleasure in the loss of strength, eyesight, and hearing; or does he look forward to the time when he no longer can walk or properly chew his food.

FACT QUESTIONS 12:1

546.

What is the significance of speaking of God as Creator?

547.

Explain what is meant by the evil days.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

XII.

(1) Creator.This occurs as a Divine name in Isa. 40:23; Isa. 44:15. and elsewhere. Here it is in the plural, like the Divine name Elohim. (See also Note on Ecc. 12:8.) We have thy Maker in the plural in Job. 35:10; Psa. 149:2; Isa. 54:5; and Holy One in Pro. 9:10; Pro. 30:3; Hos. 11:12.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. Remember Solemn reminder of what youth is inclined to forget.

Thy Creator Who formed the frame described in Ecc 12:6, and will bring thee to judgment, Ecc 12:14. Now thy youth In emphatic contrast with thy gloomy old age, brought on by forgetting God, pictured in Ecc 12:2-5.

when woe and care will render such piety difficult, and with that dissolution, (6, 7,) which make repentance impossible. Wretched is the man who gives his best days and strongest powers to the service of Satan, expecting to give God the dregs of his life, or to repent in the hour of death.

No pleasure The freshness of life is gone; the world is dark and drear; and the soured spirit has no heart for devotion.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Chapters Ecc 11:9 to Ecc 12:14 The Venturing Of The Young, The Trials Of The Old and Man’s Final Destiny.

As we come to the end of the writer’s musings we are rewarded with the final conclusions that he has reached. He calls on the young man to arise out of life’s vainness and look to his Creator, recognising that God will bring him into judgment in whatever he does. Interestingly he no longer appears to see life as meaningless, but as something to be treated very seriously, with attitude towards God being seen as of prior importance. Outwardly life is still indeed vanity, but that only refers to life on this earth, life under the sun (Ecc 12:7-8). What must not be overlooked is what lies beyond life ‘under the sun’. Thus in the light of everlastingness (Ecc 3:11) the godliness of the godly will turn out to be the one thing that is important after all. Hope is arising out of despair.

Young Men Are To Make The Most Of Their Youth, But Are To Remember While They Are Young That God Is Their Creator And Will One Day Judge Them, And Should Live Accordingly, For One Day They Will Grow Old And Then Their Spirits Must Return To The God Who Gave Them (Ecc 11:9 to Ecc 12:7).

We have already seen that the Preacher has continually recognised that there is a judgment coming ( (Ecc 3:17; Ecc 8:5). Now he applies that to the young (Ecc 11:9) and to all men who fear God (Ecc 12:14).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

‘Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Therefore remove causes of sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh. For youth and the prime of life are vanity. Remember also your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near when you will say I have no pleasure in them.’

The young men are told to enjoy the fact that they are young, and their lives while they are yet young, and make the most of their youth, doing the things that they desire, but to remember that for how they behave they will be brought into judgment. Thus they must remove from their lives anything that will cause distress and sorrow to others, and not give way to the evils of the flesh.

But they must remember that youth and the prime of life are soon over (they are ‘vanity’). Or that they are futile and vain. Thus they must consider their ways and not over-exalt themselves.

‘Prime of life.’ Alternately the word possibly means ‘black hair’, and thus the period before they become grey-headed.

Consequently they must in their youth remember their Creator (compare Psa 100:3; Isa 43:15), for it is He Who will call them to account. The thought is that they are to give Him due regard, something that will involve being faithful to Him with regard to the covenant (Deu 8:18; Deu 15:15; Psa 78:35; Psa 119:55; Num 15:40; Jdg 8:34 ; 1Ch 16:12; Isa 46:9; compare the use in Exo 20:8; Exo 32:13; Lev 26:42; Lev 26:45). Each will have to answer for what he is and does.

They are reminded that they will one day grow old, and the evil days will come, the days of weakness and failing faculties, the days when life becomes more of a burden than a pleasure. Thus they must enjoy youth while they may, and make the most of the oportunities that it offers, always; however, remembering that God will be their Judge..

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Perseverance: Warning to the Youth to Fear God – In Ecc 11:9 thru Ecc 12:7 the Preacher tells young people to enjoy their days of youthfulness, but to balance their lives by remembering the coming Day of Judgment. The Preacher began his sermon in Ecc 1:1-2 by asking the rhetorical question, “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?” Throughout this book he explains this statement by answering his own opening question. Remember that the book of Ecclesiastes tells us the vanity of our physical labors and of our earthly possessions. It is structured in a way that teaches us how to take our physical journey through this life, from youth to old age. A young person tends to find life adventurous and exciting. He spends much effort in exploring and achieving new feats. But the Preacher knows how vain these youthful adventures can be because he has pursued them all. Since he was once a youth, he knows how much more difficult a youth has in seeing the vanities of life. It is only with wisdom and age that anyone can see the vanities of man’s pursuits. This focus upon youth and old age reflects the theme of Ecclesiastes, which is to serve the Lord with all of our strength. The Preacher could have addresses a number of people in society, but he spoke directly to the youth because once they miss this truth in their early years, their life is too far spent to correct this grave error. If they miss their destiny when they are young, it is much harder to put their lives together when they are old and be used by God to fulfill their destinies.

Ecc 11:9  Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

Ecc 11:9 Comments – Youth is a time when the senses are keen, the body is strong and enjoyment is easy to find. The Preacher is telling the youth to cheer himself during these days, but cautions him to remember the ways of the Lord as he cheers himself.

Also embedded within this verse is the message that God has placed within every person certain interests and desires. We are all uniquely made with different interests. These have been planted within us as a seed towards our divine destiny. We are to follow our heart and walk by what we see, because this is how we stay on the path of our destiny. However, we must remember that God will bring us into judgment for having missed our destiny for what we were created for.

Ecc 11:10  Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.

Ecc 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;

Ecc 12:1 “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth” Comments – The Scriptures refer to God as “thy Creator” in Ecc 12:1. Many names for God could have been chosen in this verse, such as “thy God,” or “the Almighty,” but none fit the need for describing God’s character better within this context than “thy Creator.” The description of God as one’s Creator implies that God directs the affairs of one’s life. He is the One who oversees His own creation, and He divinely intervenes in order to accomplish His purposes and plans. This reflects the theme of the book of Ecclesiastes, which is the fact that God gives mankind a purpose in life when he serves Him.

Statistics reveal that people are less prone to give their lives to Jesus the older they get. The best time to give one’s life to Jesus is while we are young and easily obedient to the ways of God. An older person becomes set in his ways and more stubborn to change.

Ecc 12:1 “while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them” Comments – One characteristic of youth is their zeal to find some enjoyable activity each day. As a parent, I look forward to spending the day at home resting, but our children are trying to get us to take them out somewhere so that they can do something fun. Many old people lose the desire to live. They say that they want to die.

Ecc 12:2  While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

Ecc 12:2 “While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened” – Comments – This refers to the loss of sight that accompanies old age. The loss of keen eyesight is usually the first sign of the onset of old age.

Ecc 12:2 “nor the clouds return after the rain” – Comments – This is figurative of depression or sadness. A long life can give a person many opportunities to remember the past and become depressed.

Ecc 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,

Ecc 12:3 “In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble” – Comments – The hands are what a person has used all of one’s life to keep the house and do work. In old age, the hands began to tremble.

Ecc 12:3 “and the strong men shall bow themselves” – Comments – Old age tends to cause one to bend or stoop. The “strong men” may refer to the two legs, or to the back.

Ecc 12:3 “and the grinders cease because they are few” Comments – This is a reference to the loss of teeth.

Ecc 12:3 “and those that look out of the windows be darkened” Comments – This is a reference to the two eyes.

Ecc 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 musick shall be brought low;

Ecc 12:4 “And the doors shall be shut in the streets” – Comments – Old people seldom go out, but rather keep their doors shut.

Ecc 12:4 “when the sound of the grinding is low” – Comments – This refers to slow or poor eating habits, and, because of tooth loss, they tend to eat soft foods. They eat less often because it is no longer a pleasure to them. This may refer to the loss of hearing.

Ecc 12:4 “and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird” – Comments – Elderly people tend to get up early, sleep less, and are easily awakened.

Ecc 12:4 “and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low” – Comments – This is a reference to the loss of hearing.

Ecc 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:

Ecc 12:5 “Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way” – Comments – Old people’s depth of perception is poor, and therefore, they are subject to falling and injuring themselves. So they avoid climbing due to these cautions and fears.

Ecc 12:5 “and the almond tree shall flourish” – Comments – The almond tree shall blossom. The almond blossom is white. This refers to white hair.

Ecc 12:5 “and the grasshopper shall be a burden” – Comments – The little things in life are difficult to perform, and lifting is also a burden.

Ecc 12:5 “and desire shall fail” – Comments – Elderly people lack a desire for an active life, for sex, for doing things and having interests.

Ecc 12:5 “because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets” – Comments – This refers to a funeral.

Ecc 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.

Ecc 12:6 “the silver cord be loosed” – Comments – Billye Brim teaches that many people have visitations into heaven, or near death experiences, and even returning from death. [28] She says as long as the silver cord is not broken, they can get back to earth.

[28] Billye Brim, interviewed by Gloria Copeland, Believer’s Voice of Victory (Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Fort Worth, Texas), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.

Ecc 12:6 Comments – These are figures of speech for death. J. Vernon McGee suggests that the “silver cord” describes the spinal marrow, the “golden bowl” the basin which holds the brain, the “pitcher” the lungs, and the “wheel” the heart. [29] John Wesley says that the silver cord represents the spinal cord, which has a white color, and that the golden bowl the brain, which can have a yellowish appearance. Wesley goes on to interpret the pitcher and the wheel as the circulatory system, with the fountain figurative of the right ventricle of the heart, which is now acknowledged to be the spring of life. He says the pitcher would represent the veins, which convey the flow of blood to the body, and the cistern would be the left ventricle and the wheel the great artery. [30]

[29] J. Vernon McGee, Ecclesiastes, in Thru the Bible With J. Vernon McGee (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1998), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), comments on Ecclesiastes 12:6.

[30] John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament: Proverbs-Malachi, in The Wesleyan Heritage Library Commentary [CD-ROM] (Rio, WI: Ages Software, Inc., 2002), comments on Ecclesiastes 12:6.

Ecc 12:7  Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Ecc 12:7 “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was” Scripture References – Note:

Gen 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

Eze 37:3-5, “And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.”

Psa 104:29, “Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.”

Job 34:14-15, “If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath; All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.”

Ecc 12:7 “and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” Comments – Jesse Duplantis little babies around the throne of God as if they were newly created by the “breath of God.” [31] Thus, our life originated with God, and to God who gave it we will return (Ecc 3:21; Ecc 8:8, Jas 2:26).

[31] Jesse Duplantis, Heaven Close Encounters of the God Kind (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Harrison House, 1996), 119.

Ecc 3:21, “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?”

Ecc 8:8, “There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.”

Jas 2:26, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

An Appeal to the Young

v. 1. Remember, now, thy Creator in the days of thy youth, with a feeling of reverence and gratitude for the many blessings received, the product of true faith in the heart, while the evil days come not, those of advanced age, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them, when the vigor of youth and maturity is replaced by the feeling of decay and the feebleness of senility;

v. 2. while the sun, or the light, the refreshing beauty of the morning light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, when the light of youthful life is darkened by the shadows of advancing old age, nor the clouds return after the rain, one misfortune or calamity following another;

v. 3. in the day when the keepers of the house, all the members and organs of the body, especially the hands and feet, shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, bent over with the weight of age, the legs no longer standing upright, but crooked and misshapen with the various ailments of age, and the grinders cease because they are few, the teeth, particularly the molars, having decayed and fallen out, and those that look out of the windows, the eyes admitting light to the body, be darkened, as sight becomes feeble,

v. 4. and the doors shall be shut in the streets, the mouth, with the upper and lower lips, no longer being able to perform its function of speaking well, when the sound of the grinding is low, the voice, breathing out from the wall of the teeth, lacking the power and force of youth, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, his voice being reduced to the low, whispering sound of old men, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low, the ears, growing deaf, no longer enjoy the singing as in former days;

v. 5. also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, since their strength will no longer permit their climbing, and fears shall be in the way, they are readily overcome with timidity, they no longer have the courage to overcome perils and obstacles, and the almond-tree shall flourish, whose white blossoms in the midst of winter were a fitting symbol of old age with its silvery hair, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, when even the least weight becomes distressing, and desire shall fail, when interest in almost everything languishes and dies, because man goeth to his long home, he is rapidly approaching death and the grave, which will hold him for many years, and the mourners, having come to give him an honorable burial, go about the streets;

v. 6. or ever the silver cord, that by which the lamp of life was supposed to be suspended, be loosed, the thread of life being severed, or the golden bowl, conceived to be holding the oil of life, be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, the body, particularly with its organs of respiration, being compared to a vessel for drawing water regularly, or the wheel, with which the water was raised from the reservoir, broken at the cistern, the reference being to the breaking down of the whole mechanism of the body in death.

v. 7. Then shall the dust, out of which man was formed at the beginning, Gen 2:7, return to the earth as it was, Gen 3:19, and the spirit, namely, of every one that died in the true faith, shall return unto God, who gave it; for into the hands of God all His children commend their souls at all times. Note: This paragraph is one of the most beautiful poetical passages in the entire Bible and deserves to be studied for its form as well as for its contents, the earnest and searching admonition contained in its lofty sentences.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Ecc 12:1

The division into chapters is unfortunate here, as this verse is closely connected with Ecc 12:10 of the preceding chapter. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Set God always before thine eyes from thy earliest days; think who made thee, and what thou wast made for, not for self-pleasing only, not to gratify thy passions which now are strong; but that thou mightest use thy powers and energy in accordance with the laws of thy being as a creature of God’s hands, responsible to him for the use of the faculties and capacities with which he has endowed thee. The word for “Creator” is the participle of the Verb bara, which is that used in Gen 1:1, etc; describing God’s work. It is plural in form, like Elohim, the plural being that of majesty or excellence (comp. Job 35:10 : Isa 54:5). It is used here as an appellation of God, because the young have to bethink themselves that all they are and all they have come from God. Such plurals are supposed by some to be divinely intended to adumbrate the doctrine of the Holy Trinitya dark saying containing a mystery which future revelation shoed explain. “He that made thee” is a common phrase in Ecclesiasticus (Ecc 4:6; Ecc 7:1-29 :30; 39:5). It is to be noted that Gratz reads “cistern” or a fountain” in place of “Creator,” and explains this term to mean “wife, as in Pro 5:15-18. But the alteration has nothing to support it, and is most unnecessary, though Cheyne was inclined to adopt it (‘Job and Solomon,’ in loc.). While the evil days come not; i.e. before they come. “Days of evil; () (Mat 6:4); tempus afflictionis (Vulgate). The phrase refers to the grievances and inconveniences of old age, which are further and graphically described in the following verses, though whether the expressions therein used regard literal anatomical facts, or are allegorical representations of the gradual decay of the faculties, has been greatly disputed. Probably both opinions contain a partial truth, as will be noted in our Exposition. Ginsburg considers that the allusion is not to the ills that in the course of time all flesh is heir to, but rather to that premature decay and suffering occasioned by the unrestrained gratification of sensual passions, such as Cicero intimates (‘De Senect.,’ 9.29), “Libidinosa et intemperans adulescentia effetum corpus tradit senectuti.” There is nothing specially in the text to support this view, and it is most reasonable to see here generally a figurative description of decay, whatever may be the cause. I have no pleasure in them. Ere the time comes when a man shall say, “I have no pleasure in life.” Thus the aged Barzillai asks,” Can I discern between good and evil? Can thy servant taste what I eat, or what I drink? Can I hear any more the voice of singing-men and singing-women?” (2Sa 19:35).

Ecc 12:2

From this verse onwards there is great diversity of interpretation. While some think that the approach of death is represented under the image of a storm, others deem that what is here intended is first the debility of old age, and then, at Ecc 12:6, death itself, which two stages are described under various metaphors and figures. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened. Under these figures the evil days spoken of above, the advent and infirmities of old age, are represented. It would be endless and unprofitable to recount the explanations of ‘the terms used in the following verses. Every commentator, ancient and modern, has exerted his ingenuity to force the poet’s language into the shape which he has imagined for it. But, as we said above, there are at least two distinct lines of interpretation which have found favor with the great majority of expositors. One of these regards the imagery as applicable to the effects of a heavy storm upon a house and its inmates, explaining every detail under this notion; the other regards the terms used as referring to the man himself, adumbrating the gradual decay of old age, the various members and powers that are affected being represented under tropes and images, Both interpretations are beset with difficulties, and are only with some straining and accommodation forced into a consistent harmony. But the latter seems to us to present fewer perplexities than the other, and we have adopted it here. At the same time, we think it expedient to give the other view, together with our own, as there is much to be said in its favor, and many great writers have declared themselves on its side. Wright supposes (and makes a good case for his theory) that Koheleth is referring especially to the closing days of winter, which in Palestine are very fatal to old people. The seven last days, indeed, are noted even now as the most sickly and dangerous of all the year. The approach of this period casts a dark shadow upon all the inhabitants of the house. The theory is partly borne out by the text, but, like the other solutions, does not wholly correspond to the wording. In the present verse the approach of old age, the winter of life, is likened to the rainy season in Palestine, when the sun is obscured by clouds, and the light of heaven darkened by the withdrawal of that luminary, and neither moon nor stars appear. And the clouds return after the rain; i.e. one storm succeeds another (Job 37:6). The imagery is intended to represent the abiding and increasing inconveniences of old age. Not like the spring-time of life and season, when sunshine and storm are interchanged, winter and old age have no vicissitudes, one dreary character invests them both. The darkening of the light is a common metaphor for sorrow and sadness (see Job 30:26; Job 33:28, Job 33:30; Eze 32:7, Eze 32:8; Amo 8:9). The symbolism of the details in this verse has been thus elucidated: The diurnal lights appertain to the soul, the nocturnal to the body; the sun is the Divine light which illumines the soul, the moon and the stars are the body and the senses which receive their radiance from the soul’s effulgence. These are all affected by the invasion of old age. Some consider that this verse depicts the changes which pass over the higher and more spiritual part of man’s nature, while the succeeding imagery refers to the breaking up of the corporeal frame. We should say rather that Ecc 12:2 conveys a general impression, and that this is then elaborated into particulars. According to the interpretation mentioned above, a gathering tempest is here depicted, the details of which are worked out in the following verses.

Ecc 12:3

The gradual decay which creeps over the body, the habitation of the spirit, is depicted under the figure of a house and its parts (comp. Job 4:19; 2Co 5:1; 2Pe 1:13, 2Pe 1:14). In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble; i.e. this is the case when, etc. The hands and arms are appropriately called the keepers of the house, for with them (as Volek quotes from Galen) man (“arms and guards his body in various ways”). The shaking and palsy of old men’s limbs are thus graphically described. This would be one of the first symptoms discerned by an observer. Taking the alternative interpretation, we should see in these “keepers” the menservants who keep watch before the house. These menials are appalled by the approach of the tempest, and quake. And the strong men shall bow themselves. The “men of power” are the legs, or the bones generally, which in the young are “as pillars of marble” (So Ecc 5:15), but in the old become feeble, slack, and bent. Delitzsch quotes 3 Macc. 4:5, where we read of a multitude of old men being driven mercilessly, “stooping from age, and dragging their feet heavily along.” In this clause it is this stooping and bending of the body that is noticed, when men are no longer upright in stature, “swifter than eagles,” “stronger than lions” (2Sa 1:23; 1Ch 12:8), fit for war and active employment. It is therefore less appropriate to see in the “keepers” the legs, and in the “strong men” the arms. Otherwise, the latter are the masters, the wealthy and noble, in contradistinction to the menials before mentioned: both lords and servants are equally terrified at the approach of the tempest, or, as Wright would say, at the touch of the sickly season (see on verse 2). And the grinders cease because they are few. The word for “grinders” is feminine, doubtless because grinding was especially women’s business (Mat 24:41). By them are meant the teeth, as we speak of molars, though, of course, the term here applies to all the teeth; so the Greeks used the term for the dentes molares. These, becoming few in number and no longer continuous, cannot perform their office. Otherwise, the grinding-women leave their work or pause in their labors at the approach of the storm, though one does not quite see why they should be fewer than usual, unless the sickly season has prostrated most of their companions, or that many are too frightened to ply their task. Having, therefore, harder work than usual, they stop at times to recruit themselves. But the analogy rather breaks down here; one would be inclined to suppose that their decreased numbers would make them apply themselves more assiduously to their necessary occupation. As the “keepers” in the former part of the verse were slaves, so these grinders are slaves, such occupation being the lowest form of service (see Exo 11:5; Jdg 16:21; Job 31:10). Those that look out of the windows be darkened. These are the eyes that look forth from the cavities in which they are sunk; they are regarded as the windows of the bodily structure, the eyelashes or eyelids possibly being deemed the lattice of the same. Plumptre cites Cicero, ‘ De Nat. Deer.,’ 2.140: “Sensus interpretes ac nuntii return, in capite, tamquam in arce, mirifice ad usus necessaries et facti et collocati sunt. Nam oculi, tamquam speculatores, altissimum locum obtinent; ex quo plurima conspicientes, fungantur sue munere.” The dimness in the eye and the failing in the powers of sight are well expressed by the terms of the text. It is noted of Moses, as something altogether abnormal, that at a hundred and twenty years of age “his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deu 34:7). Taking the alternative interpretation, we must regard those that look out of the windows as the ladies of the house, who have no menial work to do, and employ their time in gazing idly from the lattices (comp. Jdg 5:28; 2Sa 6:16; Pro 7:6). These “are darkened,” they are terror-stricken, their faces gather blackness (Joe 2:6), or they retire into corners in terror of the storm. These women are parallel to “the strong men” mentioned above; so that the weather affects all of every classmen-servants and maidservants, lords and ladies.

Ecc 12:4

The doors shall be shut in the streets. Hitherto the symbolism has been comparatively easy to interpret. With this verse inextricable difficulties seem to arise. Of course, in one view it is natural that in the bitter weather, or on the appearance of a tempest, the doors towards the street should be closed, and none should leave the house. But what are meant by the doors in the metaphorical house, the body of the aged man? Jewish expositors understood them to be the pores, or excretive apertures of the body, which lose their activity in old agewhich seems an unseemly allusion. Plumptre will have them to be the organs which carry on the processes of sensation and nutrition from the beginning to the end; but it seems a forced metaphor to call these “double-doors.” More natural is it to see in the word, with its dual form, the mouth closed by the two lips. So a psalmist speaks of the mouth, the door of the lips (Psa 141:3; comp. Mic 7:5). As it is only the external door of a house that could be employed in this metaphor, the addition, “in [or, ‘towards’] the streets,” is accounted for. When the sound of the grinding is low. The sound of the grinding or the mill is weak and low when the teeth have ceased to masticate, and, instead of the crunching and grinding of food, nothing is heard but a munching and sucking. The falling in of the mouth over the toothless gums is represented as the closing of doors. To take the words in their literal sense is to make the author repeat himself, reiterating what he is supposed to have said before in speaking of the grinding-womenall labor is lessened or stopped. The sound of grinding betokened cheerfulness and prosperity; its cessation would be an ominous sign (see Jer 25:10; Rev 18:22). Another interpretation considers this clause to express the imperfect vocal utterance of the old man; but it is hardly likely that the author would call speech “the voice of the grinding,” or of the mill, as a metaphor for “mouth.” And he shall rise up at the voice of the bird. This is a very difficult sentence, and has been very variously explained. It is usually taken to mean that the old man sleeps lightly and awakes at the chirrup of a bird. The objection to this interpretation is that it destroys the figurative character of the description, introducing suddenly the personal subject. Of course, it has another signification in the picture of the terror-stricken household; and many interpreters who thus explain the allegory translate the clause differently. Thus Ginsburg renders, “The swallow rises to shriek,” referring to the habits of that bird in stormy weather. But there are grammatical objections to this translation, as there are against another suggestion, “The bird (of ill omen) raises its voice.” We need not do more than refer to the mystical elucidation which detects here a reference to the resurrection, the voice of the bird being the archangel’s trumpet which calls the dead from their graves. Retaining the allegory, we must translate the clause, “He [or, ‘it,’ i.e. the voice] rises to the bird’s voice;” the old man’s voice becomes a “childish treble,” like the piping of a little bird. The relaxation of the muscles of the larynx and other vocal organs occasions a great difference in the pitch or power of tone (compare what Hezekiah says, Isa 38:14, “Like a crane or a swallow so did I chatter,” though there it is the low murmur of sorrow and complaint that is meant). And all the daughters of music shall be brought low. “The daughters of song” are the organs of speech, which ere now humbled and fail, so that the man cannot sing a note. Some think that the ears are meant, as St. Jerome writes, Et obsurdescent omnes filiae carminis, which may have some such notion. Others arrive at a similar signification from manipulation of the verb, thus eliciting the senseThe sounds of singing-women or song-birds are dulled and lowered, are only heard as a faint, unmeaning murmur. This exposition rather contradicts what had preceded, viz. that the old man is awoke by the chirrup of a sparrow; for his ears must be very sensitive to be thus easily affected; unless, indeed, the “voice of the bird” is merely a note of time, equivalent to early cock-crowing. We must not omit Wright’s explanation, though it does not commend itself to our mind. He makes a new stanza begin here: “When one rises at the voice of the bird,” and sees here a description of the approach of spring, as if the poet said, “When the young and lusty are enjoying the return of genial weather, and the concert of birds with which no musician can compete, the aged, sick in their chambers, are beset with fears and are sinking fast.” We fail altogether to read this meaning in our text, wherein we recognize only a symbolical representation of the old man’s vocal powers. It is obvious to cite Juvenal’s minute and painful description of old age in ‘Sat.,’ 10.200, etc; and Shakespeare’s lines in ‘As You Like It’ (act 2. sc. 7), where the reference to the voice is very striking-

“His big, manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.”

Cox paraphrases, “The song-birds drop silently into their nests,” alarmed at the tempest.

Ecc 12:5

Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high. There is no “when” in the original, which runs, “Also, or yea, they fear on high.” “They” are old men, or, like the French on, “people” indefinitely; and the clause says that they find difficulty in mounting an ascent, as the Vulgate renders, Excelsa quoque timebant. Shortness of breath, asthmatic tendencies, failure of muscular power, make such an exertion arduous and burdensome, just as in the previous verse a similar cause rendered singing impossible. The description is now arriving at the last stage, and allegorizing the closing scene. The steep ascent is the via dolorosa, the painful process of dying, from which the natural man shrinks; for as the gnome says

“None dotes on life more than the aged man.”

The old man is going on the appointed road, and fears shall be in the way; or, all sorts of fears (plural of intensity) are in the path; as in his infirm condition tie can walk nowhere without danger of meeting with some accident, so analogously, as he contemplates his end and the road he has to travel, “fearfulness and trembling come upon him, and horror overwhelms him” (Psa 55:5). Plumptre sees in these clauses a further adumbration of the inconveniences of old age, how that the decrepit man makes mountains of mole-hills, is full of imaginary terrors, always forecasting sad events, and so on; but this does not carry on the picture to the end which the poet has now in view, and seems tame and commonplace. The supporters of the storm-theory explain the passage as denoting the fears of the people at what is coming from on highthe gathering tempest, these fears extending to those on the highway,which is feeble. And the almond tree shall flourish; or, is in blossom. The old man is thus figured from the observed aspect of this tree. It blossoms in winter upon a leafless stem, and its flowers, at first of a pale pink color, turn to a snowy whiteness as they fall from the branches. The tree thus becomes a fit type of the arid, torpid-looking old man with his white hair. So Wright quotes Virgil, ‘AEneid,’ 5.416

“Temporibus geminis canebat sparsa senectus;”

though there the idea is rather of mingled black and grey hair than of ahead of snowy whiteness. Canon Tristram, referring to the usual version of this clause, adds, “But the better interpretation seems to be, that as the almond blossom ushers in the spring, so do the signs referred to in the context indicate the hastening (shaked, ‘almond,’ meaning also ‘hasten’) of old age and death.” Plumptre adopts the notion that the name of the tree is derived from a stem meaning “to watch,” and that thus it may be called the early-waking tree (see Jer 1:11), the enigmatic phrase describing the wakefulness that often attends old age. But this seems a refinement by no means justified by the use of the word. Others find in the verb the signification “to disdain, loathe,” and explain that the old man has lost his taste for almond nuts, which seems to be an unnecessary observation after the previous allusions to his toothless condition, the cracking and eating of such things requiring the grinders to be in perfect order. The versions are unanimous in translating the clause as the Authorized Version. Thus the Septuagint, : Vulgate, fiorebit amygdalus. (So Verier. and the Syriac.) Wright takes this clause and the next to indicate the opening of spring, when nature reawakens from its winter sleep, and the dying man can no longer respond to the call or enjoy the happy season. The expositors who adhere to the notion of the storm would translate, “the almond shall be rejected,” alluding to fear taking away appetite; but the rendering is faulty. And the grasshopper shall he a burden. Chagab, rendered “grasshopper” here and Le 11:22; Num 13:33, etc; is rightly translated “locust” in 2Ch 7:15. It is one of the smaller species of the insect, as is implied by its use in Isa 40:22, where from the height of heaven the inhabitants of earth are regarded as chagabim. The clause is usually explained to mean that the very lightest burden is troublesome to old age, or that the hopping and chirping of these insects annoy the querulous senior. But who does not see the incongruity of expressing the disinclination for labor and exertion by the figure of finding a grasshopper too heavy to carry? Who would think of carrying a grasshopper? Plumptre, who discovers Greek allusions in the most unlikely places, sees here an intimation of the writer’s acquaintance with the Athenians’ custom of wearing a golden grasshopper on their heads as a token that they were autochthones, “sprung from the soil.” Few will be disposed to concur with this opinion. Ginsburg and others consider that Koheleth is regarding the locust as an article of food, which it was and still is in the East (Le 11:21, 22; Mat 3:4). In some places it is esteemed a great delicacy, and is cooked and prepared in a variety of ways. So here the writer is supposed to mean that dainties shall tempt in vain; even the much-esteemed locust shall be loathed. But we cannot imagine this article of food, which indeed was neither general nor at all seasons procurable, being singled out as an appetizing esculent. The solution of the enigma must be sought elsewhere. The Septuagint gives, : the Vulgate, imping, uabitur locusts, “the locust grows fat. Founded on this rendering is the opinion which considers that under this figure is depicted the corpulence or dropsical swelling that sometimes accompanies advanced life. But this morbid and abnormal condition could not be introduced into a typical description of the usual accompaniments of age, even if the verb could be rightly translated as the Greek and Latin versions give it, which is more than doubtful. Delitzsch, after some Jewish interpreters, considers that under the term “locust” is meant the loins or hips, or caput femoris, which is thus named” because it includes in itself the mechanism which the two-membered foot for springing, placed at an acute angle, presents in the locust.” The poet is thought to allude to the loss of elasticity in the hips and the inability to bear any weight. We cannot agree to the propriety of this artificial explanation, which seems to have been invented to account for the expressions in the text, rather than to be founded on fact. But though we reject this elucidation of the figure, we think Delitzsch and some others are right in taking the verb in the sense of “to move heavily, to crawl along.” “The locust crawls,” i.e. the old man drags his limbs heavily and painfully along, like the locust just hatched in early spring, and as yet not furnished with wings, which makes it8 way clumsily and slowly. The analogy derives another feature from the fact, well attested, that the appearance of the locust was synchronous with the days considered most fatal to old people, namely, the seven at the end of January and the beginning of February. So we now have the figure of the old man with his snow-white hair, panting and gasping, creeping painfully to his grave. One more trait is added. And desire shall fail. The word rendered “desire” () is found nowhere else in the Old Testament, and its meaning is disputed. The Authorized Version has adopted the rendering of some of the Jewish commentators (and that of Venet; ), but, according to Delitzsch, the feminine form of the noun precludes the notion of an abstract quality, and the etymology on which it rests is doubtful. Nor would it be likely that, having employed symbolism hitherto throughout his description, the writer would suddenly drop metaphor and speak in unfigurative language. We are, therefore, driven to rely for its meaning on the old versions, which would convey the traditionary idea. The Septuagint gives, , and so the Vulgate, capparis, by which is designated the caper tree or berry, probably the same as the hyssop, which is found throughout the East, and was extensively used as a provocative of appetite, a stimulant and restorative. Accordingly, the writer is thought here to be intimating that even stimulants, such as the caper, affect the old man no longer, cannot give zest to or make him enjoy his food. Here, again, the figurative is dropped, and a literal, unvarnished fact is stated, which mars the perfection of the picture. But the verb here used (parar) is capable of another signification, and is often found in the unmetaphorical sense of “breaking” or “bursting;” so the clause will run, “and the caper berry bursts.” Septuagint, : Vulgate, dissipabitur capparis. The fruit of this plant, when overripe, bursts open and falls offa fit image of the dissolution of the aged frame, now ripe for the tomb, and showing evident tokens of decay. By this interpretation the symbolism is maintained, which perhaps is further illustrated by the fact that the fruit hangs down and droops from the end of long stalks, as the man bows his head and stoops his back to meet the coming death. Because (ki) man goeth to his long home. This and the following clause are parenthetical, Isa 40:6 resuming the allegory. It is as though Koheleth saidSuch is the way, such are the symptoms, when decay and death are approaching; all these things happen, all these signs meet the eye, at such & period. “His long home;” , “to the house of his eternity,” “his everlasting habitation,” i.e. the grave, or Hades. There is a similar expression in Tobit 3:6, , which in the Hebrew editions of that book is given as, “Gather me to my father, to the house appointed for all living,” with which Canon Churton (in lot.) compares Job 10:21; Job 30:23. So Psa 49:11 (according to many versions), “Their graves are their houses for ever.” The of Luk 16:9 are a periphrasis for life in heaven. Diodorus Siculus notes that the Egyptians used the terms , and of Hades (2. 51; 1. 93). The expression, “domus eterna,” appears at Rome on tombs, as Plumptre observes, both in Christian and non-Christian inscriptions; and the Assyrians name the world or state beyond the grave “the house of eternity” (‘Records of the Past,’ 1.143). From the expression in the text nothing can be deduced concerning Koheleth’s eschatological views. He is speaking here merely phenomenally. Men live their little span upon the earth, and then go to what in comparison of this is an eternity. Much of the difficulty about , etc; would be obviated if critics would remember that the meaning of such words is conditioned by the context, that e.g. “everlasting” applied to a mountain and to God cannot be understood in the same, sense. And the mourners go about the streets. This can hardly mean that the usual funeral rites have begun; for the death is not conceived as having already taken place; this is reserved for verse. 7. Nor can it, therefore, refer to the relations and friends who are sorrowing for the departed. The persons spoken of must be the mourners who are hired to play and sing at funerals (see 2Sa 3:31; Jer 9:17; Jer 34:5; Mat 9:23). These were getting ready to ply their trade, expecting hourly the old man’s death. So the Romans had their praeficae, and persons “qui conducti plorant in funere”.

Ecc 12:6

Or ever; i.e. before, ere (ad asher lo). The words recall us to Ecc 12:1 and Ecc 12:2, bidding the youth make the best use of his time ere old age cuts him off. In the present paragraph the final dissolution is described under two figures. The silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken. This is evidently one figure, which would be made plainer by reading “and” instead of “or,” the idea being that the lamp is shattered by the snapping of the cord that suspended it from the roof. But there are some difficulties in the closer explanation of the allegory. The “bowl” (gullah) is the reservoir of oil in a lamp (see Zec 4:3, Zec 4:4), which supplies nourishment to the flame; when this is broken or damaged so as to be useless, the light, of course, is extinguished. The Septuagint calls it : the Vulgate, vitta aurea, “the golden fillet,” or flower ornament on a column, which quite sinks the notion of a light being quenched. The “cord” is that by which the lamp is hung in a tent or a room. But of what in man are these symbols? Many fanciful interpretations have been given. The “silver cord” is the spine, the nerves generally, the tongue; the “golden bowl” is the head, the membrane of the brain, the stomach. But these anatomical details are not to be adopted; they have little to recommend them, and are incongruous with the rest of the parable. The general break-up of life is here delineated, not the progress of destruction in certain organs or parts of the human frame. The cord is what we should call the thread of life, on which hangs the body lit by the animating soul; when the connection between these is severed, the latter perishes, like a fallen lamp lying crushed on the ground. In this our view the cord is the living power which keeps the corporeal substance from failing to ruin; the bowl is the body itself thus upheld. The mention of gold and silver is introduced to denote the preciousness of man’s life and nature. But the analogy must not be pressed in all possible details. It is like the parables, where, if defined and examined too closely, incongruities appear. We should be inclined to make more of the lamp and the light and the oil, which are barely inferred in the passage, and endeavor to explain what these images import. Koheleth is satisfied with the general figure which adumbrates the dissolution of the material fabric by the withdrawal of the principle of life. What is the immediate cause of this dissolution, injury, paralysis, etc; is not handled; only the rupture is noticed and its fatal result. Another image to the same effect, though pointing to a different process, is added Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or (and) the wheel broken at (in) the cistern. The picture here is a deep well or cistern with an apparatus for drawing water; this apparatus consists of a wheel or windlass with a rope upon it, to which is attached a bucket; the wheel fails, falls into the well, the bucket is dashed to pieces, and no water can be drawn. It is best to regard the two clauses as intended to convey one idea, as the two at the beginning of the verse were found to do. Some commentators, not so suitably, distinguish between the two, making the former clause say that the pitcher is broken on its road to or from the spring, and the latter that the draw-wheel gives way. The imagery, points to one notion which would be weakened by being divided into two. The motion of the bucket, the winding up and down, by which water is drawn from the well, is an emblem of the movements of the heart, the organs of respiration, etc. When these cease to act, life is extinct. The fraction of the cord and the demolition of the bowl denoted the separation of soul and body; the breaking of the pitcher and the destruction of the wheel signify the overthrow of the bodily organs by which vital motion is diffused and maintained, and the man lives. The expressions in the text remind one of the term, “earthen vessel,” applied by St. Paul (2Co 4:7) to the human body; and “the fountain of life,” “the water of life.” so often mentioned in Holy Scripture as typical of the grace of God and the blessedness of life with him (see Psa 36:9; Pro 13:14; Joh 4:10, Joh 4:14; Rev 21:6).

Ecc 12:7

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; rather, and the dust return, etc.the sentence begun above being still carried on to the end of the verse. Here we are told what becomes of the complex man at death, and are thus led to the explanation of the allegorical language used throughout. Without metaphor now it is stated that the material body, when life is extinct, returns to that matter out of which it was originally made (Gen 2:7; Gen 3:19; comp. Job 34:15; Psa 104:29). So Siracides calls man “dust and ashes,” and asserts that all things that are of the earth turn to the earth again (Ecclesiasticus 10:9; 40:11). Soph; ‘Electra,’ 1158

“Instead of thy dear form,
Mere dust and idle shadow.”

Corn. Lapide quotes a remarkable parallel given by Plutarch from Epicharmus,” Life is compounded and broken up, and again goes whence it came; earth indeed to earth, and the spirit to upper regions.” And the spirit shall return unto God who gave it; or, for the spiritthe clause being no longer subjunctive, but speaking indicatively of fact. In the first clause the preposition “to” is , in the second , as if to mark the distinction between the downward and the upward way. The writer now rises superior to the doubts expressed in Ecc 3:21 (where see note), “Who knoweth the spirit of man, whether it goeth upward,” etc.? It is not that he contradicts himself in the two passages, as some suppose, and have hence regarded Ecc 3:7 as an interpolation; but that after all discussion, after expressing the course of his perplexities, and the various phases of his thought, he comes to the conclusion that there is a future for the individual soul, and that it shall be brought into immediate connection with a personal God. There is here no thought of its being absorbed in the anima mundi, in accordance with the heathen view, which, if it believed dimly in an immortality, denied the personality of the soul. Nor have we any opinion given concerning the adverse doctrines of creationism and traducianism, though the terms used are most consistent with the former. God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life; when this departs, he who gave receives it; God “gathereth in” man’s breath (Psa 104:29). The clause, taken in this restricted sense, would say nothing about the soul, the personal “I;” it would merely indicate the destination of the vital breath; and many critics are content to see nothing more in the words. But surely this would be a feeble conclusion of the author’s wanderings; rather the sentence signifies that death, releasing the spirit, or soul, from the earthly tabernacle, places it in the more immediate presence of God, there, as the Targum paraphrases the passage, returning to stand in judgment before its Creator.

Ecc 12:8

It has been much questioned whether this verse is the conclusion of the treatise or the commencement of the epilogue. For the latter conclusion it is contended that it is only natural that the beginning of the final summing-up should start with the same words as the opening of the book (Ecc 1:2); and that thus the conjunction “and,” with which Ecc 12:9 begins, is readily explained. But the treatise is more artistically completed by regarding this solemn utterance as the conclusion of the whole, ending with the same burden with which it beganthe nothingness of earthly things. Koheleth has labored to show this, he has pursued the thought from beginning to end, through all circumstances and conditions, and he can only re-echo his melancholy refrain. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher. He does not follow the destiny of the immortal spirit; it is not his purpose to do so; his theme is the fragility of mortal things, their unsatisfying nature, the impossibility of their securing man’s happiness: so his voyage lands him at the point whence he set forth, though he has learned and taught faith in the interval. If all is vanity, there is behind and above all a God of inflexible justice, who must do right, and to whom we may safely trust our cares and perplexities. Koheleth,” Preacher,“ here has the article, the Koheleth, as if some special reference was made to the meaning of the namehe who has been debating, or haranguing, or gathering together, utters finally his careful verdict. This is the sentence of the ideal Solomon, who has given his experiences in the preceding pages.

Ecc 12:9-14

THE EPILOGUE. This contains some observations commendatory of the author, explaining his standpoint and the object of the book, the great conclusion to which it leads.

Ecc 12:9-11

Koheleth as teacher of wisdom.

Ecc 12:9

And moreover; ; ; rather, with the following , besides that. The Preacher was wise. If we render “because the Preacher was wise,” we are making an unnecessary statement, as the whole book has demonstrated this fact, which goes without saying. What the writer here asserts is that Koheleth did not merely possess wisdom, but had made good use of it for the instruction of others. The author throws aside his disguise, and speaks of his object in composing the book, with a glance at the historical Solomon whom he had personated. That he uses the third person in relation to himself is nothing uncommon in historical memoirs, etc. Thus Daniel writes; and St. John, Thucydides, Xenophon, Caesar, mask their personality by dropping their identity with the author (comp. also Ecc 1:2; Ecc 7:27). The attestation that follows is compared with that at the end of St. John’s Gospel (Joh 21:24), and is plainly intended to confirm the authority of the writer, and to enforce on the hearer the conviction that, though Solomon himself did not compose the work, it has every claim to receive attention, and possesses intrinsic value. He still taught the people knowledge. As well as being esteemed one of the company of sages, he further (od) took pains to instruct his contemporaries, to apply his wisdom to educational purposes. Yea, he gave good heed; literally, he weighed (like our word “ponder”); only thus used in this passage. It denotes the careful examination of every fact and argument before it was presented to the public. Sought out, and set in order many proverbs. There is no copula in the original; the weighing and the investigation issued in the composition of “proverbs,” which term includes not only the wit and wisdom of past ages in the form of pithy sayings and apophthegms, but also parables, truths in metaphorical guise, riddles, instructions, allegories, etc; all those forms which are found in the canonical Book of Proverbs. The same word (mishle) is used here as in the title of that book. Koheleth, however, is not necessarily referring to that work (or to 1Ki 4:29, etc.), or implying that he himself wrote it; he is only putting forth his claim to attention by showing his patient assiduity in the pursuit of wisdom, and how that he adopted a particular method of teaching. For the idea contained in the verb taqan, “to place or make straight” (Ecc 1:15; Ecc 7:13), applied to literary composition, Delitzsch compares the German word for” author” (Schriftsteller). The notion of the mashal being similitude, comparison, the writer’s pondering and searching were needed to discover hidden analogies, and, by means of the known and familiar, to lead up to the more obscure and abstruse. The Septuagint has a curious and somewhat unintelligible rendering, , “And the ear will trace out the order of parables,” which Schleusner translates, “elegantes parabolas.”

Ecc 12:10

The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words; literally, words of delight; ; verba utilia (Vulgate); so Aquila, . The word chephets, “pleasure,” occurs in Ecc 5:4; Ecc 12:1. Thus we have “stones of pleasure” (Isa 54:12). He added the grace of refined diction to the solid sense of his utterances. Plumptre reminds us of the “gracious words” ( , Luk 4:22) which proceeded from the mouth of him who, being the Incarnate Wisdom of God, was indeed greater than Solomon. On the necessity of a work being attractive as well as conforming to literary rules, Horace long ago wrote (‘Ars Poet.,’ 99)

“Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto,
Et quoeunque volent animum auditoris agunto.”

“‘Tis not enough that poems faultless be,
And fair; let them be tender too, and draw
The hearer by the cord of sympathy.”

St. Augustine is copious on this subject in his treatise, ‘De Doctr. Christ.;’ thus (4:26): “Proinde ilia tria, ut intelligant qui audiunt, ut delectentur, ut obediant, etiam in hoc genere agendum est, ubi tenet delectatio principatum . Sed quis movetur, si nescit quod dicitur? Ant quis tenetur ut audiat, si non delectatur?” And that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The Authorized Version, with its interpolations, does not accurately convey the sense of the original. The sentence is to be regarded as containing phrases in apposition to the “acceptable words” of the first clause; thus: “Koheleth sought to discover words of pleasure, and a writing in sincerity, words of truth. ‘The Septuagint has, , “a writing of uprightness;” Vulgate, et conscripsit sermones rectissimos. The meaning is that what he wrote had two characteristicsit was sincere, that which he really thought and believed, and it was true objectively. If any reader was disposed to cavil, and to depreciate the worth of the treatise because it was not the genuine work of the celebrated Solomon, the writer claims attention to his production on the ground of its intrinsic qualities, as inspired by the same wisdom which animated his great predecessor.

Ecc 12:11

The words of the wise are as goads. The connection of this verse with the preceding is maintained by the fact that the “acceptable words,” etc; are words of the wise, emanate from the same persons. Herewith he proceeds to characterize them, with especial reference to his own work. The goad was a rod with an iron spike, or sharpened at the end, used in driving oxen (see Jdg 3:31; 1Sa 13:21; Ecclesiasticus 38:25; Act 9:5). Words of wisdom are called goads because they rouse to exertion, promote reflection and action, restrain from error, impel to right; if they hurt and sting, the pain which they inflict is healthful, for good and not for evil. And as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies. The proposition “by” is an interpolation, and the sentence should run: Ant/ like nails fastened [are] the, etc.masmeroth, “nails,” as in Isa 41:7. There is much difficulty in explaining the next words, (baale asuppoth). We have had similar expressions applied to possessors in Ecc 10:11, “lord of the tongue,” and “lord of wings” (Ecc 10:20); and analogy might lead us to apply the phrase here to-persons, and not things; but in Isa 41:15 we find a threshing-instrument termed “lord of teeth;” and in 2Sa 5:20 a town is called Baal-Perazim, “Lord of breaches;” so we must be guided by other considerations in our exposition. The Septuagint, taking the whole sentence together, and regarding baals as a preposition, renders, “As nails firmly planted, ( ) which from the collections were given from one shepherd.” Schleusher takes to mean, “Ii quibus munus datum erat collectionem faciendi,” i.e. the author, of collections. The Vulgate has, Verba quae per magistrorum consilium data sunt a pastore uno. The “masters of assemblies” can only be the chiefs of some learned conclaves, like the great synagogue supposed to exist in the time of Ezra and later. The clause would then assert that these pundits are like fastened nails, which seems rather unmeaning. One might say that their uttered sentiments became fixed in the mind as nails firmly driven in, but one could not properly say this of the men themselves. A late editor, Gietmann, suggests that “lords of collection” may mean “brave men, heroes, gathered in line of battle,” serried ranks, just as in Pro 22:20 the term shalishim, chariot-fighters, chieftains, is applied to choice proverbs. Thus he would say that the words of the wise are as goads because they stimulate the intellect, as nails because they readily find entrance, and like men in battle array when they are reduced to writing and marshaled in a book. This is certainly ingenious, but somewhat too artificial to be regarded as the genuine intention of the writer. It seems best to take the word translated “assemblies” as denoting collections, not of people, but of proverbs; and the compound phrase would thus mean proverbs of an excellent character, the best of their sort gathered together in writing. Such words are well compared to nails; they are no longer floating loosely about, they are fixed in the memory, they secure other knowledge, and, though they are separate utterances, they have a certain unity and purpose. Nails are often used proverbially as emblems of what is fixed and unalterable. Thus AEschyl; ‘Suppl.,’ 944

“Through them a nail is firmly fixed, that they
May rest immovable.”

Cicero, ‘Verr.,’ 2.5.21, “Ut hoc beneficium, quemadmodum dicitur, trabali clave figeret;” i.e. to make it sure and steadfast (comp. Horace, ‘Carm.,’ 1.35. 17, et seq.). Which are given from one shepherd. All these words of the wise, collections, etc; proceed from one source, or are set forth by one authority. Who is] this shepherd? Some say that he is the archisynagogus, the president of the assemblies of wise men, to whose authority all these public utterances are subjected. But we do not know that such supervision existed or was exercised at the time when Koheleth wrote; and, as we saw above, there is probably no reference to any such assemblies in the passage. The “one shepherd” is doubtless Jehovah, who is called the Shepherd of Israel, who feeds his people like a flock, etc. (see Gen 48:15; Gen 49:24; Psa 23:1; Psa 80:1, etc.). The appellation is here used as concinnous with the thought of the ox-goad, intimating that God watches and leads his people like a tender shepherd and a skilful farmer. This is an important claim to inspiration. All these varied utterances, whatever form they take, whether his own or his predecessor’s, are outcomes of wisdom, and proceed from him who is only wise, Almighty God. It is no disparagement of this work to imply that it is not the production of the true Solomon; Koheleth is ready to avow himself the writer, and yet claims a hearing as being equally moved by heavenly influence. It is like St. Paul’s assertion (1Co 7:40), “I think that I also have the Spirit of God.”

Ecc 12:12-14

The author warns against profitless study, and gives the final conclusion to which the whole discussion leads.

Ecc 12:12

And further, by these, my son, be admonished; rather, and what is more than these, be warned. Besides all that has been said, take this additional and important caution, viz. what follows. The clause, however, has been differently interpreted, as if it said, “Do not attempt to go beyond the words of the sages mentioned above; or, “Be content with my counsels; they will suffice for your instruction.” This seems to be the meaning of the Authorized Version. The personal address, “my son,” so usual in the Book of Proverbs, is used by Koheleth in this place alone. It does not necessarily imply relationship (as if the pseudo-Solomon was appealing to Rehoboam), but rather the condition of pupil and learner, sitting at the feet of his teacher and friend. Of malting many books there is no end. This could not be said in the time of the historical Solomon, even if we reckon his own voluminous works (1Ki 4:32, 1Ki 4:33); for we know of no other writers of that date, and it is tolerably certain that none existed in Palestine. But we need not suppose that Koheleth is referring to extraneous heathen productions, of which, in our view, there is no evidence that he possessed any special knowledge. Doubtless many thinkers in his time had treated of the problems discussed in his volume in a far different manner from that herein employed, and it seemed good to utter a warning against the unprofitable reading of such productions. Juvenal speaks of the insatiable passion for writing in his day (‘Sat.,’ 7.51)

“Tenet insanabile multos
Scribendi cacoethes et aegro in corde senestit;”

which Dryden renders

“The charms of poetry our souls bewitch;
The curse of writing is an endless itch.”

As in taking food it is not the quantity which a man eats, but what he digests and assimilates, that nourishes him, so in reading, the rule, Non multa, sed multum, must be observed; the gorging the literary appetite on food wholesome or not impedes the healthy mental process, and produces no intellectual growth or strength. The obvious lesson drawn by spiritual writers is that Christians should make God’s Word their chief study, “turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called” (1Ti 6:20). For as St. Augustine says (‘De Doctr. Christ.’), “Whereas in Holy Scripture you will find everything which has been profitably said elsewhere, to a far greater extent you will therein find what has been nowhere else enunciated, but which has been taught solely by the marvelous sublimity and the equally marvelous humility of the Word of God.” Much study is a weariness of the flesh. The two clauses in the latter part of the verse are co-ordinate. Thus the Septuagint, (“weariness”) . The word for “study” (lahag) is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament, nor in the Talmud, but the above meaning is sustained by its connection with an Arabic word signifying “to be eager for.” The Vulgate renders it meditatio. You may weary your brain, exhaust your strength, by protracted study or meditation on many books, but you will not necessarily thereby gain any insight into the problems of the universe or guidance for daily life. Marcus Aurelius dissuades from much reading: “Would you examine your whole composition?” he says; “pray, then let your library alone; what need you puzzle your thoughts and over-grasp yourself?” Again, “As for books, never be over-eager about them; such a fondness for reading will be apt to perplex your mind, and make you die unpleased” (‘Medit.,’ 2.2, 3, Collier). So Ben-Sira affirms, “The finding out of parables is a wearisome Labor of the mind” (Ecclesiasticus 13:26).

Ecc 12:13

The teaching of the whole book is now gathered up in two weighty sentences. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. The Revised Version gives, This is the end of the matter; all hath been heard. The Septuagint has, , “The end of the matter, the sum, hear thou;” Vulgate, Finem loquendi pariter omnes audiamus. Another rendering is suggested, “The conclusion of the matter is this, that [God] taketh knowledge of all things;” literally, “everything is heard.” Perhaps the passage is best translated, The end of the matter, when all is heard, is this. The first word of this verse, soph, “end,” is printed in the Hebrew text in large characters, in order to draw attention to the importance of what is coming. And its significance is rightly estimated. These two verses guard against very possible misconception, and give the author’s real and mature conclusion. When this is received, all that need be said has been uttered. Fear God (ha-Elohim), and keep his commandments. This injunction is the practical result of the whole discussion. Amid the difficulties of the moral government of the world, amid the complications of society, varying and opposing interests and claims, one duty remained plain and unchangingthe duty of piety and obedience. For this is the whole duty of man. The Hebrew is literally, “This is every man,” which is explained to mean, “This is every man’s duty.” Septuagint, : Vulgate, Hoc est enim omnis homo. For this man was made and placed in the world; this is his real object, the chief good which he has to seek, and which alone will secure contentment and happiness. The obligation is put in the most general terms as applicable to the whole human family; for God is not the God of the Jews only, but of Gentiles also (Rom 3:29).

Ecc 12:14

The great duty just named is here grounded upon the solemn truth of a future judgment. For God shall bring every work into judgment. It will then be seen whether this obligation has been ‘attended to or not. The judgment has already been mentioned (Ecc 11:9); it is here more emphatically set forth as a certain fact and a strong motive power. The old theory of earthly retribution had been shown to break down under the experience of practical life; the anomalies which perplexed men’s minds could only be solved and remedied by a future judgment under the eye of the omniscient and unerring God. With every secret thing. The Syriac adds, “and manifest thing.” The Septuagint renders, “with everything that has been overlooked”a very terrible, but true, thought. The doctrine that the most secret things shall be revealed in the dies irae is often brought forward in the New Testament, which makes plain the personal nature of this final investigation, which the earlier Scriptures invest with a more general character (see Rom 2:16; Rom 14:12; 1Co 4:5). So this wonderful book closes with the enunciation of a truth found nowhere else so clearly defined in the Old Testament, and thus opens the way to the clearer light shed upon the awful future by the revelation of the gospel.

HOMILETICS

Verse 1

Remember thy Creator.

I. REMEMBER: WHOM? “Thy Creator.” The language implies:

1. That man has a Creator. It would certainly be strange if he had not, seeing that all things else have. And that Creator is not himself, since he is at best a dependent creature (Gen 3:19); or an inferior divinity, since there is none such (2Sa 7:22; Isa 44:6); but

(1) God, the one living and true God (1Th 1:9), the Almighty Maker of the universe (Gen 1:1; Exo 20:11; Psa 124:8; Isa 40:28; Jer 10:16), and therefore of man (Gen 1:26; Deu 4:32; Psa 100:3; Act 17:25, Act 17:26, Act 17:28); and

(2) Jesus Christ, the Image of the invisible God (2Co 4:4; Col 1:15), and the unbeginning Word of God (Joh 1:1), by whom all things were made (Joh 1:3), whether they be things in heaven or on earth, visible or invisible (Col 1:16), and therefore from whom man derives his being.

2. That man originally knows God. That even in his fallen condition he is not entirely destitute of a knowledge of Godnot, perhaps, a knowledge clear and full, but still real and trueappears to be the teaching of Scripture (Rom 1:21, Rom 1:28) as well as of experience, no man ever requiring to argue himself into a belief in God’s existence, though many try to reason themselves out of it.

3. That man may forget God. Moses was afraid lest Israel should be guilty of so doing (Deu 6:12), in which case they would be no better than the heathen peoples around them (Psa 9:17). Practically this is the world’s sin today (1Jn 4:8), and the sin against which Christians have to guard (Heb 3:12). It is specially the sin against which young persons should be warned, that of allowing the thought of God to slip out of their minds.

II. REMEMBER: HOW?

1. By thinking of his Person. A characteristic of the wicked is that God is not in all their thoughts (Psa 10:4); whereas a good man remembers God upon his bed, and meditates upon him in the night watches (Psa 60:3).

2. By reflecting on his character. The Creator being neither an abstract conception nor an inanimate force, but a living and personal Intelligence, he is also possessed of attributes, the sum of which compose his character or name; and one who would properly remember him must frequently permit his thoughts to dwell on these (Psa 20:7), as David (Psa 60:3) and Asaph (Psa 77:3) didon his holiness, his loving-kindness, his faithfulness, his truth, his wisdom, his justice, all of which have been revealed in Jesus Christ, and so made much more easily the subjects of study.

3. By acknowledging his goodness. God’s bounties in providence and mercies in grace must be equally recalled and thankfully retained before the mind, as David aptly said to himself (Psa 103:1, Psa 103:2) and protested before God (Psa 42:6). One who simply accepts God’s daily benefits as the lower animals do, for consumption but not for consideration, is guilty of forgetting God; who knows about, but never pauses to thank God for his unspeakable grace in Christ, comes far short of what is meant by remembering his Creator.

4. By meditating in his Word. Those who lovingly remember God will not forget that he has written to them in the Scriptures words of grace and truth, and will, like the good man of the Hebrew Psalter (Psa 1:2), meditate therein day and night. Where God’s Law, with its wise and holy precepts, is counted as a strange thing (Hos 8:12), no further proof is needed that God himself is forgotten. The surest evidence that “no man remembered the poor wise man” was found in this, that his wisdom was despised, and his words were not heard (Ecc 9:16).

5. By keeping his commandments. As Joseph’s recollection of Jehovah helped him to resist temptation and avoid sin (Gen 39:9), so a sincere and loving remembrance of God will show itself in doing those things that are pleasing in his sight. When Christ asked his disciples to remember him, he meant them to do so, not simply by thinking of and speaking about him, or even by celebrating in his honor a memorial feast (Luk 22:19), but also by doing whatsoever he had commanded them (Joh 15:14).

III. REMEMBER: WHEN? “In the days of thy youth.”

1. Not then only. The remembrance of God is a duty which extends along the whole course of life. No age can be exempted from it, as none is unsuitable for it. The notion that religion, while proper enough for childhood or youth, is neither demanded by nor becoming in manhood, is a delusion. The heart-worship and life-service of God and Jesus Christ are incumbent upon, needed by, and honorable to, old as well as young.

2. But then firstly. The reasons will be furnished below; meantime it may be noticed that Scripture writers may be said to be unanimous in recommending early piety; in teaching that youth, above all other periods, is the season for seeking God. Moses (Deu 31:13), David (Psa 34:11), Solomon (Pro 3:1, Pro 3:2), and Jesus (Mat 6:33) combine to set forth the advantage as well as duty of giving one’s early years to God and religion.

IV. REMEMBER: WHY?

1. Why remember one’s Creator?

(1) Because he is infinitely worthy of being remembered.

(2) Because he is entitled to be remembered on the simple ground of being Creator.

(3) Because without this remembrance of him both happiness is impossible here and salvation hereafter.

(4) Because the human heart is prone to forget him, and remember only either his creatures or his comforts.

2. Why remember him in the way above specified?

(1) Because any remembrance short of that is incomplete, insincere, formal, external, and therefore essentially worthless.

(2) Because the above is the sort of remembrance that is demanded by Scripture.

(3) Because only such remembrance is worthy of being presented to God.

3. Why remember him in youth?

(1) Because youth, as the first portion of a man’s life, is due to God.

(2) Because youth, as the formative period of life, is the most important time for acquiring religious habits (Pro 22:6).

(3) Because youth, as the happiest season in life, is the time in which God can most easily be remembered. Then “the evil days” of business and worry, of temptation and sin, of affliction and sorrow, of disease and decay, have not come; and the soul, besides being comparatively disengaged, is also in a mood for yielding to devout and holy impressions.

(4) Because if God is not remembered in youth he is apt to be forgotten in age.

Learn:

1. The real essence of religionfellowship with God.

2. The dignity of manthat he is capable of such fellowship.

3. The responsibility of youthfor shaping all one’s after-life.

4. The evanescence of earthly joysall doomed to be eclipsed by the darkness of evil days.

Verses 2-8

The last scene of all; or, man goeth to his long home.

I. THE APPROACH OF DEATH.

1. The decay of man’s higher faculties. “Or ever the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain” (verse 2). Accepting the guidance of the best interpreters (Delitzsch, Plumptrefor other interpretations consult the Exposition), we may see:

(1) In the sun an emblem of man’s spirit, elsewhere compared to the lamp of Jehovah (Pro 20:27), and described by Christ as “the light that is in thee” (Mat 6:23), and in its light a symbol of the spirit’s activity of apprehensionthought, memory, imagination, etc.

(2) In the moon a figure for the animal soul, “by means of which the spirit becomes the principle of the life of the body (Gen 2:7),” and which as the weaker vessel (it, according to Hebrew ideas, being regarded as female, while the spirit is male) is comforted by the spirit (Psa 42:6).

(3) In the stars an allegorical representation of the five senses, by which the soul has cognizance of the outer world, and the light of which is dim and feeble in comparison with that of the soul and spirit, or of the reason and intelligence of man.

(4) In the clouds that return after the rain, a materialized picture of those calamities and misfortunes, sicknesses and sorrows, “which disturb the power of thought, obscure the consciousness, and darken the mind,” and which, though leaving man for a while, return again after a season “without permitting him long to experience health” (Delitzsch).

2. The failure of man’s bodily powers. Picturing man’s corporeal frame as a house, the Preacher depicts its ruinous condition as old age approaches.

(1) The keepers of the house tremble. The aged person’s arms, “which bring to the house (of the body) whatever is suitable for it, and keep away from it whatever threatens to do it injury,” now, touched with infirmity, shake, “so that they are able neither to grasp securely, to hold fast and. use, nor actively to keep back and. forcibly avert evil”(Delitzsch).

(2) The strong, men bow themselves. The legs, of young men like marble pillars (Song of Solomon 10:15), are m aged persons loose, feeble, and inclined to stoop.

(3) The grinders, or the grinding-women, cease. That these are the molars, or teeth, which perform the work of mastication, is apparent; so is the reason why they are not now at work, viz. because in aged persons they are few.

(4) Those that look out of the windows are darkened. The eyes, called by Cicero “the windows of the mind” (‘Tusc.,’ 1.20), become dim, and as a consequence the soul’s eyes, which look through the body’s eyes, lose their power of perception.

(5) The doors are shut in the street. These are probably the lips, which in old age are usually closed and drawn, because the teeth have disappeared.

(6) The sound of the grinding is low. The noise made by an old man in mastication is that of a low munching, he being unable any more. to crack, crunch, or break his food.

(7) One rises up at the sound of a bird. So timid and nervous, and so light a sleeper, is the old man, that if even a bird chirps he awakes, and, being put off his rest, is obliged to rise.

(8) The daughters of music are brought low. Not so much the old man’s powers of singing are diminished, his once strong and manly treble having become so feeble and low as to be scarcely audible (Isa 38:14), as the old man, like Barzillai (2Sa 19:35), has now no longer an ear for the voice of singing-men and singing-women, so that to him as a consequence “the daughters of song” must lower their voices, i.e. must retire so as no longer to disturb him, now so feeble as to be “terrified by the twittering of a little bird.”

(9) That which is high causes fear (verse 5). To the old man “even a little hillock appears like a high mountain; and if he has to go a journey he meets something that terrifies him” (Targum, ‘Midrash’). Decrepit old men “do not venture out, for to them a damp road appears like a very morass, a gravelly path as full of neck-breaking hillocks, an undulating path as fearfully steep and precipitous, that which is not shaded as oppressively hot and exhausting” (Delitzsch).

(10) The almond tree blossoms. An emblem of the winter of age, with its silvery white hair.

(11) The grasshopper is a burden, or the grasshopper drags itself along. Either so small a thing as the chirping of a grasshopper annoys the old man (Zockler)the obvious sense of the former clause; or the middle of the body, which in an old man resembles a grasshopper, drags itself along with difficulty (Delitzsch).

(12) The caper-berry fails. The appetite, which this particular condiment is supposed to stimulate, ceases; the stomach can no more by means of it be roused from its dormant and phlegmatic condition. So low and feeble is he that “no quinine or phosphorus can help him now” (Plumptre).

II. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SOUL AND BODY.

1. The loosening of the silver cord, and the breaking of the golden bowl.

(1) The figure. A golden bowl or lamp suspended from the roof of a house or tent by a silver cord, through the sudden snapping of which it, the golden bowl or lamp, is precipitated to the ground, thus extinguishing its light.

(2) The interpretation. If the silver cord be “the soul directing and bearing the body as living,” the lamp or the golden bowl will be “the body animated by the soul and dependent on it” (Delitzsch); or, if the golden bowl be “life as manifested through the body,” then the silver cord will be “that on which the continuance of life depends” (Plumptre); or, again, if the silver cord be the spinal marrow, then the golden bowl will be the brain to which the spinal marrow stands related as silver to gold (Fausset).

2. The breaking of the pitcher at the fountain, and of the wheel at the cistern.

(1) The image. That of a pitcher, which is used for letting down by a rope or chain into a well or fountain, becoming shivered at the fountain’s side through the sudden breaking down of the wheel during the process of drawing water.

(2) The significance. The action of the lungs and the heart, the one of which like a pitcher or bucket, draws in the air-current which sustains life, and the other of which pumps up the blood into the lungs; or the wheel and the pitcher may be the breathing apparatus, and the pitcher at the fountain the heart which raises the blood (Delitzsch).

III. THE DESTINATION OF THE SEVERED PARTS.

1. Of the body. “The dust returns to the earth as it was” (verse 7). As the body came forth from the soil, so to the soil it reverts (Genesis ill 19).

2. Of the soul. “The spirit returns unto God who gave it.” Whatever may have been the Preacher’s opinion at an earlier period (Ecc 3:21), he was now decided as to three things:

(1) that man had, or was, a spirit, as distinguished from a body;

(2) that this spirit, as to origin, proceeded from God (Gen 2:7; Job 32:8); and

(3) that on separating from the body it did not cease to be, but ascended to him from whom it camenot to be reabsorbed into the Divine essence, as if it had originally emanated therefrom, but to preserve in God’s presence an independent existence, as the Targum translates, “The spirit will return to stand in judgment before God who gave it to thee.”

IV. THE LAST TRIBUTE OF AFFECTION. “The mourners go about the streets” (verse 5).

1. Sorrowing for the departed. Probably the Preacher describes either the professional mourners who go about the streets, in anticipation of the dying man’s departure, ready to offer their services the moment he expires (Delitzsch), or the actual procession of such mourners following the dead man’s funeral to its place of sepulture (Plumptre). Still, it is permissible to think of the deceased’s relatives, who, like Abraham mourning for Sarah (Gen 23:2), and Martha and Mary for Lazarus (Joh 11:31), give expression to their sadness by going about the streets in the garb of sorrow.

2. Exciting the sympathy of the living. This is one reason why private griefs are paraded in public. The heart in times of weakness, such as those occasioned by bereavement, instinctively craves the compassion of others, to whom, accordingly, it appeals by the visible cerements of woe.

Learn:

1. The mercy of God as seen in the gradual approach of death.

2. The wisdom of improving the seasons of youth and manhood.

3. The solemn mystery of death.

4. The duty of preparing for a life beyond the grave.

5. The lawfulness of Christian mourning.

Verses 9, 10

A model preacher.

I. A WISE MAN.

1. Possessed of secular knowledge. Gathered as precious spoil from all departments of human learning and experience. As much of this sort of wisdom as possible; the more of it the better. All knowledge can be rendered subservient to the preacher’s art, and may be utilized by him for the instruction of his hearers.

2. Endowed with heavenly wisdom. If that, much more this, is indispensable to an ideal preacher. The wisdom that cometh from above as much superior to that which springeth from below as heaven is higher than earth, and eternity longer than time. A preacher without the former wisdom may be rude; without the latter he must be ineffective.

II. A DILIGENT STUDENT. Like Koheleth, he must ponder, seek out, and set in order the truth he desires to communicate to others; like Timothy, he must give attendance to reading (1Ti 4:13). In particular, he should be a student:

1. Of the sacred Scriptures. These divinely inspired writings, being the principal source of heavenly wisdom accessible to man (2Ti 3:16), should be the preacher’s vade mecum, or constant companion.

2. Of human nature. Having to deal directly with this, in the way of bringing to bear upon it the teachings of Scripture, he ought to acquaint himself accurately with it, by a close and patient study of it in himself and others. Much of a preacher’s efficiency is derived from his knowledge of the audience to which he speaks.

3. Of the material creation. Like Job (Job 37:14), David (Psa 8:3; Psa 143:5), and Koheleth (Ecc 7:13), he should consider the works of God. Besides having much to tell him of God’s glory (Psa 8:1; Rom 1:20), the physical universe can impart to him valuable counsel of a moral kind concerning man and his duties (Job 12:7; Pro 6:6; Mat 5:26).

III. A SKILLFUL TEACHER. AS Koheleth taught the people knowledge, as Ezra caused the people to understand the reading (Neh 8:8), as Christ according to his Word taught such as listened to him (Hark Ezr 10:1), as the apostles taught the things of the Lord to their hearers (Act 4:2; Act 11:26; Act 18:25), so must a model preacher be an instructor (1Ti 3:2; 1Ti 4:11; 1Ti 6:2; 2Ti 2:2). To be this successfully, in addition to the wisdom and study above described, he will need four kinds of words.

1. Words of truth. These must constitute the burden of his discourse, whether oral or written. What he publishes to others must be objectively true, and no mere guesswork or speculation. Such a word of truth was the Law of God in the Hebrew Scriptures (Psa 119:43), and is the gospel or the doctrine of Christ in the New Testament (Eph 1:13; Col 1:5; 2Ti 2:15; Jas 1:18).

2. Words of uprightness. Whether he writes or speaks, he must do so sincerely, with perfect integrity of heart, “not handling the Word of God deceitfully” (2Co 4:2), but teaching out of honest personal conviction, saying, “We believe, therefore do we speak” (2Co 4:13).

3. Words of delight. Selected and intended, not to gratify the heater’s corrupt inclinations and perverted tastes, or minister to that love of novelty and sensation which is the peculiar characteristic of itching ears (2Ti 4:3), but to set forth the truth in such a way as to win for it entrance into the bearer’s heart and mind. For this purpose the preacher’s words should be such as to interest and sway the listener, arresting his attention, exciting his imagination, instructing his understanding, moving his affections, quickening, his conscience, and impelling his will. Dullness, darkness, dryness, deadness, are inexcusable faults in a preacher.

Verses 11, 12

Reading, writing, speaking.

I. “READING MAKES A FULL MAN.”

1. Pushed to excess, it becomes hurtful to the body. “Much study is a weariness to the flesh,” and as a consequence, reflexively, injurious to the mind.

2. Pursued in moderation, it first enlightens the understanding, next quickens the whole spiritual nature, and finally tends to stimulate the health of the body. “A man’s wisdom maketh his face to shine” (Ecc 8:1).

II. “WRITING MAKES A CORRECT MAN.” If professional authorship in the Preacher’s day was a nuisance, much more is it so in ours. Yet in book-writing lie advantages as well as disadvantages. If, on the one band, the multiplication of books often signifies nothing more than an accumulation of literary rubbish, and a terrible infliction to those who must read them, on the other hand it secures the preservation and distribution of much valuable knowledge; while if the knowledge is not valuable, the formal deposition of it in a book, which may be quietly consigned to a library, secures that it shall not roam at large, to the disquieting of peace-loving minds. But, apart from the multiplication of volumes, the habit of setting down one’s thoughts in writing is attended by distinct advantages. It promotes:

1. Clearness of thought. One who intends to write, more especially for the information of his fellows, must know what he purposes to say. The effort of putting one’s ideas on paper imparts to them a definiteness of outline they might not otherwise possess.

2. Order in arrangement. No writer will, voluntarily, fling his thoughts together into a confused heap, but will strive to render them as lucid and luminous as possible. If for no other reason than this, the practice of preparing for public speech by means of writing is to be commended.

3. Brevity in expression. If brevity is the soul of wit, and loquacity the garment of dullness, then the sure way of attaining to the former, and avoiding the latter, is to write.

III. “SPEAKING MAKES A READY MAZE.” “The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails.” Though designed to apply to the wise man’s “written words,” the clause may be accepted as correct also with reference to his “spoken words.” Like the former, the latter are as goads and nails.

1. They stimulate. The words of a practiced speaker, always supposing him to be a wise man, incite the minds and quicken the hearts of his hearer. The true preacher should be progressive, not only in his own discovery of truth, but in conducting his hearers into fresh fields of instruction, leading them out into “regions beyond,” causing them to “forget the things that are behind, and reach forward unto those things that are before,” persuading them to “leave the first principles of Christ, and to go on unto perfection.”

2. They abide. They lodge themselves in the understanding and affections so firmly that they cannot be removed. Facility in arousing and fixing conviction can only be attained by diligent and wise cultivation of the art of speech.

Verses 13, 14

The conclusion of the whole matter; or, the whole duty of man.

I. THE ESSENCE OF IT.

1. The fear of God. Not servile or guilty, but

(1) reverential, such as the Divine greatness and glory are fitted to inspire (Deu 28:58; Psa 89:7; Mat 10:28; Heb 12:28);

(2) filial, such as a child might cherish towards a parent (Psa 34:11; Heb 12:9).

2. The service of God. Not that merely of external worship (Deu 6:11; Psa 96:9; Heb 10:25), but that of inward devotion (Joh 4:24), which expresses itself in the homage of the heart and life, or in the keeping of God’s commandmentsin particular of the three named by the Preacher, charity, industry, hilarity (Cox).

II. THE REASON OF IT. The certainty of judgment.

1. By God. He is the Judge of all the earth (Gen 18:25); the Judge of all (Heb 12:28), who will yet judge the world in righteousness (Act 17:31).

2. In the future. Not merely here upon the earth, but also hereafter in the world to come (Dan 7:10; Mat 11:22; Mat 16:27; 1Co 4:5; 2Ti 4:1).

3. Of works, Not of nations or communities, but of individuals (Mar 8:38; Rom 2:5, Rom 2:6); not of open actions merely, but of secret things as well (Luk 12:2; Rom 2:16; 1Co 3:13; 1Co 4:5); not of good deeds only, but also of evil (2Co 5:10; 2Pe 2:9).

HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS

Verse 1

Youthful religion.

The Preacher spoke from a heart taught by long experience. Himself advanced in years, having enjoyed and suffered much, having long observed the growth of human character under diverse principles and influences, he was able to offer to the young counsel based upon extensive knowledge and deliberate reflection.

I. THE DESCRIPTION HERE GIVEN OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. Amplifying this terse and impressive language, we may hear the wise man addressing the youthful, and saying, “Remember that thou hast a Creator; that thy Creator ever remembers thee; that he not only deserves, but desires, thy remembrance; that his character should be remembered with reverence, his bounty with gratitude, his Law with obedience and submission, his love with faith and gladness, his promises with prayerfulness and with hope.”

II. THE PERIOD HERE RECOMMENDED FOR THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. Religion is indeed adapted to the whole of our existence; and what applies to every age of life, applies with especial force to childhood and youth.

1. Youth has peculiar susceptibilities of feeling, and religion appeals to them.

2. Youth has especially opportunities of acquiring knowledge and undergoing discipline, and religion helps us to use them.

3. Youth has abounding energy, and religion assists us to employ this energy aright.

4. Youth is a time of great and varied temptations, and religion will enable us to overcome them.

5. Youth is introductory to manhood and to age; religion helps us so to live when young that we may be the better fitted for the subsequent stages of life’s journey.

6. Youth may be all of life appointed for us; in that case, religion can hallow those few years which constitute the earthly training and probation.

III. THE SPECIAL REASONS FOR ATTENDING TO THIS ADMONITION.

1. It is a tendency of human nature to be so absorbed in what is present to the senses as to overlook unseen and eternal realities.

2. Our own age is peculiarly tempted to forget God, by reason of the prevalence of atheism, agnosticism, and positivism.

3. Youth is especially in danger of forgetting the Divine Creator, because the opening intelligence is naturally interested in the world of outward things, which presents so much to excite attention and to engage inquiry.

IV. THE ADDITIONAL FORCE WHICH CHRISTIANITY IMPARTS TO THIS ADMONITION. The figure of our blessed Lord himself appears to the imagination, and we seem to hear his winning but authoritative voice pleading with the young, and employing the very language of the text. He who said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me,” he who, beholding the young inquirer, loved him, draws near to every youthful nature, and commands and beseeches that reverent attention, that willing faith, that affectionate attachment, which shall lead to a life of piety, and to an immortality of blessedness.T.

Verses 2-7

Old age and death.

By a natural transition, a striking antithesis, youth suggests to the mind of the Preacher the condition and the solemn lessons of old age. How appropriately does a treatise, dealing so fully with the occupations, the illusions, the trials, and the moral significance of human life, draw to a close by referring expressly to the earlier and the later periods by which that life is bounded!

I. THE BODILY SYMPTOMS OF AGE. These are, indeed, familiar to every observer, and are described with a picturesqueness and poetical beauty which must appeal to every reader of this passage. It is enough to remark that the decay of bodily power, and the gradual enfeeblement of the several senses, are among the usual accompaniments of advancing years.

II. THE MENTAL SYMPTOMS OF AGE. Reference is naturally made especially to the effect of bodily enfeeblement and infirmity upon the human emotions.

1. The emotions of desire and aspiration are dulled.
2. The emotions of apprehension, self-distrust, and fear increase.

III. THE NATURAL TERMINATION OF OLD AGE. There is no doubt that there are old persons of a sanguine temperament who seem unable to realize the fact that they are approaching the end of their earthly course. Yet it does not admit of doubt that the several indications of senility described in these verses are reminders of the end, are premonitions of the dissolution of the body, and of the entering upon a new and altogether different state of being.

IV. THE OPPORTUNITIES AND SERVICES OF AGE.

1. There is scope for the exercise of patience under growing infirmities.

2. There is a call to the acquisition and display of that wisdom which the experience of long years is particularly fitted to cultivate.

3. The aged are especially bound to offer to the young an example of cheerful obedience, and to encourage them to a life of piety and usefulness.

V. THE CONSOLATIONS OF AGE. Cicero, in a well-known treatise of great beauty, has set forth the peculiar advantages and pleasures which belong to the latest stage of human life. The Christian is at liberty to comfort himself by meditating upon such natural blessings as “accompany old age,” but he has far fuller and richer sources of consolation open to him.

1. There is the happy retrospect of a life filled with instances of God’s compassion, forbearance, and loving-kindness.

2. And there is the bright anticipation of eternal blessedness. This is his peculiar prerogative. As the outer man perisheth, the inner man is renewed day by day. The earthly tent is gradually but surely taken down, and this process suggests that he should look forward with calm confidence and hope to his speedy occupation of the “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”T.

Verses 9-11

The religious thinker and teacher.

The author of this book was himself a profound thinker and an earnest teacher, and it is evident that his great aim was to use his gifts of observation, meditation, and discourse for the enlightenment and the spiritual profit of all whom his words might reach. Taught in the quiet of his heart by the Spirit of the Eternal, he labored, by the presentation of truth and the inculcation of piety, to promote the religious life among his fellow-men. His aim as he himself conceived it, his methods as practiced by him in his literary productions, are deserving of the attentive consideration and the diligent imitation of those who are called upon to use thought and speech for the spiritual good of their fellow-creatures. Words are the utterance of the convictions and the desires of the inner nature, and when spoken deliberately and in public they involve a peculiar responsibility.

I. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER SHOULD BE THE EXPRESSION OF WISDOM. They should not be thrown off carelessly, but should be the fruit of deep study and meditation. For the most part, they should embody either original thought, or thought which the teacher should have assimilated and made part of his own nature, and tested in his own individual experience. They should be the utterance of knowledge rather than of opinion; and they should be set forth in the order which comes from reflection, and not in an incoherent, desultory, and unconnected form.

II. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER SHOULD BE WORDS OF UPRIGHTNESS. In order to this they must be the utterance of sincere conviction; they must harmonize with moral intuitions; they must be such as consequently appeal to the same conscience in the hearer or reader, which approves them in the speaker or writer. Crafty arguments, specious and sophistical appeals, sentimental absurdities, do not fulfill these conditions, and for them there is no place in the Christian preacher’s discourses, in the volumes of the Christian author.

III. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER SHOULD BE WORDS OF PERSUASIVENESS. The author of Ecclesiastes commends “proverbs” and “words of delight.” Harshness, coldness, contemptuousness, severity, are unbecoming to the expositor of a religion of compassion and love. A winning manner; a sympathizing spirit, language and illustrations adapted to the intelligence, the habits, the circumstances of auditors, go far to open up a way to their hearts. No doubt there is a side of danger to this requirement; the pleasing word may be the substitute for the truth instead of its vehicle, and the preacher may simply be as one that playeth upon a very pleasant instrument. But the example of our Lord Jesus, “the great Teacher,” abundantly shows how winning, gracious, condescending, and touching language is divinely adapted to reach the hearts of men.

IV. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER SHOULD BE CONVINCING AND EFFECTIVE. The goads that pierce, the nails that penetrate and bind, are images of the language of him who beateth not the air. Let the aim be kept steadily before the eye, and the mark will not be missed. Let the blow be delivered strongly and decisively, and the work will be well done. The understanding has to be convinced, the conscience awakened, the heart touched, the evil passions stilled, the endeavor and determination aroused; and the Word is, by the accompanying energy of the Spirit of God, able to effect all this. “Who is sufficient for these things?”

V. THE WORDS OF THE RELIGIOUS TEACHER MAY BE THE MEANS OF RELIGIOUS, SPIRITUAL, IMPERISHABLE BLESSING. If his word be the Word of God, who commissions and strengthens every faithful herald and ambassador, then he may comfort himself with the promise, “My Word shall not return unto me void; it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”T.

Verse 12

The scholar’s sorrow.

In these closing paragraphs of his treatise the writer reveals his own feelings, and draws upon his own experience. It is interesting to observe how largely study was pursued and literature cultivated at the remote period when this book was written; and it is obvious to remark how far more strikingly these reflections apply to an age like our own, and to a state of society such as that in which we live. The diffusion of education tends to the multiplication of books and to the increase of the learned professions; whilst growing civilization fosters the habit of introspection, and consequently of that melancholy whose earlier and simpler symptoms are observable in the language of this touching passage.

I. STUDY AND LITERATURE ARE A NECESSITY OF EDUCATED HUMAN NATURE. As soon as men begin to reflect, they begin to embody their reflections in a literary form, whether of poetry or of prose. A native impulse to verbal expression of thought and feeling, or the desire of sympathy and applause, or the calculating regard for maintenance, leads to the devotion of ever-growing bodies of men to the literary life. Literature is an unmistakable “note” of human culture.

II. STUDY AND LITERATURE ARE, BROADLY SPEAKING, PROMOTIVE OF THE GENERAL GOOD. The few toil that the many may profit. Knowledge, thought, art, right feeling, liberty, and peace, are all indebted to the great thinkers and authors whose names are held in honor among men. Doubtless there are those who misuse their gifts, who by their writings pander to vice, incite to crime, and encourage irreligion. But the bulk of literature, proceeding from the better class of minds, is rather contributive to the furtherance of goodness and of the best interests of men. Books are among the greatest of human blessings.

III. STUDY AND LITERATURE HAVE BEEN CONSECRATED TO THE SERVICE OF RELIGION. We have but to refer to the Hebrew Scriptures themselves in proof of this. There is nothing more marvelous in history than the production of the Books of Moses, the Psalms, and the prophetic writings, at the epochs from which they date. Lawgivers, seers, psalmists, and sages live yet in their peerless writings; some of them inimitable in literary form, all of them instinct with moral power. The New Testament furnishes a yet more marvelous illustration of the place which literature holds in the religious life of humanity. Men have sneered at the supposition that a book revelation could be possible; but their sneers are answered by the facts. Whatever view we take of inspiration, we are constrained to allow for human gifts of authorship. To make up the sacred volume there are “many books,” and every one of them is the fruit of “much study.”

IV. STUDY AND LITERATURE ARE CULTIVATED AT THE EXPENSE OF THE EXHAUSTION AND SORROW OF THE PRODUCER AND STUDENT.

1. There is weariness of the flesh arising from the close connection between body and mind. The brain, being the central physical organ of language, is, in a sense, the instrument of thought; and, consequently, brain-weariness, nerve-exhaustion, are familiar symptoms among the ardent students to whom we are all indebted for the discovery, the formulation, and the communication of truth and knowledge.

2. But there is a mental sorrow and distress which deeper thinkers cannot always escape, and by which some among them are oppressed. The vast range of what in itself can be known is such as to strike the mind with dismay. Science, history, philosophy, etc; have made progress so marvelous, that no single finite mind can embrace, in the course of a life of study, however assiduous, more than a minute department, so as to know all of it that may be known; and a highly educated man Is content “to know something of everything, and every thing of-something.

3. Then beyond the realm accessible to human inquiry lies the vaster realm of what cannot be knownwhat is altogether outside our ken.

4. It must be borne in mind, further, that, whilst man’s intellect is limited, his spiritual yearnings are insatiable: no bounds can be set to his aspirations; his nature is akin to that of God himself, Thus it is that sorrow often shades the scholar’s brow, and that to the weariness of the flesh there is added the sadness of the spirit, that finds, in the memorable language of Pascal, the larger the circle of the known, the vaster is the circumference of the unknown that stretches beyond.T.

Verses 13, 14

Religion, righteousness, and retribution.

After all the questionings and discussions, the doubts and perplexities, the counsels and precepts, of this treatise, the author winds up by restating the first, the most elementary, and the most important, principles of true religion. There are, he felt, in this world many things which we cannot fathom, many things which we cannot reconcile with our convictions and hopes; but there are some things concerning which we have no doubts, and these are the things which most nearly concern us personally and practically. Thoughtful men may weary and distress themselves with pondering the great problems of existence; but, after all, they, in common with the plainest and most illiterate, must come back to the essentials of the religious life.

I. THE GREAT SPRING AND CENTER OF RELIGION. This is the fear of God, reverence for the Divine character and attributes, the habit of mind which views everything in relation to him who is eternally holy, wise, just, and good. This Book of Ecclesiastes is, upon this point, at one with the whole of the Bible and with all deeply based religion. We cannot begin with man; we must find an all-sufficient foundation for the religious life in God himself, his nature, and his Law.

II. THE GREAT EXPRESSION OF RELIGION. This is obedience to the Divine commandments.’ Our convictions and emotions find their scope when directed towards a holy and merciful God; our will must bend to the moral authority of the eternal Lord. Feelings and professions are in vain unless they are supported by corresponding actions. It is true that mere external compliance is valueless; acts must be the manifestation of spiritual loyalty and love. But, on the other hand, sentiment that evaporates in words, that does not issue in deeds, is disregarded in the court of heaven. Where God is honored, and his will is cheerfully performed, there the whole duty of the Christian man is fulfilled. It is the work of the mediation of the Divine Savior, of the operations of the Divine Spirit, to bring about such a religious and moral life.

III. THE GREAT TEST OF RELIGION. For this we are bidden to look forward to the future. Many things, which are significant as to the religious state of a man, are now hidden. They must be brought to light; secret deeds, alike of holiness and of iniquity, must be made manifest before the throne of judgment. Here, in this world, where men judge by appearances, the wicked sometimes get credit for goodness which does not really belong to them, and the good are often maligned and misunderstood. But, in the general judgment hereafter, the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, and men shall be judged, not according to what they seem to be, but according to what they actually are. With this solemn warning the Preacher closes his book. And there is no person, in whatsoever state of life, to whom this warning does not apply. Well will it be for us if this earthly life be passed under the perpetual influence of this expectation; if the prospect of the future judgment inspire us to watchfulness, to diligence, and to prayer.T.

HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON

Verse 1 (with Ecc 11:10, latter part)

The vanity and glory of youth.

I. THE VANITY OF YOUTH. There is an aspect in which it is true that “childhood and youth are vanity.”

1. Its thoughts are very simple; they are upon the surface, and there is no depth of truth or wisdom in them.

2. Its judgments are very mixed with error; it has to unlearn a great deal of what it learns; the young will have to find, later on, that the men of whom and the things of which they have made up their minds are different from what they think now; their after-days will bring with them much disillusion, if not serious disappointment. Much that they see is magnified to their view, and the colors, as they see them today, will look otherwise to-morrow.

3. Itself is constantly disappearing. Few things are more constantly disturbing, if not distressing, us than the rapid passage of childhood and youth. Sometimes the young life is taken away altogetherthe flower is nipped in the bud. But where life is spared, the peculiar beauty of childhood or of youthits simplicity, its trustfulness, its docility, its eagerness, its ardor of affection, its unreserved delights, this is perpetually passing and “fading into the light of common day.” Yet is thereand it is the truer and deeper thought

II. THE GLORY OF YOUTH. Whatever may be said of youth in the way of qualification, there is one thing that may be said for it which greatly exalts itit may be wise with a profound and heavenly wisdom, for it may be spent in the fear and in the love of God (see Pro 1:7; Job 28:28). To “remember its Creator,” and to order its life according to that remembrance, is the height and the depth of human wisdom. Knowledge, learning, cunning, brilliancy, genius itself, is not so desirable nor so admirable a thing as is this holy and heavenly wisdom. To know God (Jer 9:24), to reverence him in the innermost soul, to love him with all the heart (Mar 12:33), to be obedient to his commandments, to be patiently and cheerfully submissive to his will, to be honoring and serving him continually, to be attaining to his own likeness in spirit and character,surely this is the glory of the highest created intelligence of the noblest rank in heaven, and surely this is the glory of our human nature in all its ranks. It is the glory of our manhood, and it is the glory of youth. Far more than any order of strength (Pro 20:29), or than any kind of beauty (2Sa 14:25), or than any measure of acquisition, does the abiding and practical remembrance of its Creator and Savior glorify our youth. That makes it pure, worthy, admirable, inherently excellent, full of hope and promise. We may add, for it belongs to the text as well as to the subject

III. THE WISDOM OF YOUTH. “While the evil days come not,” etc. Let the young live before God while they are young; for:

1. It is a poor and sorry thing to offer to God, to a Divine Redeemer, the dregs of our days. To him who gave himself for us it becomes us to give, not our wasted and worn-out, but our best, our freest and freshest, our purest and strongest self.

2. To leave the consecration of ourselves to Christ to the time when faculty has faded, when the power of discernment and appreciation has declined, when sensitiveness has been dulled with long disuse, when the heavenly voices fall with less charm and interest on the ear of the soul,this is a most perilous thing. To hearken and to heed, to recognize and to obey, in the days of youth is the one wise thing.C.

Verses 5-7

Death, its meaning and its moral.

Whatever be the true interpretation of the three preceding verses, there is no doubt at all as to the Preacher’s meaning in the text; he has death in his view, and he suggests to us

I. ITS CERTAINTY. Childhood must pass into youth, and youth into prime, and prime into old ageinto the days which are bereaved of pleasure (verse 1); and old age must end in death. Of all the tableaux which human life presents to us, the last one is that of “the mourners going about the streets.” Other evils may be shunned by sedulous care and unusual sagacity, but death is the evil which no man may avoid.

II. ITS MEANING. What does death mean when it comes?

1. It means a shock to those that are left behind. The mourners in the street express in their way the sadness which is afflicting the hearts of those who weep within the walls. Here and there a death occurs which disturbs no peace and troubles no heart. But almost always it comes with a shock and an inward inexpressible pain to those who are bereaved. Even in old age the hearts of near kindred and dear friends are troubled with a keen and real distress.

2. It means separation. Man “goes to his long home.” They who are left go to their darkened home, and he who is taken goes to his long home, to dwell apart and alone, to revisit no more the familiar places, and look no more into the faces of his friends. They and he henceforth must dwell apart; the grave is always a very long distance from the old home.

3. It means loss. The loss of the beautiful or the useful, or of both together. “Our life may have been like a golden lamp suspended by silver chains, fit for the palace of a king, and- may have shed a welcome and a cheerful light on every side; but even the durable costly chain will be snapped at last, and the beautiful ‘bowl be broken.’ Our life may have been like ‘the bucket’ dropped by village maidens into the village fountain, or like the ‘ wheel’ by which water is drawn from the village well,it may have conveyed a vital refreshment to many lips; but the day must come when the bucket will be shattered on the marble edge of the fountain, and the timeworn wheel drop into the well” (Cox). The most beautiful life vanishes from our sight; the most useful life is taken away.

4. It means dissolution. “The dust shall return to the earth as it was.” Our body, however fair and strong it may be, however trained, clothed, adorned, admired, must return to “dust and ashes,” must be resolved into the elements from which it was constructed.

5. It means departure. “The spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” This is by far the most solemn view of death. At death we “return to God” (see Psa 90:3). Not, indeed, that we are ever far from him (see Act 17:27; Psa 139:3-5). We stand and live in his very near presence. Yet does there come an hourthe hour of deathwhen we shall consciously stand before our Divine Judge, and when we shall learn from him “our high estate” or our lasting doom (2Co 5:10). Death means departure from the sphere of the visible and tangible into the close and conscious presence of the eternal God.

III. ITS MORAL. The one great lesson which stands out from this eloquent description is this: Be the servant of God always; take care to know him and to serve him at the end, by learning of him at the beginning, and serving him throughout your life. Remember your Creater in youth, and he will acknowledge you when old age is lost in death, and death has introduced you to the judgment-scene. Happy is that human soul that has drawn into itself Divine truth with its earliest intelligence, and that has ordered its life by the Divine will from first to last; for then shall the end of earth be full of peace and hope, and the beginning of eternity be full of joy and of glory.C.

Verses 9-12

The function of the teacher.

1. The wise man, because he is wise (verse 9), teaches. There is no better, no other thing that he can do, both for his own sake and for the sake of his fellow-men. To know and not to speak is a sin and a cruelty, when men are “perishing for lack of knowledge.” To know and to speak is an elevated joy and a sacred duty; we cannot but speak the things we have learned of God, the truth as it is in Jesus.

2. The wise man also takes what measures he can to perpetuate the truth he knows; he wants to preserve it, to hand it down to another time; he therefore “writes down the words with truth and uprightness” (verse 10); or, if he cannot do this, be labors to put his thought into those parabolic or proverbial forms which will not only be preserved in the memory of those to whom he utters them, but can be readily repeated, and will become embedded in the traditions and, ultimately, into the literature of his country (verse 9).

3. The wise man restrains his literary ardor within due bounds (verse 12). Otherwise he not only causes a drug in the market, but seriously injures his own health. He knows it is better to do a little and do that thoroughly, than to do much and do it hastily and imperfectly. But what is the teacher’s function, his sacred duty, as related to the people of his charge or his acquaintance?

I. To SEARCH DILIGENTLY FOR THE TRUTH. It is for him “to ponder and seek out,” or to “compose with care and thought” (Cox’s transl.). Divine truth, in its various aspects and applications, is manifold and profound; it demands our most patient study, our most reverent inquiry; we should gain help from all possible sources, more particularly should we seek it from the Spirit and from the Word of God.

II. TO INTEREST AND TO CONSOLE. The Preacher sought to find out “acceptable” or “comfortable” words”words of delight” (literally). This is not the main duty of the teacher, but it is one to which he should seriously address himself.

1. A teacher may be speaking in the highest strain, and may be uttering the deepest wisdom, but if his words are unintelligible and, therefore, unacceptable, he will make no way and do no good. We must speak in the language of those whom we address. Our thoughts may be far higher than theirs, but our language must be on their levelat any rate, on the level of their understanding.

2. The teacher will do wisely to spend much time and strength in consoling; for in this world of trouble and sorrow no words are more often or more urgently needed than “comfortable words.”

III. TO RETAIN. “The words of the ‘masters of assemblies’ are like stakes (nails) which the shepherds drive into the ground when they pitch their tents;” i.e. they are instruments of fastening or of securing; they act as things which keep the cords in their place, and keep the roof over the head of the traveler. It is one function of the Christian teacherand a most valuable oneso to speak that men shall retain their hold on the great verities of the faith, on the true and real Fatherhood of God, on the atonement of Jesus Christ, on the openness of the kingdom of heaven to every seeking soul, on the blessedness of self-forgetful love, on the offer of eternal life to all who believe, etc.

IV. TO INSPIRE. At other times the Preacher’s words are “as goads” that urge the cattle to other fields. To comfort and to secure is much, but it is not all that they who speak for Christ have to do. They have to illumine and to enlarge men’s views, to shed fresh light on the sacred page, to invite those that hear them to accompany them to fields of thought hitherto untrodden, to induce them to think and study for themselves, to unveil the beauties and glories of the wisdom “that remains to be revealed,” to inspire them with a yearning desire and with a full purpose of heart to enter upon works of helpfulness and usefulness; he has to “provoke them to love and to good works.”C.

Verses 13, 14

Divine requirement and human response.

What is the conclusion of this inquiry? What result may be gained from these inconsistencies of thought and variations of feeling? Deeper down than anything else is the fact that there are

I. TWO GREAT DIVINE REQUIREMENTS. God demands of us:

1. Reverence. We are to “fear God.” That is certain. But let us not mistake this “fear” for a very different thing with which it may be confounded. It is not a servile dread, such as that which is entertained by ignorant devotees of their deities. Only too often worship rises no higher than that; it is an abject dread of the malignant spiritual power. This is both a falsity and an injury. It is founded on a complete misconception of the Divine, and it reacts most hurtfully upon the mind of the worshipper, demoralizing and degrading. What God asks of us is a well-grounded, holy reverence; the honor which weakness pays to power, which he who receives everything pays to him who gives everything, which intelligence pays to wisdom, which a moral and spiritual nature pays to rectitude, to goodness, to love, to absolute and unspotted worth.

2. Obedience. We must “keep his commandments;” i.e. not only

(1) abstain from those particular transgressions which he has forbidden, and

(2) practice those virtues which he has positively enjoined; but also

(3) carefully study his holy will in regard to all things, and strive earnestly and patiently to do it. This will embrace, not only all outward actions observable by man, but all the inward thoughts of the mind, and all the hidden feelings and purposes of the soul. It includes the bringing of everything of every kind for which we are personally responsible “into obedience to the will of Christ.” It requires of us rectitude in every relation that we sustain to others, as well as in all that we owe to ourselves. The text suggests

II. THE TWO GREAT REASONS FOR OUR RESPONSE. One is that such reverent obedience is:

1. Our supreme obligation. “This is the whole duty of man,” or, rather, “This it behooveth all men to do.” This is what all men are in sacred duty bound to do. There is no other obligation which is not slight and small in comparison with this. The child owes much to his father, the pupil to his teacher, the beneficiary to his benefactor, the one who has been rescued to his deliverer; but not one of these obligations, nor all added together, expresses anything that approaches the indebtedness under which we rest to God. To him from whom we came, and “in whom we live and move and have our being,” who is the one ultimate Source of all our blessings and of all our powers, who has poured out upon us an immeasurable wealth of pure and patient love; to the gracious Father of our spirit; to the gracious Lord of our life; to the holy and the benignant One,to him it does indeed become all men to render a reverent obedience. The other reason why we should respond is found in:

2. Our supreme wisdom. “For God will bring,” etc. God is now bringing all that we are and do under his own ‘Divine judgment, and is now approving or disapproving. He is also so governing the world that our thoughts and actions are practically judged, and either rewarded or punished, before we pass the border-line of death. But while this is true, and while there is much more of truth in it than is often supposed, yet much is left to the future in this great matter of judgment. There are “secret things” to be exposed; there are undiscovered crimes to be made known; there are iniquities that have escaped even the eye of the perpetrators, who “knew not what they did,” to be revealed. There is a great account to be settled. And because it is true that “we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one of us may receive the things done in his body,” because “God will judge the secrets of all hearts,” because sin in every shape moves toward exposure and penalty, while righteousness in all its forms travels toward its recognition and reward, therefore let the spirit be reverent in presence of its Maker, let the life be filled with purity and worth, with integrity and goodness, let man be the dutiful child of his Father who is in heaven.C.

HOMILIES BY J. WILLCOCK

Verses 8-12

The epilogue.

The sentence, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!” with which the Book of Ecclesiastes opened, is found here at its close. And doubtless to many .it will seem disappointing that it should follow so hard upon the expression of belief in immortality. Surely we might say that the nobler view of life reached by the Preacher should have precluded his return to the pessimistic opinions and feelings which we can scarcely avoid associating with the words, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!” But on second thoughts the words are not contradictory of the hope for the future which verse 7 expresses. The fact that Christians can use the words as descriptive of the worthlessness of things that are seen and temporal, as compared with those that are unseen and eternal, forbids our concluding that they are necessarily the utterance of a despairing pessimism. A great deal depends upon the tone in which the words are uttered; and the pious tone of the writer’s mind, as revealed in the concluding passages of his book, would incline us to believe that the sentence, “all is vanity,” is equivalent to that in the Gospel, “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” No one can deny that the ‘De Imitatione Christi’ is a noble expression of certain aspects of Christian teaching with regard to life. And yet in the very first chapter of it we have these words of Solomon’s quoted and expanded. “Vanity of vanities; and all is vanity beside loving God and serving him alone. It is vanity, therefore, to seek after fiches which must perish, and to trust in them. It is vanity also to lay one’s self out for honors, and to raise one’s self to a high station. It is vanity to follow the desires of the flesh, and to covet that for which we must afterwards be grievously punished. It is vanity to wish for long life, and to take little care of leading a good life. It is vanity to mind only this present life, and not to look forward to those things which are to come. It is vanity to love that which passes with all speed, and not to hasten thither where ever lasting joy abides.” In the opinion of many eminent critics the eighth verse contains the concluding words of the Preacher, and those which follow are an epilogue, consisting of a “commendatory attestation” (verses 9-12), and a summary of the teaching of the book (verses 13, 14), which justifies its place in the sacred canon. On the whole, this seems to be the most reasonable explanation of the passage. It seems more likely that the glowing eulogy upon the author was written by some one else than that it came from his own pen; and a somewhat analogous postscript is found in another book of Holy Scripture, the Gospel of St. John (Joh 21:24). Those who collected the Jewish Scriptures into one, and drew the line between canonical and non-canonical literature, may have considered it advisable to append this paragraph as a testimony in favor of a book which contained so much that was perplexing, and to give a summary (in verses 13, 14) of what seemed to them its general teaching. The Preacher, they say, was gifted with wisdom over and above his fellows, and taught the people knowledge; and for this pondered and investigated and set in order many proverbs or parables (verse 9). Like the scribe, “who had been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven,” “he brought forth out of his treasure things new and old” (Mat 13:52). Knowledge of the wisdom of the past, ability to recognize in it what was most valuable, and to cast it into new forms and zeal in the discharge of his sacred office, were all found in him. He sought to attract men to wisdom by displaying it in its gracious aspect (cf. Luk 4:22), and to influence them by the sincerity of his purpose, and by the actual truth he brought to light (verse 10). “He aimed to speak at once words that would please and words which were truewords which would be at once goads to the intellect, and yet stakes that would uphold and stay the soul of man, beta coming alike from one shepherd” (verse 11, Bradley). Some of his sayings were calculated to stimulate men into fresh fields of thought and new paths of duty, others to confirm them in the possession of truths of eternal value and significance. Like the apostle, he was anxious that his readers should no longer be like “children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error” (Eph 4:14); but should “prove all things, and hold fast that which is good” (1Th 5:21). How much better to study in the school of such a teacher than to weary and perplex one’s self with” science falsely so called;” than to be versed in multitudinous literature, which dissipates mental energy, and in which the soul can find no sure resting-place (verse 12)! All who set themselves, or who have been called, to be teachers of men, may find in the example of the Preacher guidance as to the motives and aims which will alone give them success in their work.J.W.

Verses 13, 14

The last word.

In the passage with which the Book of Ecclesiastes concludes, the clue is found which leads the speaker out of the labyrinth of skepticism in which for a time he had gone astray. He at last emerges from the dark forest in which he had long wandered, and finds himself under the stars of heaven, and sees in the eastern sky the promise of the coming day. It is true that from time to time in his earlier meditations he had retained, even if it were with but a faltering grasp, the truth which he now announces confidently and triumphantly. “It had mitigated his pessimism and hallowed his eudemonism” (Ecc 7:18; Ecc 8:12; Ecc 11:9). And it must be taken as canceling much of what he had said about the vanity of human life. Over against his somber thoughts about one fate awaiting both the righteous and the wicked, the wise and the foolish (Ecc 9:2), and the leveling power of death, that makes no distinction between man and the brute (Ecc 3:18-22), and shakes one’s faith in the dignity and worth of our nature, is set his final verdict. God does distinguish, not only between men and the brutes, but between good men and bad. The efforts we make to obey him, or the indifference towards the claims of righteousness we may have manifested, are not fruitless; they result in the formation of a character that merits and will receive his favor, or of one that will draw down his displeasure. The nearness of God to the individual soul is the great truth upon which our author rests at last, and in his statement of it we have a positive advance upon previous revelations, and an anticipation of the fuller light of the New Testament teaching. God, he would have us believe, does not deal with men as nations or classes, but as individuals. He treats them, whatever may have been their surroundings or national connections, as personally accountable for the disposition and character they have cultivated. His judgment of them lies in the future, and all, without distinction of persons, will be subject to it. In these points, therefore, the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes transcends the teaching of the Old Testament, and approximates to that of Christ and the apostles. The present life, with all its inequalities, the adversity which often besets the righteous, and the prosperity which the wicked often enjoy, is not the whole of existence, but there is a world to come in which the righteous will openly receive the Divine favor, and the wicked the due reward of their deeds. The blessings which were promised to the nation that was faithful to the Divine Law will be enjoyed by each individual who has had the fear of God before his eyes. Judgment will go by character, and not by outward name or profession (Mat 7:21-23; Rev 20:12). We have, therefore, here a great exhortation founded on truths which cannot be shaken, and calculated to guide each one who obeys it to that goal of happiness which all desire to reach. “Fear God, and keep his commandments.” Both the inward disposition and the outward conduct are covered by the exhortation.

I. In the first place, then, THE PRINCIPLE BY WHICH WE SHOULD BE GOVERNED IS THE “FEAR OF GOD.” This is the root from which the goodly leaves and choice fruit of a religious life will spring. If the word “fear” had been used in this passage only, and we had not been at liberty to understand it in any other than its ordinary sense, one would be forced to admit that such a low motive could not be the mainspring of a vigorous and healthy religious life. But all through the Scriptures the phrase, “fear of God,” is used as synonymous with a genuine, heartfelt service of him, and as rather indicating a careful observance of the obligations we as creatures owe to him, than a mere dread of his anger at disobedience. It is not to be denied that fear, in the ordinary sense of the word, is reasonably a motive by which sin may be restrained, but it is no stimulus to that kind of service which we owe to God. “I thank God, and with joy I mention it,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “I was never afraid of hell, nor ever grew pale at the description of that place. I have so fixed my contemplations on heaven, that I have almost forgot the idea of hell; and am afraid rather to lose the joys of one than endure the misery of the other. To be deprived of them is a perfect hell, and needs methinks no addition to complete our afflictions. That terrible term hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof. I fear God, yet am not afraid of him; his mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before his judgments afraid thereof. These are the forced and secondary methods of his wisdom, which he useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocationa course rather to deter the wicked than incite the virtuous to his worship. I can hardly think there was ever any scared into heaven: they go the fairest way to heaven that would serve God without a hell. Other mercenaries, that crouch unto him in fear of hell, though they term themselves the servants, are indeed but the slaves, of the Almighty” (‘Rel. Med.,’ 1:52). Plainly, therefore, when the fear of God is made equivalent to true religion, it must include many other feelings than that dread which sinners experience at the thought of the laws they have broken, and which may consist with hatred of God and of righteousness. It must be a summary of all the emotions which belong to a religions lifereverence at the thought of God’s infinite majesty, holiness, and justice, gratitude for his loving-kindness and tender mercy, confidence in his wisdom, power, and faithfulness, submission to his will, and delight in communion with him. If fear is to be taken as a prominent emotion in such a life, we are not to understand by it the terror of a slave, who would willingly, if he could, break away from his owner, but the loving reverence of a child, who is anxious to avoid everything that would grieve his father’s heart. The one kind of fear is the mark of an imperfect obedience (1Jn 4:18); the other is the proof of a disposition which calls forth God’s favor and blessing (Psa 103:13).

II. In the second place, THE CONDUCT WE SHOULD MANIFEST IS DESCRIBED: “KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS.” This is the outward manifestation of the disposition of the heart, and supplies a test by which the genuineness of a religious profession may be tried. These two elements are needed to constitute holinessa God-fearing spirit and a blameless life. If either be wanting the nature is out of balance, and very grave defects will soon appear, by which all of positive good that has been attained will be either overshadowed or nullified. If there be not devotion of the heart to God, no zeal and fidelity in discharging the ordinary duties of life will make up for the loss. The reverence due to him as our Creatorgratitude for his benefits, penitent confession of sins and shortcomings, and faith in his mercycannot be willfully omitted by us without a depravation of our whole character. And, on the other side, an acknowledgment of him that does not lead us to “keep his commandments” is equally fatal (Mat 7:21-23; Luk 13:25-27).

The Preacher appends two weighty considerations to induce us to attend to his exhortation to “fear God, and keep his commandments.” The first is that this is the source of true happiness. So would we interpret his words, “For this is the whole of man.” The word “duty” is suggested by our translators to complete the sense, but it is not comprehensive enough. “To fear God and keep his commandments is not only the whole duty, but the whole honor and interest and happiness of man” (Wardlaw). The quest with which the book has been largely concerned is that for happiness, for the summum bonum, in which alone the soul can find satisfaction, and here it comes to an end. The discovery is made of that which has been so long and so painfully sought after. In a pious and holy life and conversation rest is found; all else is but vanity and vexation of spirit. The second motive to obedience is the certainty of a future judgment (verse 14). “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Nothing will be omitted or forgotten. The Judge will be One who is absolutely just and wise, who will be free from all partiality; and his sentence will be final. If, therefore, we have no such regard for our own happiness in the present life as would move us to secure it by love and service of God, we may still find a check upon self-will and self-indulgence in the thought that we shall have to give an account of our thoughts, words, and deeds to One from whose sentence there is no appeal.J.W.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Ecc 12:1. Remember now thy Creator, &c. The first point to be examined is, where the description of old age given in this chapter begins. Most interpreters, who begin it with these words in the first verse, the years draw nigh, &c. or, at least, with the mention made Ecc 12:2 of the sun, light, moon, and stars being darkened, are at great pains to guess what particular infirmities of old age may be represented by each of these phaenomena of bad weather. But those pains might have been spared. The image here set before us has too manifest a respect to that which we read but a few verses before, ch. Ecc 11:7-8 not to acknowledge some analogy between them. Truly the light is sweet, &c. It is plain, that seeing the light, and beholding the sun, are mentioned on no other account, than as proper emblems of a prosperous life. And, indeed, light and darkness are among the most frequent metaphors used by the Hebrews to signify prosperity and adversity. Therefore, when that image offers itself again, in an inference drawn from the premises wherein it had made its first appearance, with this only difference, that an affirmative attends it in one place, and a negative in the other, it is very natural that it should be understood of a painful and calamitous life. Being destitute of light, and living in a climate where the sky does not clear up after the rain, but is so continually overspread with clouds, that there is no seeing either sun, moon, or stars, is as truly unpleasant as seeing the light is sweet. Here may be truly applied a remark of Bishop Lowth, upon a parallel passage in Eze 32:7-8. Notae sunt imagines, frequens earum usus, certa significatio; ideoque perspicua, clara, vereque magnifica.* Thus I would rather look upon this verse as a transition to the mention which is going to be made of old age, than as part of its description. If it has any respect to it, it seems to be but a very distant one to that time of life, as it is a painful and unpleasant one; and none at all to the particular infirmities to which it is liable. Solomon’s design was, to inculcate the necessity of minding our Creator, before a constant course of adversity forces us to think of him. But as one might have objected, that it is not the fate of every man to fall into such misfortunes, it was proper that, after mentioning them in general terms, he should proceed to shew, that, according to the usual course of nature, no long liver can avoid leading, for some time, an unpleasant life as to nature; accordingly, he begins, in the next verse, to describe the state to which a man must at last be reduced, who has lived many years. The division of that description into three parts, and the reasons why I look upon the first and last only as poetical, shall be considered in the next note. See Desvoeux, and Bishop Lowth’s 6th Prelection.

* The images are striking, their use frequent, their signification certain, and therefore perspicuous, clear, and truly sublime.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

THE PICTURE OF OLD AGE,

From Ecc 12:1-7 according to the common Translation.

The royal preacher, in the first seven verses of this chapter, enforces the duty of early religion, by arguments principally drawn from the decay of the intellectual and corporeal powers in an advanced age. The evils induced upon the mental system are little more than cursorily spoken of. The inconveniences resulting to the bodily structure from a long series of years, are more particularly expatiated upon. Whence it is evident, that Solomon chiefly designed the reader’s conviction to arise from an anatomical survey of the human fabric. But the description here exhibited of the various organs of the body is somewhat obscured by an allegorical phraseology. In order to explain the meaning of the words, and the connection of the author’s sentiments, let us view them in the form of a didactic essay.

Ecc 12:1. In the earliest part of thy life meditate frequently upon thy great Creator. Remember likewise, that thou art not indebted to him only for thy existence, but for thy continued preservation, and for the repeated comforts vouchsafed unto thee daily. Be sure, therefore, to testify thy gratitude for such high obligations, by consecrating the bloom of thy youth to Almighty God. This is assuredly the period of thy most acceptable services. Do not postpone the discharge of religious duties to more advanced years, because infirmities, pains, and sorrows will then imbitter thy days, and render life an insupportable burthen.

Ecc 12:2. Consider farther, that not only the body is enervated by age, but that the intellectual faculties, those luminaries of the microcosm, are likewise impaired. The understanding is darkened, the memory debilitated; and too often the will becomes cold, languid, and enfeebled; or perverse, restive, and reluctant to the exercises of religion.

Let me also add, that besides these natural obstacles arising from deficient powers of body and mind, there are very many contingent impediments to our duty: I mean those outward troubles and afflictions, which accompany human life, and which are usually multiplied, in proportion to the number of years which a man sojourns upon earth. Hence it is, that towards the close of our days we find disappointments and sorrows arise in a quick succession, like returning clouds in a wet season.

Ecc 12:3. But as the early surrender of our hearts to God, and the steady application of our minds to his service, are matters of such vast consequence, it may not be amiss to examine with greater precision those particular lets and hindrances to our duty which are generally the effects of age. Now, these impediments will appear evident from a scrutiny into those evils which advanced years bring upon the human system.

Those hands, which should frequently be lifted up in prayer to God, being weakened by age, hang down and tremble. They are disabled from earning provision for the body, and defending it against external injuries. At the same time, the ribs and the stronger bones of the thighs and legs, which formerly gave strength, rectitude, and stability to the whole fabric; which likewise, in conjunction with the back-bones, connected and held together the several parts of the edifice: these strong and mighty supports, I say, are all relaxed, or bowed down by age, and foretel the approaching fall of the superstructure.

The teeth also, in advanced life, become incapable of discharging their office, by a decay of their substance, or loss of their number. Hence the aliment is not properly broken, and divided and prepared for the stomach. From which cause a multitude of ills arise to the system in general; because the food, being imperfectly acted upon by the teeth, is likewise imperfectly acted upon afterwards by the stomach. Whence proceed indigestion, obstructions, and a default of nourishment, through the various parts and members of the body.

The defect of vision is another concomitant evil of old age. The eyes, those valuable organs! so essentially necessary not only to the comforts of life, but also to the security and preservation of man, are incapacitated from performing their important functions. Those windows of the building are darkened by films or defluxions; and the soul is, at it were, precluded from looking out at these obstructed casements. Whence it follows, that as from the decay of our strength we are disqualified for the active duties of religion; so likewise, from the diminution of our sight, we can make no fresh acquisitions to our knowledge by reading, or thereby recal or quicken past ideas and notices of our duty.

Ecc 12:4. But to return once more to those instruments which first prepare and dispose the food for its advantageous reception in the stomach: because, since our very being depends on the sustenance that we receive, and its due distribution through all the parts of the body, we can easily infer, that the entire loss or destruction of our teeth must cause a great failure of strength and vigour to the whole system.

That old age deprives us of these smaller bones, is too obvious a truth to be insisted upon. But, besides the unhappy consequences already enumerated, an additional difficulty presents itself to our view. The gums at this period are to personate the province of the teeth. Nevertheless, the smoothness of their surfaces render them very unfit for this work. Hence what pains and labour are aged men obliged to take, before they can bruise and soften their food sufficiently for the purposes of the stomach. It is also observable, that the lips, those portals of the mouth, are kept constantly shut during the action of the jaws, lest the morsel, through the loss of teeth to withhold it, should be protruded, and fall out of the mouth.
Another melancholy effect of old age, is a deficiency of sleep, whereby the strength and spirits are farther impaired. The old man frequently awakes at the crowing of the cock, and is incapable of renewing his slumbers: whereas the youth, and man of middle age, can perpetuate their sleep almost at will.

Notice has already been taken of defective vision: but the organs of hearing are likewise great sufferers by age. Those daughters of music, who by their exquisite delicacy of sensation and skill in melodious principles, formerly reduced sounds into harmony, for the entertainment of themselves and others, are now brought into the lowest estate, and are no longer in a capacity of answering the ordinary purposes of their structure.

Ecc 12:5. But, however material and weighty all these evils may be, there is still a heavier and longer train of calamities, which associate themselves with advanced years.

Whereas youth is bold, valiant, and regardless of danger, age is quite the reverse of this character. The ancient man discovers, in every action, diffidence, irresolution, and timidity. In all his short excursions abroad, he treads with circumspection, wariness, and distrust. After painfully ascending an eminence, he is seized with a temporary giddiness; and in his descent, he trembles at every pebble in the path, lest his strength should prove disproportionable to such little obstacles, and a fall ensue.
Thus fears and terrors are attendant upon the steps of that man whose grey hairs resemble the whitening blossoms of the almond-tree, and to whom, from the decline of his strength, even the grasshopper, that light and inconsiderable insect, becomes a burthen. Add to all these particulars, a disrelish of every scene around them, from the failure of desire, and the decay of other passions. Yet all these inconveniences and ills are inseparable from humanity, because man is born to die, and age is the harbinger of death. To enforce this truth by arguments, would be an insult offered to the understanding of men, while funerals and mourning relatives are frequently darkening all the streets.
From what has been already said upon the weakness, infirmities, and distempers of advanced life, the expediency, as well as the duty of early religion, must appear abundantly plain. However, as the human body is a complicated structure, and as little more than the external parts of the building have at present been considered, let us carry our researches farther, and examine what is doing in the more private and retired chambers of this wonderful fabric.

Ecc 12:6. Here we shall be astonished at the stupendous displays of Almighty wisdom, power, and goodness. Know then, that there are scattered up and down in the human body a multitude of white cords, to which anatomists have given the appellation of nerves. These strings are the instruments of sensation and motion. For if a nerve be tied hard, or cut asunder, that part to which the nerve belonged, instantly loses all feeling, and becomes destitute of action.

From the brain, which is the source of the whole nervous system, there proceeds through the entire length of the back-bone (in a cavity curiously formed for its reception and security) a cord of an enlarged size, which, on account of its resplendent whiteness, may aptly be compared to the complexion of burnished silver. From this cord are branched out thirty pair of smaller strings, which are distributed along the arms, thighs, legs, and trunk of the body. Now in old age this silver cord is very liable to be relaxed and weakened, or a part thereof to be altogether broken in its functions, as appears manifest from those paralytic complaints, to which elderly persons are peculiarly obnoxious. When a relaxation of this cord prevails, then tumours and debility are the consequences. When the canals which compose this cord, are quite obstructed, then follow complete palsies; or, in other words, an entire deprivation of sense and motion. Ought we not, therefore, to remember our Creator in the prior stages of life, before this melancholy period of deficient sensation and action arrives? For a palsy is partial death, and many times portends the speedy dissolution of the whole building.

But, agreeably to what has already been suggested, the brain is the original of the nerves. Those nerves, which are bestowed upon the eyes, the ears, the tongue, and all the other parts of the face and head, issue immediately from the brain itself, through small apertures in the skull, primarily designed for the transmission of these little cords. Any disorder happening to these nerves, and interrupting their functions, will occasion, according to the degree of the disease, dimness of sight, or total loss of vision, heaviness of hearing, or absolute deafness, defective speech, or an utter incapacity of speaking; will deprive the lips in part, or altogether, of their due motions, and likewise impair or annihilate the smell and the taste.

What an amazing organ is the brain! that source and parent of all sensation and motion! That inexplicable repository of the understanding of man! How curious its texture! How tender its substance! and of what vast importance to the present existence, utility, and comfort of the species! For which reason the all-wise Creator has securely lodged it in a strong citadel of bone; which, from its circular cavity, and the inestimable value of its treasure, may with propriety be styled the golden bowl.

But it is observable, that in the extremity of old age, this golden bowl, and more especially the contents thereof, are highly injured. The several parts of the brain, through length of time, become unfit for their various offices. It is like an exquisitely wrought machine, with complicated movements. A long succession of years breaks, wears out, and dissolves this surprising workmanship. Wherefore it must be the most egregious folly to defer the consideration of our eternal interest till the winter of life comes upon us, when we are disqualified for the common intercourses of society, and even for the ordinary actions of animal life.
But additional motives for early religion will result from a scrutiny into the effects of age upon the heart, and the great vessels which proceed from this fountain of life. We most assuredly ought to secure the favour of our Maker before these large canals, which issue from the heart, and receive, like pitchers at a well, the contents of this spring, be grown incapable of discharging their office aright. For it is an incontestable truth, that in elderly men, these grand conduits, which take the blood from the heart, in order to circulate it through the lungs, the brain, and all the organs and members of the body, become bony, rigid, and inflexible: whereby they are disabled from acting upon the blood, and driving it through all the distant pipes of the system. Hence those languors, faintings, and sudden changes, which frequently occur in persons much advanced in years.

But also the heart itself, that cistern of the whole building, which receives and dispenses to the farthest extremities, in an appropriated period of time, every particle of blood belonging to the body; I say, this powerful reservoir is rendered by old age unfit for its important charge. Part of its substance, like the great canals already mentioned, degenerates into bony fibres, which are unable to perform their due action. For the heart propels the blood to the extreme parts by a contractile force. If this contractile power is abated by the hardness and inflexibility of the heart’s substance, it is apparent that the circulation of the blood cannot properly be carried on; but momentary stagnations, sinkings of spirits, and universal weakness must follow. Because this power of contraction, like the wheel of a water-engine, is the grand and principal cause of the distribution of the fluids through all the numerous channels of the system.

This is a true, though uncomfortable, representation of the animal oeconomy in the decline of life. Whoever, therefore, attentively surveys this picture, ought to act answerably to the admonitions which it suggests. He should acquaint himself with God from his youth, and secure the friendship of that Almighty Being, who will not forsake him in his old age, and when he is grey-headed.

Every serious and thinking man must be convinced, that the dedication of the prime of his days, and the vigour of his strength to heaven, is both wisdom and piety. To all procrastinating votaries, will not the prophets interrogatories be very apposite? “If we offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if we offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto the governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? faith the Lord of Hosts.”

Ecc 12:7. But it must also be noticed, that these defects and decays of the system are the immediate forerunners of its dissolution: that, when this great change befals us, the materials of which our bodies are composed shall be all resolved into earth, from whence they were taken; and our souls, which animated these organized particles of dust, shall return to God, the Father and Judge of our spirits; who will reward or punish us, according to our deeds in the flesh. This is an argument of infinite weight, and indeed far superior to any arguments hitherto urged for the remembering of our Creator in the days of our youth. Wherefore, let the rising generation consider, that if through grace they nobly scorn the blandishments of sense, and inviolably attach themselves to their duty, they will be most gloriously recompenced at the grand tribunal, Ecc 12:14. “when God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”

REFLECTIONS.1st, This chapter is a continuation of the subject which closed the preceding. We have,

1. The application of the Preacher’s discourse to young men, by way of admonition and counsel. Remember now, without delay, thy creator, or creators, the triune God, whose right to us is unquestionable; not only our Maker as men, but our Redeemer also as sinners, and thus twice our creator; and therefore justly expecting that we should glorify him in our bodies and in our spirits, which are his.

2. He urges his exhortation by the suitableness of the season, and the prospect of the evil days which are approaching, when the infirmities of age and sickness as much disorder the mind as the body; when we should have gotten, and not be then to seek, the supports of religion, which these days of evil and anguish need; and when, if at last we should reflect on our past days, it must give us the most painful reflections, to look back on the flower of our years spent in the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and only the dregs of age remaining for God.
3. The calamities of old age are elegantly and feelingly described: probably the sacred penman now spoke from experience. The sun, the light, the moon, the stars are darkened, the eyes of the body grow dim, and can no longer enjoy the surrounding objects of light, and the faculties of the mind are impaired; the judgment awakened, the memory lost, the imagination frozen: and the clouds return after rain, successive troubles and ails follow each other, and under painful defluxions the body melts away. The keepers of the house tremble, the paralytic head, the shaking hand, and tottering knees bespeak the feeble frame, and the strong men bow themselves; the legs can scarcely support their weight, and on some artificial prop the body bending to the tomb is sustained: the grinders cease, because they are few, the toothless gums no longer perform their office to masticate the food: and those that look out of the windows are darkened, the eyes sunk in their sockets, and no more sensible of the light of day. And the doors shall be shut in the streets; they eat little, close their lips to keep their food in their mouths, having lost their teeth; and are unable to appear as formerly in the streets; and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, his broken rest is easily disturbed with the crowing of the cock, or the least noise, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low; the voice becomes inharmonious and harsh, the ears dull of hearing. Also they shall be afraid of that which is high, unable to ascend the hill, or climb the tower; their breath fails, their head turns round, and fears shall be in the way; they are afraid of falling through weakness, and ready to stumble at every thing in their path: and the almond-tree shall flourish; with silver hairs their heads are covered,* and the grasshopper shall be a burden, either their chirping is irksome, or, if used for food, however light of digestion, too heavy for their stomach; and desire fails, the appetite lost, and the passions of youthful days utterly quenched. And in this debilitated and exhausted state, death cannot be far distant; because man goeth to his long home, the grave, where the abode of his body must be till a resurrection-day; or, to the house of this world, that eternal world which should alone be regarded by us as our proper home: we should consider ourselves as pilgrims upon earth, and strangers while here below, and look for, and hasten to, the everlasting habitations which await us above; and the mourners go about the streets, either those who were hired to weep for the dead, or those dear relatives, who with no fictitious tears bedew the bier of their departed friend, and fill the air with their lamentations. The silver cord, the bond of union between body and soul, will then be loosed; the golden bowl, which contained the animal spirits, be broken; then shall the pitcher be broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, the heart cease to beat, the blood to flow, and universal stagnation and death ensue. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, such is the dire effect of one man’s sin, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it, to receive its doom; either admitted to the blissful presence of God, or reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Well might the Preacher conclude from this humbling view of mortal man, with the position that he had advanced as the text of his discourse, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

* See note on this passage.

2nd, The Preacher is drawing to a conclusion, and warmly recommends what he has written, as the dictates of wisdom and experience. He tells us,
1. The pains that he took for our instruction. Moreover, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; what God had given him, he freely communicated; and, being recovered from his falls, returned to his former happy employment of making others wise unto salvation: yea, he gave good heed, extracting all the instruction he could find among books or men, and well digesting and pondering it in his own mind, and sought out with elaborate and accurate investigation the more difficult parts of science, and set in order many proverbs. 1Ki 4:32. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words, such as might most effectually, powerfully, and pleasingly convey the sacred truths which he laboured to inculcate; and that which was written was upright; being the dictates of God’s Spirit, even words of truth, proceeding from the God of truth.

2. The use and intention of his discourse. The words of the wise are as goads, sharp and quickening, convincing the conscience of sin, and stimulating our stupid hearts to diligence and activity in working out our own salvation: and as nails, to fix the wavering soul on God, fastened by the masters of assemblies, the ministers of the true religion, whose office and business it is, with ceaseless labour, to inculcate these words of truth, which are given from the one shepherd, who alone can make their ministry effectual to the conversion of men’s souls; and he has promised to be with us always, even unto the end of the world. In dependance upon him, therefore, must we go forth, and confidently expect to be assisted by him, and made successful in the preaching of his gospel.

3. The Bible is the book of books; compared with this, all others are insignificant; and whatever corresponds not herewith is carefully to be avoided. And further, by these my son, be admonished, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest these sacred truths; or of what is more than these beware, and affect not to be wise above what is written, but reject every writing which pretends to add to, or diminish from, what is revealed in the word of God: of making many books there is no end; it is vain to expect conviction from any other book, if the book of God do not produce it; and though our study were crowded with writings of philosophy and morality, one page of God’s word speaks with more power, authority, and evidence to the conscience, than these numberless volumes; and much study is a weariness of the flesh; the composing or reading human works with fixed attention wearies both the mind and body; but the study of the book of God is as pleasing as it is profitable.

3rdly. Behold, reduced to a single point, the sum of true religion, the certain means of happiness, and the great end of man: Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; fear God, and keep his commandments; the one the principle, the other the practice which necessarily flows from it. The fear of God comprehends all serious godliness, a reverence of his majesty, a deference to his authority, and a dread of his displeasure, and this will engage us to keep his commandments diligently, constantly, universally; making conscience of all our ways, and seeking to have them more exactly conformed to that perfect rule which he has prescribed. Two things are urged to enforce this.

1. The consideration how much it is our bounden duty thus to fear and serve God. This is the whole duty of man, it is the great end of his creation, and should be his first concern; or, this is the whole man, he is then truly blessed and happy; which all the world and all the things therein can never make him.

2. The consideration of the judgment approaching. For God shall bring every work into judgment: of what infinite moment these must it be to us, how we shall appear at his bar, where, according to our deeds, our eternity must be determined for endless joys or everlasting burnings! God sees and marks all our ways, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil; before the assembled world of men and angels they will be produced, and judgment, according to the truth, be executed. Happy they who keep this great day ever in their view, and feel the impression of it deep upon their hearts, restraining them from evil, quickening them in their course, supporting them under trials, and engaging them to persevere, faithful unto death; they shall have great boldness in the day of judgment, be counted worthy to stand before the Son of Man, and be admitted into the everlasting joy of their Lord.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

C. The only true way to happiness in this world and the world beyond consists in benevolence, fidelity to calling, a calm and contented enjoyment of life, and unfeigned fear of God from early youth to advanced age

Ecc 11:1 to Ecc 12:7

1. Of Benevolence and Fidelity to Calling

(Ecc 11:1-6)

1Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days. 2Give a portion to seven, and also to eight, for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. 3If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth, and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be. 4He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. 5As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. 6In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.

2. Of a Calm and Contented Enjoyment of Life

(Ecc 11:7-10)

7Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun : 8But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity. 9Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. 10Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.

3. Of the Duty of the Fear of God for Young and Old

(Ecc 12:1-7)

1Remember 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; 2While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3In 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. 4And 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; 5Also 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: 6Or 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. 7Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

[Ch. 11 Ecc 11:3.. If it is allowable at all to vary from the text that has come down to us, this may be regarded as equivalent to (comp. Ecc 1:5) there is he, there it is. It might easily arise in writing from the ear, the shewa sound being hardly perceptible. If we regard it as the future of the substantive verb , or , with for , it is not a Syriasm, since the future of the Syriac verb would be or rather .T. L.]

[Ecc 11:5.) with ellipsis of , equivalent to .T. L.]

[Ecc 12:3.. This is called Aramaic, but it is as much Hebrew as it is Aramaic or Arabic. The intensive form, , occurs Hab 2:7. It is one of those rarer forms that are to be expected only in impassioned writing, like this of Solomon, or in any vivid description. Its frequency or rarity would be like that of the word quake, in English, as compared with tremble. The rarer word [as is the case in our language] may be the older one, only becoming more frequent in later dialects according as it becomes common by losing its rarer or more impassioned significance.T. L.]

[on the difference between and Ecc 11:9 the words Ecc 11:10, Ecc 12:3, Ecc 12:5, Ecc 12:6, and and Ecc 12:5, see the exegetical and marginal notes.T. L.]

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

The close connection of verses 17 of the 12th chapter with chap. 11 is correctly recognized by most modern commentators; a few, as Hitzig and Elster, unnecessarily add to it also Ecc 12:8. A section thus extended beyond the limits of the 11th chapter concentrates within itself, as the closing division of the fourth and last discourse, all the fundamental thoughts of the book, and in such a manner that it almost entirely excludes the negative and skeptical elements of earlier discussions and observations [only that the words return again in Ecc 11:8; comp. Ecc 11:10], and therefore lets its recapitulation very clearly appear as a victory of the positive side of its religious view over the gloomy spectre of doubt, and the struggles of unbelief (comp. Int. 1, Obs. 2). The entire section may be clearly divided into three subdivisions or strophes, the first of which teaches the correct use of life as regards actions and labor, the second concerns enjoyment, and the third the reverence and fear of God, with an admonition to these respective virtues.

2. First Strophe, first half. Ecc 11:1-3. An admonition to benevolence, with reference to its influence on the happiness of him who practices it. Hitzig, instead of finding here an admonition to beneficence, sees a warning against it, an intimation that we hope too much for the good, and arm ourselves too little against future evil; but every thing is opposed to this, especially the words and sense of Ecc 11:3, which see.Cast thy bread upon the waters.That is, not absolutely cast it away (Hitzig), nor send it away in ships (as merchandise) over the water (Hengstenberg), but give it away in uncertainty, without hope of profit or immediate return. The admonition is in the same spirit as that in Luk 16:9; Pro 11:24 f. The Greek aphoristic poets have the expression to sow on the water; as Theog., Sent. 105. Phocyllides[1] 142 c.

The entire sentence (most probably as derived from this source) is found in Ben Sira (Buxtorf, Florileg. Heb., page 171), and among the Arabians as a proverb: Benefac, projice panem tuum in aquam; aliquando tibi retribuetur (Diez, Souvenirs of Asia, II., 106).For thou shalt find it after many days. is here clearly used in the sense of finding again. literally, in the fullness of days, within many days. Comp. Psa 5:6; Psa 72:7, etc. The sense is without doubt this: Among the many days of thy life there will certainly come a time when the seeds of thy good deeds scattered broadcast will ripen into a blessed harvest. Comp. Gal 6:9; 2Co 9:6-9; 1Ti 6:18-19; also Pro 19:17 : He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.

Ecc 11:2. Give a portion to seven and also to eight.That is, divide thy bread with many; for seven and eight are often used in this sense of undetermined plurality, as in Mic 5:4; comp. also three and four, Pro 30:15 ff.; Amo 1:3; Amo 2:1 ff.Hitzig runs entirely counter to the text, and does violence to the usual signification of saying: make seven pieces of one piece, divide it so that seven or eight pieces may spring from it, which admonition would simply be a rule of prudence (like the maxim followed by Jacob, Gen 32:8) not to load all his treasures on one ship, that he might not be robbed of every thing at one blow. This thought comports neither with the context nor with Ecc 11:6, where the sense is entirely different.For thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.That is, what periods of misfortune may occur when thou wilt pressingly need strength by community with others; comp. Luk 16:9.

Ecc 11:3. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth.Not that evil or misfortune occurs from stern necessity, or in immutable course [Hitzig, and also Hengstenberg, who here sees announced the near and irrevocable doom of the Persian monarchy], but exactly the reverse: let the good that thou doest proceed from the strongest impulse of sympathy, so that it occurs, as from a natural necessity, that rich streams of blessings flow forth from thee; comp. Joh 7:38; also Pro 25:14; Sirach 35:24; also the Arabian proverbs in the grammar of Erpenius, ed. Schultens, p. 424. Pluvia nubis co-operiens, dum dona funderet, etc.And if the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth there it shall be.This is apparently a parallel in sense to the second clause of Ecc 11:2, and therefore refers to the irrevocable character of the doom, or the Divine decree that overtakes man [Hitzig, Hengstenberg, etc.; also Hahn, who, however, translates the last clause thus: One may be at the place where the tree falls, and consequently be killed by it]. But it seems more in accordance with the text, and with the introduction [not with but with the simple copula ] to find the same sense expressed in this second clause as in the first, and consequently thus: the utility of the tree remains the same, whether it falls on the ground of a possessor bordering it to the north or the south; if it does not profit the one, it does the other. And it is just so with the gifts of love; their fruit is not lost, although they do not always come to light in the manner intended (Elster; comp, also Vaihinger and Wohlfarth, etc.). Geier and Rosenmueller are quite peculiar in the thought that the falling tree is the rich man, who is here warned of his death, after which he can do no more good deeds (similar to this are the views of Seb. Schmidt, Starke, Michaelis, etc.). a secondary Aramaic [2] form of and therefore literally equivalent to: it will be, it will lie there; for which consult Ewald, 192 c, as well as Hitzig on this passage. There is no grammatical foundation for the assertion that it is a substantive to be derived from an obsolete verb and explained by the word break [ there occurs the break or fracture of the tree, as says Starke].

3. First strophe, second half. Ecc 11:4-6. An admonition to zealous, careful, and untiring performance in ones calling [ , not to faint, as before he was warned , to be earnest in well doing, Gal 6:9]. He that observeth the wind shall not sow.A warning against timid hesitancy and its laming influence on effective and fruitful exertion. He whom the weather does not suit, and who is ever waiting for a more favorable season, misses finally the proper period for action. The second clause expresses the same admonitory thought regarding excessive considerateness.

Ecc 11:5. As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her who is with child.[Zckler renders way of the wind. See the excursus appended, p. 150.T. L.]That is, as thou canst not comprehend nor see through the mysteries of nature. That the origin and pathway of the winds is in this regard proverbial, is shown by Joh 3:8 [comp. above, Ecc 1:6]. For the formation of the bones in the womb of the mother as a process peculiarly mysterious and unexplainable, comp. Psa 139:13-18.Even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.The works or action of God are, of course, His future dealing,[3] which is a mystery absolutely unknown and unfathomable by men; wherefore all success of human effort can neither be known nor calculated in advance. Who maketh all; for this comp. Amo 3:6; Mat 10:28-29, Eph 3:20, etc.

[The Unknown Way of the Spirit and of Life.Ecc 11:5.As thou knowest not the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow, etc. The words are rendered here by Zckler, Stuart, and Hitzig, the way of the wind. There would be good reason for this from the verse preceding; but what follows points to the sense of spirit, although the word was undoubtedly suggested by what was said in Ecc 11:4 of the wind. The best way, however, is to regard the double idea of wind and spirit as being intended here, as in our Saviours language, Joh 3:8. About the words following there can be no mistake. The process described is set forth as the peculiar work of God, a Divine secret which human knowledge is challenged ever to discover. Thou knowest not the way of the spirit [ Gen 6:3, my spirit, that I have given to man], nor how the bones do grow, that is, how that spirit, or life, reorganizes itself each time, clothes itself anew in the human system, making the bones to grow according to their law, and building up for itself a new earthly house in every generic transmission. This is the grand secret, the knowledge and process of which God challenges to Himself. Science can do much, but it can never discover this. We may say it boldly, even as Koheleth makes his affirmation, science never will discover this; for it lies above the plane of the natural; and in every case, though connected with nature, demands a plus power, or some intervention, however regulated by its own laws, of the supernatural. The Bible thus presents it as Gods challenged work [comp. Gen 2:7; Gen 6:3; Job 33:14; Psa 139:13; Jer 1:5], the same now as in the beginning when the Word of life first went forth, and nature received a new life power, or, rather, a rising in the old. The passage of life from an old organism to a new is as much a mystery as ever. We mean the transition from the last enclosing matter of the former, through the moment of disembodiment, or material unclothing (see note, Gen., p. 170), when it takes that last matter of the previous organization, or of the seed vessel, or seed fluid, and immediately makes it the commencing food, the first material it uses in building up the new house in which it is to dwell. In respect, too, to the mystery of supernatural origin, it is as much a new creation as though that unclothed and immaterial power of life [whether in the vegetable or in the animal sphere] had for the first time begun its manifestation in the universe. It is the same Word, sounding on in nature, or, as the Psalmist says, running very swiftly, , , , , , , ; Wis 7:23-24. It is the transmission, not merely of an immaterial power (though even as a power science can only talk about it or find names for its phenomena), but also of a law and an idea ( as well as , an intelligent working we may say) representing, in this dimensionless monad force the new life exactly as it represented the old in all its variety, whether of form or of dynamical existence,in other words, transmitting the species, or the specific life, as that which lives on, and lives through, and lives beyond, all the material changes that chemistry has discovered or can ever hope to discover. Science may show how this life is affected in its manifestations by the outward influences with which it comes in contact, the changes that may seem to enter even the generic sphere, and it may thus rightly require us to modify our outward views in respect to the number and variety of strictly fundamental forms; but the transmission itself of the species (however it may have arisen or been modified) into the same form again of specific life, or the carrying a power, a law, and an idea, in a way that neither chemical nor mechanical science can ever trace,this is the Divine secret towards which the Darwinian philosophy has not made even an approach. Its advocates know no more about it, than did the old philosophers who held a theory precisely the same in substance, though different in its technology. They talked of atoms as men now talk of fluids, forces, and nebular matter; but give them time enough, or rather give them the three infinities of time, space, and numerical quantity of conceivable forms, and they would show us how from infinite incongruities falling at last into congruity and seeming order, worlds and systems would arise, though their form, their order, and the seeming permanence arising from such seeming order, would be only names of the states that were; any other states that might have arisen being, in such case, equally entitled to the same appellations. Like the modern systems, it was all idealess, without any intervention of intelligence either in the beginning or at any stages in the process. It is astonishing how much, in the talk about the Darwinian hypothesis, these two things have been confounded,the possible outward changes in generic forms, and the inscrutable transmission of the generic life in the present species, or in the present individual. The theory referred to is adapted only to an infinity of individual things, ever changing outwardly, and which, at last, fall into variety of species through an infinite number of trials and selections, or of fortunate hits after infinite failures. It makes no provision, however, for one single case of the transmission of the same specific life, either in the vegetable or the animal world. There it has to confess its ignorance, though it treats it sometimes as a very slight ignorance, soon to be removed. How pigeons, taken as an immense number of individual things, undergo an eternal series of outward changes,how existing pigeons spread into varieties, by some being more lucky in their selections than othersall this it assumes to tell us. But in the presence of the great every day mystery, the wonderful process that is going on in the individual pigeons egg, invisibly, yet most exactly, typing the pigeon life that now is, it stands utterly speechless. One of its advocates seems to regard this as a very small matter, at present, indeed, not fully understood as it will be, but of little consequence in its bearing on the great scheme. It has its laws undoubtedly, but the principle of life, he maintains, is chemical,that is, it is a certain arrangement of matter. Now this we cannot conceive, much less know. We are equally baffled whether we take into view the grosser (as they appear to the sense) or the more ethereal kinds of matter, whether as arranged in greater magnitudes, or in the most microscopic disposition of atoms, molecules, or elementary gases constituted by them. We may attempt still farther to etherealize by talking of forces, motions [motions of what ?] heat, magnetism, electricity, etc. They are still but quantities, matters of more or less. And so the modern chief of the positive school has boldly said: all is quantity, all is number; life is quantity, thought is quantity (so much motion); what we call virtue is quantity; it can be measured. And so all knowledge is ultimately mathematics, or the science of quantity. There is nothing that cannot, be reduced, in its last stages, to a numerical estimate. There is, moreover, just so much matter, force, and motion in the universe,ever has been, ever will be. And there is nothing else. But how life, a thing in itself dimensionless, to say nothing of feeling, thought, and consciousness, can come out of such estimates is no more conceivable of one kind of matter, however moving, than it is of another. Still more do we fail to imagine how it can, in any way, be the result of figure, arrangement, position, quantity, or of , , as Leucippus and Democritus called their three prime originating causalities [see Aristot., Met. II. 4]. But so it is, they still continue to insist, though chemistry has searched long and could never find it, or even the way to its house, as is said, Job 37:20, of the light. Prof. Haeckel, of Jena, in his Natrliche Schpfungsgeschichte maintains that all organized beings are potentially present in the first matter of the nebular system. He looks upon all the phenomena of life as a natural sequence of their chemical combination, as much as if they were conditions of existence, though the ultimate causes are hidden from us. There may be some truth in what is said about conditions [for conditions are not causes], but it is the other remark that demands attention: though the ultimate causes may be hidden from us. Ho seems to regard this as a very slight circumstance, which ought to have little effect on the great argument of what calls itself the exact, and positive philosophy. There is yet indeed an unimportant break in the chain; a link or two is to be supplied; that is all, they would say. But what data have we for determining what is lacking before the full circuit of knowledge is completed ? A most important inquiry this: how great is the separation made by the unknown? Is it a few inches, or a space greater than the stellar distances? Is it a thin partition through which the light is already gleaming, or is it a vast chasm, compared with which any difference between the most ancient and the most modern knowledge is as nothing ? Is it something that may be passed over in time, or is it the measureless abyss of infinity which the Eternal and Infinite Mind alone can span? They are yet hidden from us, he says. Is there the least ray of light in the most advanced science that shows us that we are even approaching this mysterious region of causality? Is there any reason to think that we know a particle more about it than Aristotle did, or those ancient positivists who talked of , , and , or any of those profound thinkers of old whose better reasoned atheism Cudworth has so fully refuted in his great work? And yet this professor of exact science talks of his monera, the prototypes of the protista, and how from these came neutral monera, and from these, again, vegetable and animal monera, just as freely as though he knew all about it from his inch of space and moment of time, or had not just admitted an ignorance which puts him at an inconceivable distance from that which he so confidently claims to explain. For it should be borne in mind that science has not merely failed to discover the principle of life, as positive knowledge; she cannot, even conceive it; she cannot form a theory of it which does not run immediately into the old mechanical and chemical language of number and quantity, out of which she cannot think, nor talk, without bringing in the supernatural, and that, too, as something above her province. After what is told us about the monera, etc., the writer proceeds to say: this once established, from each of the archetypes, we have a genealogy developed which gives us the history of the protozoan and animal kingdoms, etc., as though any thing had been established, and he had not admitted his ignorance of a prime truth without which he cannot take a step in the direction in which he so blindly hastes. There is nothing new in this, in substance, though there may be much that is novel in form and technology. It is the old philosophy of darkness. It is as true of this modern school as it was of the old cosmologists of whom Aristotle first said it, , that they generate all things out of Night. This bringing every thing out of the nebular chaos through mechanical action and chemical affinities, and these grounded on nothing else than , , and , is nothing more than the Hesiodean generations, or the Love and Discord, the attractions and repulsions, of Empedocles. It is the pantogony of these old world builders, but without their splendid poetry.

All organized beings in the first nebular matter, and that from eternity! Then, of course, there has been no addition in time, no plus quantity, or plus power, or any plus idea combined with power; for that would be something which previously was not. Newton was in the toadstool; for what is not in cannot come out, or be developed; and so every toad-stool now contains a Newton; every fungus contains an academy of science, or a school of positive philosophy. The carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, or still earlier and more formless matter out of which this thinking arises, is there, only in a different and , perhaps. There has been no more addition to nature in the physical development of the rationalist commentator than in that of the (Exo 8:17; Psa 105:31) or Egyptian lice, whose immediate production he regards as beneath the dignity of any supposed Divine or supernatural action. And so there can be no real or essential difference in rank. The kinnim were as much in the first matter as the phosphorus that thinks in the brain of the theologian; they had as high and as old a place. The idea, too, of the kinnim was there, and all the machinery of their development; so that there was no saving of means or labor; their immediate genesis would cost no more, or be any more of a belittling work, than their mediate, or developed production. These insignificant creatures were provided for from all eternity. But providing means foreseeing, foreknowing; and language revolts. We cannot consistently talk atheism or materialism in any human dialect; God be thanked for such a provision in the origin and growth of speech. We can, indeed, say in. words, as one of the boldest of this godless school has said, ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke, without phosphorus no thought; but then we must give up the word idea as, in any sense a cause originating; for there could be no idea antecedent to the phosphoric matter, or that order and position of it, out of which idea, or the development of thought, was to arise; that is, any idea of phosphorus before phosphorus. There is, then, nothing eternal, immutable, undeveloped, or having its being in itself, and to which, as an ideal standard, the terms higher and lower can be referred to give them any meaning. For all risings of matter, or form, to higher forms regarded as any thing else than simply unfoldings of previous matter, or previous arrangements of forces, are creations as much as any thing that is supposed first to commence its being as a whole; since more from less involves the maxim de nihilo, as well as something from nothing in its totality. If they were in that previous matter without a new commandment, a new word, and a plus activity accompanying it, then they are not truly a rising. They are no more, in quantity, than what they were; and quantity is all. Quality, according to Comte, is but a seeming; it is not a positive entity, but only , , and , an arrangement of matter. The potentiality, then, has all that there is, or can be, in any actuality. Even that inconceivable power which causes any potentiality to be thus potential, is, itself, only a potentiality included in the infinite sum of potentiality, which, as a whole, is also, in some way, caused to be what it is, and as it is. We say, in some way; for to say for some reason, would, at once, be bringing in a new word, and a new idea, utterly foreign to this whole inconceivable scheme. According to the other philosophy, Reason is in the beginning, (John 1.; Pro 8:22). But here reason is junior to matter, something developed, and which could, therefore, neither as intelligens nor as intellectum, be made a ground of that from which itself proceeds. We can never get out of this labyrinth; for the moment we bring in a plus quantity, or a plus activity, or a plus idea, or any thing seeming to be such, we only have a new causative potentiality, and that demanding another, which is potential of it, and so on ad infinitum; the infinity, too, not proceeding from the highest downward, but from the lowest state [or that which is next to nothing], as being the first possible manifestation of being in the universe of conceivable things. Again, it may be asked, why has not this infinite potentiality, in this infinite time, developed all things potential, so that pigeons should long since have become arch-angels, and our poor, earthly, dying race long since risen to be as gods. Or how, if we shrink from that, are we to avoid the converse conclusion, that the whole state of things now actual, now developed, is still infinitely low, and that the highest and best in the sphere of soul, and thought, and reason, is not only as yet undeveloped, but infinitely far in condition, and eternally far in time, from its true actuality,if, in such a scheme, highest and best have any real meaning. It makes the lowest and most imperfect first, the best and perfect last, or at such an infinite distance that it may be said they never come. Religion and the Scriptures just reverse this. They put soul first, mind first, the Personal first, the all Holy, the all Wise, the all Righteous, the all Perfect, first, whilst every seeming imperfection contributes to the manifestation of the infinite excellency and infinite glory of the one separate personal God who is first of all and over all.

How poor the science of Koheleth, it may be said, and yet he has propounded here a problem having regard to one of the most common events of life, but which the ages are challenged to solve: As thou knowest not the way of the spirit, or even how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the work of God who worketh all, the all, the great paradigm which He is bringing out in space and time [ch. Ecc 3:14], and for those moral and spiritual ends to which the natural, with all its changes, and all its developments, is at every moment subservient In one sense, indeed, it has no plus quantities. All is provided for in Him who is the A and the , the First and the Last, the , the Beginning and the End. All that God doeth is for the olam, the Great Eternity [Ecc 3:14]. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it; but this, instead of excluding the supernatural, or shutting all things up in nature, necessitates the idea that there is a world above nature, a power, or rather an Eternal Word [ (Col 1:17)] in whom all things consist, or stand together. This Word still speaks in nature. There, still abides its constant voice, [1Ki 19:12], susurrus aur tenuis, its thin still voice, that is heard after the fire and the wind, its whisper word, as Job calls it, Job 26:14; and then again there is the going forth of its mighty thunder voice, which none but God can understand, speaking in its great periodic or creative utterances, as it did of old, and as it shall speak again, when it calls for the new heavens and the new earth, giving to nature its new movement and its still holier Sabbath. It is this greater utterance that brings into the natural development its plus powers and plus ideas, not from any undeveloped physical necessity, but from a Divine fullness, not arbitrarily, but from its own everlasting higher law.

Throughout all the seeming nature there remains this mysterious, generative, life-giving process in the vegetable, the animal, and especially in the human birth, as a constant symbol of the supernatural presence, or of the old unspent creative force, still having its witness in continually recurring acts, ever testifying to the great Divine secret that baffles science, and to the explanation of which she cannot even make an approach.

There is an allusion to this mystery of generation, Psa 139:13 : Thou didst possess my reins [claim them as thine own curious work], thou didst overshadow me in my mothers womb. So also in Psa 139:15 : My substance was not hid from thee, my bone, the same symbolic word that is here employed by Koheleth. In fact, it was ever so regarded by the earliest mind, as it must be by the latest and most scientific. Koheleth simply expressed the proverbial mystery of his day. It existed in the thinking and language of the most ancient Arabians; as is evident from the use Mohammed makes of it in the Koran. His mode of speaking of it shows that it was a very old query that had long occupied the thoughts of men. Hence his adversaries are represented as proposing it to him as a test of his being a true prophet (see Koran Sur. 17. 78): They will ask thee about the spirit ( ); say: the spirit is according to the command of my Lord, and ye have been gifted with knowledge but a very little way. When he says the spirit is by the command of my Lord, he has reference to a distinction that was made (and very anciently it would seem) between the creation of spirit, and that of matter, or nature strictly. The latter was through media, steps, or growth, whilst spirit was immediate, by the command of God, according to the language of Psa 33:9, or the frequent expression in the Koran which so closely resembles it, , be, and it was. Al. Zamakhshari, in his Commentary, p. 783, 2, tells us that the Jews bid the Koreish ask Mohammed three questionsone about the mystery of the cave and the sleepers, one about Dhu l Karnein, and the third, this question about the spirit. If he pretended to answer them all, or if he answered neither of them, then he was no true prophet. He answered the first two, but confessed his ignorance of the human soul, as being something the knowledge of which God had reserved to Himself. Then he told them that there was the same reserve in their law (the Old Testament) which revealed to them nothing about the way of the spirit, . If Mohammed knew any thing about the Bible (and there is but little reason in the contrary supposition), then it may bereasonably thought that in what is thus said of him by the Koranic commentator, he had reference to such passages as this of Ecclesiastes (compare also Ecc 3:21, , who knoweth the spirit, etc.), or to the general reserve of the Old Testament respecting the soul, or in a more special manner to Gen 2:7; Gen 6:3, where there are ascribed to God the more direct creation of, and a continued property in, the human spirit. This would seem, too, from Psa 104:29, to be asserted, in some sense, even of the animal creation.T. L.]

Ecc 11:6. In the morning sow thy seed.The sowing of seed is here a figurative designation of every regular vocation or occupation, not specially of benevolence; comp. Job 4:8; Psa 126:5; 1Co 9:10-11.And in the evening withhold not thine hand.Literal, towards evening (), i.e., be diligent in thy business from the early morning till the late evening, be incessantly active.For thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that. , not what, but whether; the expression refers, as it seems, to the double labor, that of the morning and that of the evening. We are to arrange labor with labor, because the chances are equal, and we may therefore hope that if one fails, the other may succeed. God may possibly destroy one workand who knows which ? (comp. Ecc 5:6); it is well if thou then hast a support, a second arrow to send (Hitzig).Or whether they shall both be alike goodi.e., whether both kinds of labor produce what is really good, substantial and enduring, or whether the fruit of the one does not soon decay, so that only the result of the other remains. together, as in Ezr 6:20; 2Ch 5:13; Isa 65:25.

4. Second strophe. Ecc 11:7-10. Admonition to calmness and content, ever mindful of divine judgment, and consequently to the cheerful enjoyment of the blessings of this life.Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. Hitzig correctly gives the connection with the preceding: The tendency of the advice in Ecc 11:1-6 (mainly in Ecc 11:6) to secure guaranties in life, is justified in Ecc 11:7. Life is beautiful and worthy of receiving care. Elster is less clear and concise: Such an energy of mental activity (as that demanded in Ecc 11:1-6) will only be found where there is no anxious calculation about the result; but where man finds alone in the increased activity of his mental powers, (?) and in the intense striving after an eternal goal, his satisfaction and reward, etc. The light here stands for life, of which it is the symbol. (Comp. Psa 36:9; Psa 49:19; Psa 56:13; Job 3:20). And so the expression: to behold the sun, for which see not only Psa 36:9; Joh 11:9, but also passages in classic authors, e. g., Euripides, Iphig. in Aul. Ecc 1218: ; also Hippol. Ecclesiastes 4 : ; Phoeniss: .

Ecc 11:8. But if a man live many years. here greatly increases the intensity of thought (comp. Job 6:21; Hos 10:5); it is consequently to have no closer connection with the following ; comp. Pro 2:3; Isa 10:22, etc.And rejoice in them all; [Zckler renders: Let him rejoice in them all];[4] therefore daily and constantly rejoice, in harmony with the apostolic injunction, . See the Doctrinal and Ethical to know how this sentence is to be reconciled, in Koheleths sense, with the truth that all is vanity, and at the same time to be defended against the charge of Epicurean levity.Yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. is here the relative, not the causal ; comp. the Septuagint: , . The days of darkness are those to be passed after this life in Scheol, the dark prison beneath the earth (Ecc 9:10), the days when we shall no longer see the pleasant light of the sun, or the period of death; comp. Job 10:21, f.; Job 14:22; Psa 88:12, etc.All that Cometh is vanity; that is, that cometh in this world; everything that exists in this life, consequently all men especially; comp. Ecc 6:4; Joh 1:9. Nevertheless the translation should not be in the masculine; the Septuagint is correct: , . The sense given by Vaihinger and Elster is too broad : All future things are vanity. But even this is more correct than the Vulgate and Luther, who refer to the past.

Moreover the clause is a confirmation of what precedes, though used without a connective, and therefore making a still greater impression.

Ecc 11:9. Rejoice, O young man in thy youth.Here we again have a vividly emphatic omission of the connective. That which the previous verse recommended in general, is now specially addressed to youth as that period of life especially favorable to cheerful enjoyment, and therefore, in accordance with Gods will, especially appointed thereto. But the necessary check is indeed immediately placed upon this rejoicing, by the reminder of the duty to forget not that God will bring to judgment. in does not give the cause or object of rejoicing, but, as also in in the following clause (comp. Isa 9:2), the period and circumstances in which it is to occur.And let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, [5] For this expression comp. Ecc 1:17; Ecc 3:18; Ecc 7:25, etc. The heart delights the whole man in proportion as it itself is , that is, of good cheer.And walk in the ways of thine heart, i.e., in the ways in which it will go; follow it. Comp. Isa 57:17 and for the thought above Ecc 2:10.And in the sight of thine eyes, i. e., so that thy observation of things shall form the rule for thy conduct, (comp. Ecc 3:2-8). This is in accordance with the Kri , which is attested by all versions and manuscripts; the ketib which is preferred by Hengstenberg and others, would designate the multitude of the objects of sight as the rule for walking, which, as Hitzig correctly observes, would be an intolerable zeugma. We moreover decidedly condemn the addition of before : and not according to the sight of thine eyes, as is found in the Codex Vaticanus of the Septuagint, and in the Jewish Haggada; for the passage in Num 15:39, that probably furnished the inducement to this interpolation, is not, when rightly comprehended, in antagonism with the present admonition; for quite as certain[6] as the allusion is there to amorous looks of lust, is it here, on the contrary, to an entirely innocent use of sight, and one well-pleasing to God.But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment. Comp. Job 11:6. The judgment () is very certainly not merely to be considered as one of this world, consisting of the pains of advanced age (Hitzig), described in Ecc 12:1, ff., or of human destinies as periods of the revelation of divine retributive justice in general (Clericus, Winzer, Knobel, Elster, etc.). The author rather has in view the judgment in the absolute sense, the great reckoning after death, the last judgment, as the parallels Psa 143:2; Job 14:3; Job 19:29, etc.,[7] incontestably show (comp. also Heb 9:27; Heb 10:27); the preludes of the final judgment belonging to this life come into view only as subordinate. Neither Ecc 11:8 of this chapter, nor Ecc 9:10 are opposed to this; for Koheleth in these teaches not an eternal, but only a long sojourn in Scheol. Our interpretation receives also the fullest confirmation in Ecc 3:17 as in Ecc 12:7; Ecc 12:14.

Ecc 11:10. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart. The positive command to rejoice, is here followed by the warning against the opposite of rejoicing sorrow, dissatisfaction; the Septuagint, Vulgate, Geier, etc., most unfittingly render it anger, just as the following, which means evil, misfortune, they render, wickedness, (, malitia). The recommendation to cheerfulness instead of sadness and melancholy (comp. Mal 3:14; Isa 58:3) is here clearly continued; comp. Ecc 9:7, ff. For in the second clause, comp. Ecc 5:6.For childhood and youth are vanity. The figure ( a later expression for ; comp. the Talmudic , and the thing compared( also a later word) are here, as in Ecc 5:2; Ecc 7:1, connected by a simple copula. Koheleth would have written more clearly, but less poetically and effectively if he had said for as the dawn of the morning so is the period of youth all vanity (i.e., transitory, fleeting, comp. Ecc 7:6; Ecc 9:9).

[Koheleths Description of Old Age, chap. 12.The imagery and diction of this remarkable passage show it to be poetry of the highest order; but it presents a very gloomy picture. Even as a description of the ordinary state of advanced life, it is too dark. It has no relief, none of those cheering features, few though they may be, which Cicero presents in his charming treatise De Seneclute. As a representation of the old age of the godly man, it is altogether unfitting. Compare it with the , the good old age of Abraham and David, Gen 15:15,1Ch 29:28, the serene old age of Isaac, the honored old age of Jacob, the hale old age of Moses and Joshua. See how Isaiah (Isa 40:30-31) describes the aged who wait upon the Lord: The youths may faint and be weary, even the young men may utterly fail, but they who wait on Jehovah shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. A more direct contrast is furnished by the striking picture of aged saints, Psa 92:15 : They are like the grandval cedars of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing (more correctly, still resinous and green) evergreens; or, as Watts has most beautifully paraphrased it,

The plants of grace shall ever live;
Nature decays, but grace must thrive;
Time that doth all things else impair,
Still makes them flourish, strong and fair.
Laden with fruits of age they show,
The Lord is holy, just and true;
None that attend His gates shall find,
A God unfaithful or unkind.

Another very striking contrast to this is that picture which Solomon twice gives us in the Pro 16:31; Pro 20:29, the hoary head a crown of glory when found in the way of righteousness. But one supposition remains; the picture here given is the old age of the sensualist. This appears, too, from the connection. It is the evil time, the day of darkness that has come upon the youth who was warned in the language above, made so much more impressive by its tone of forecasting irony. It is the dreary old age of the young man who would go on in every way of his heart, and after every sight of his eyes,who did not keep remorse from his soul, nor evils from his flesh and now all these things are come upon him, with no such alleviations al often accompany the decline of life. Such also might be the inference from the words with which the verse begins : Remember thy Creator while the evil days come not ( ). It expresses this and more. There is a negative prohibitory force in the : So remember Him that the evil days come notbefore they come, implying a warning that such coming will be a consequence of the neglect. Piety in youth will prevent such a realizing of this sad picture; it will not keep off old age, but it will make it cheerful and tolerable, instead of the utter ruin that is here depicted.

Another argument is drawn from the character of the imagery. The general representation is that of the decay of a house, or rather of a household establishment, as a picture of man going to his eternal house, his , . This earthly house ( , 2Co 5:1) is going to ruin, but the style of the habitation is so pictured as to give us some idea of the character of the inhabitant. It is not the cottage of the poor, nor the plain mansion of the virtuous contented. It is the house of the rich man (Luk 16:19) who has fared sumptuously (, splendidly) every day. The outward figure is that of a lordly mansion,a palace or castle with its keepers, its soldiers, or men of might, its purveyors of meal and provisions, its watchers on the turrets. It is a luxurious mansion with its gates once standing wide open to admit the revellers, now closing to the street. The images that denote these different parts of the body, the different senses or gates of entrance to the soul, are all so chosen as to indicate the kind of man represented. It is the eye that looked out for every form of beauty, the mouth (the teeth) that demanded supplies of the most abundant and delicious food. It is the ear that sought for singing women, , the loudest and most famed of the daughters of song. And so, too, the appurtenances at the close of the description, the hanging lamps, the golden bowl, the costly fountain machinery all falling into ruin, present the game indications of character, and of the person represented.

Another very special mark of this may be traced in the expression Ecc 11:5, rendered, desire shall fail, rather, shall be frustrated, still raging but impotent. How characteristic of the old sensualist, and yet how different from the reality in the virtuous old age that has followed a temperate and virtuous youth! See how Cicero speaks of such failure of desire as a release, a relief, instead of a torment: libenter vero istinc, tanquam a domino furioso, profugi; De Senectute, 47. This view is rendered still stronger, if we follow those commentators who would regard as denoting an herb used for the excitement of failing desire: It shall fail to have its effect. The meaning seems plain, however, as commonly taken, and there is, perhaps, no good reason for departing from the etymological sense. Everything goes to show that Watts has rightly paraphrased the passage

Behold the aged sinner goes,

Laden with guilt and heavy woes,
Down to the regions of the dead.

The soul returns murmuringly to God, as though with its complaint of the cruel and degrading treatment it had received from the fleshly nature in the earthly house, or as a wailing ghost driven away (see Pro 14:32), naked and shivering into the uncongenial spiritual sphere.

It is in view of such a life, and such a death, that we see the force of the closing exclamation O vanity of vanitiesall vanity ! As a finale to the life and death of the righteous, even if the writer, like Solon, had had reference only lo this world, it would have seemed inharmonious and out of place. If we regard it, however, as Solomons picture of himself repenting in extremis, then may we indulge a more cheerful hope in regard to its close, though still with the wail of vanity as its mournful accompaniment. One thing seems almost certain. Such a description as this, so sad, so full of feeling, must have been written by one who had had some experience of the situation described. There is a pathos about it that indicates personality, and a personal repentance. If so, no one is so readily suggested as the king of Israel, whose fall into sensuality and idolatry is so vividly described, 1 Kings 11, where the divine judgments upon him are also fully set forth. His repentance is not there mentioned, but it may be because this book of Koheleth, which he left behind him as his brief spiritual autobiography, contained such ample evidence of the fact.T. L.].

5. Third strophe. Ecc 12:1-7. An admonition to fear God during youth, and not to leave his till old age, the period when approaching death announces itself through many terrorshere depicted in a series of poetical figures drawn from the various realms of nature and human life.Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. For the plural see Ecc 5:8 preceding. The word remember () is, of course, a remembering with becoming reverence, as well as with a feeling of gratitude for the many blessings received. It is therefore substantially the same with the fear expressly recommended in Ecc 12:13, and in substance, at least, in Ecc 11:9, second clause.While the evil days come not. Literally, until not, i.e.,before; just as in Ecc 11:2 and in the later recapitulation Ecc 11:6. The evil days and the years following are naturally the years of old age, of the period immediately preceding death, in contradistinction to the joyous period of youth.

Ecc 11:2. While the sun, or the light,[8] or the moon or the stars be not darkened. The darkening of the sun and the light must here be synonymous with the diminishing and the saddening of the joys of life, as is experienced in advanced age. A more special interpretation of the sun and the light, as well as of the moon and the stars (only added to finish the description), is inadmissible, and leads to platitudes, as is the case with Glassius, Oeting, and F. W. Meyer, who think of the darkening powers of the mind or with Wedel, who would interpret the sun by the heart, the moon by the brain, the stars by the bowels(!), and the clouds and rain, even, by the catarrhal rheums of old age(!). Moreover the darkening of sun, moon and stars is a favorite figure for seasons of misfortune, punishment and judgment; comp. Jos 3:4; Jos 2:10; Amo 8:9; Isa 13:10; Eze 32:7; Act 2:20; Rev 6:12. The same is also found in classic authors, e.g., Catullus Ecc 8:3; Fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles; Martial Epigr. Ecc 5:20, Ecclesiastes 11 : Bonosque soles effugere atque abire sentit.Nor the clouds return after the rain. That is, one calamity follows another, one season of misfortune begins where the other ceases. The rainy season, or winter, is therewith described, in contrast to the mere showers or passing thunder storms of summer. Old age is symbolized as the winter[9] (or autumn of life, as it has previously been termed the approaching night; comp. Job 29:3; where the mature age of man is designated as the days of autumn ( ). So we too sometimes speak of the evening, the autumn, and the winter of life.

Ecc 11:3-5. A more intimate figurative description of old ages infirmity and proximity to death. This is here represented under the figure of a house whose inhabitants, formerly cheerful and animated, now become weak, inactive and sad. Umbreit and Elster condemn this view as harsh and devoid of taste, and consider the passage rather as a poetic description of the day of death, which is represented under the figure of a fearful tempest, see especially Gurlitt, Studien und kritiken, 1865, II., p. 331, ff. (comp. p. 27, preceding). Comp. also the subsequent remarks under the head of Doctrinal and Ethical.In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble. The human body is often compared to a house [10] or a tent, e. g., Isa 38:12; Wis 9:15; Job 4:19; 2Co 5:1, ff.; 2Pe 1:13, f. So also in profane writings, e. g., in the Arabian poet Hariri, (Rueckerts Ed., p. 293); in Virgil, Eneid VI., 734. The keepers of the house are the arms with the hands, that are intended to protect the body, but which become tremulous in aged persons. These are considered as outside of the house, but as closely belonging to it. For the use of the hands as protection and armor for the body, comp. Galen, de usu partium I., (4 Opp. ed. Kuehn T., III., p. 8).And the strong men shall bow themselves. That is, evidently the legs, which in old age lose their muscular power; whilst in the young, strong man they may be compared to marble columns, (comp. Son 5:10), they now shrink and become feeble, and crooked. Comp. the crooked knees of Job 4:4; the weak knees of Psa 109:24; the feeble knees, Isa 35:3; Heb 12:12; also 3Ma 4:5. Men of strength, is, on the contrary, a designation for valiant warriors: Jdg 20:44; 2Sa 11:16; 2Ki 24:16; and to these especially strong legs are very necessary: see Psa 147:10; 2Sa 1:23, etc.And the grinders cease[11] because they are few. the grinding maids are to be construed as referring to the teeth, as is also shown by for they have become few, and by the subsequent mention of the sound of the mill, i.e., of the human speech proceeding from the wall of the teeth (Ecc 11:4). The closeness of the comparison between human teeth and a mill is proved by the designation grinders,[12] for the molar teeth in many languages, e.g., in the Syriac (), in the Greek ( ) in the Latin (molares). The feminine form is in allusion to the customof all antiquity, according to which female slaves performed the grinding with hand-mills (Exo 11:5; Job 31:10; Isa 47:2; Mat 24:41), and is also in harmony with the use of (tooth) as feminine, occurring in Pro 25:19.And those that look out of the windows be darkened. These are the eyes,[13] that are here the more fittingly designated as , because the eye is feminine, and since the eyelids, in other passages compared to the threads of a net (Pro 6:25), are here clearly compared to the bars of a grate or to the grating (), and since also it was very natural to present the eyes, the most noble of all our organs, as the mistresses of the house, who look quietly out into the exterior world, but the teeth on the contrary as the servants or slaves. Comp. Cicero Tusc. I., Ecc 20: Oculi quasi fenestr sunt animi; foramina ilia, qu patent ad animum a corpore, callidissimo artificio natura fabricata est; also Lactantius, de opif. Dei, c. 8; Clemens, Stromata, VII., p. 685, . See also the Cabalistic theory of the seven openings or doors of the head, of which the two sockets of the eyes are the most elevated and distinguished (Jezira, c. 4; comp. Talmud tract, Schabb. p. 152, Colossians 1; Buxtorf, Florileg. p. 320). Those looking out of the windows are said to be darkened with reference to the feebleness of sight in old persons, e. g., Isaac (Gen 27:1), Jacob (Gen 48:10), Eli (1Sa 3:2), Ahia (1Ki 14:4),etc.; comp. also Psa 119:23; Lam 5:17; Deu 34:7.

Ecc 11:4. And the doors shall be shut in the streets. Namely, the mouth[14] whose upper and lower lips are compared to the two sides or folds of a door (); comp. Psa 141:3; Mic 7:5; Job 41:6. literally, on the street, points to the function of the mouth as a means of communication with the outer world, whether by the reception of food or the sending out of words or other sounds. As the latter reference is not so close, and would anticipate the subsequent clause, we are doubtless to think of the mouth as the organ of eating, and the shutting of the doors as an allusion to the feeble appetite of old men, [in this Ewald id correct, in opposition to Knobel, Vaihinger, etc.]. Herzfeld and Hitzig are entirely too artificial: the lips of the toothless mouth cling together; but Hengstenberg also says: the shutting of the doors refers to the difficulty of hearing in old men, a common infirmity with them that would not be wanting here (?!).When the sound of the grinding is low. Zckler translates: the voice of the mill. The mill is the teeth, according to Ecc 11:3; its voiceis not, however, the noise caused by the chewing of foodwhich would be very harsh and unnatural (contrary to Ewald, et al.), but human speech breathed out, as it were, from the wall of the teeth [ ], that voice which in old age usually becomes weaker and lower.And he shall rise up at the voice of the bird. Zckler translates: and it seems like the voice of the sparrow. Ewald and Hitzig are correct [in regard to the impersonal rendering of ] with reference to Isa 29:24, where also a weak voice is compared to the low chirping, if not of the sparrow, at least of some other small birds. It is usually rendered (Sept., Vulg., Luther, Knobel, Vaihinger, etc.: and he rises up at the voice of the birds, i.e., in the early morningwhich might also afford an allusion to the sleeplessness of old men. But it is more than doubtful whether should express this sense of early rising. Instead of we should in that case have expected . And early rising is by no means a general custom of old men, andwhat seems more weighty than all the restthe context requires a reference to the low, whispering speech of old men; see the following clause. For in the sense here given to it, comp. Zep 3:8; 1Sa 22:13.And all the daughters of music shall be brought low, that is, all the songs in which the old man endeavors to join, but which he utters only with a trembling, and scarcely audible voice. The daughters of a thing means in Hebrew style its special or specific announcement or utterance; comp. the Rabbinic as well as the expression Son of fruitfulness, Isa 5:1, etc. Hitzig is correct, and Hengstenberg substantially so, who understands by the daughters of song the qualities required in singing. But Knobel is arbitrary, who, with Herzfeld, sees in the singers only singing birds (according to which the failing here described would be the deafness of the old man); Vaihinger sees an allusion to the organs of singing; and, finally, Umbreit and Elster understand the passage to be about the low flight of birds, and their uneasy fluttering at an approaching thunder storm.

Ecc 11:5. The discourse continues to depend on at the beginning of the third verse, if not grammatically, at least logically.Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high; i.e., of ascending an eminence which would be difficult on account of their sunken chests, and short breath; a remark in sympathy with what precedes concerning the feeble voice of old men. Nearly all modern commentators are correct on this point, as is now Ewald, who formerly translated: when they shall be afraid of the Lofty One, that, is of God, the one supremely lofty.And fears shall be in the way; namely, threaten them, meet them, who are too lame and weak easily too avoid such frights. For the abstract form of the plural , see Ewald, 179, a.And the almond tree shall flourish. Thus we must, without doubt, translate the words , for (Hiphil of ). For this compare Ewald, 15, a.; 141, b. The almond tree bears its blossoms in the midst of winter,[15] and on a naked, leafless stem, and these blossoms (reddish or flesh-colored in the beginning) seem at the time of their fall exactly like white snow-flakes; (Bodenstedt, 1001 Days in the Orient, II., p. 237). In this way the almond blossom is a very fitting symbol of old age with its silvery hair, and its wintry, dry, barren and unfruitful condition. Ewald, Heiligstedt, Vaihinger, and Gurlitt, are correct; the first-named makes an appropriate reference to Philo, de vita Mosis iii. 22.Hengstenbergs view is too far-fetched in finding in the words (according to Jer 1:11) the wakefulness, or sleepless nights of hoary old age; whilst Schrder, Gesenius, Dietrich, et al., consider as intrans. Fut. Hiph. from , and render: And the almond is despised (by the toothless old man who cannot bite it); others undertake emendations, e.g., Gaab, who reads is despised, Hitzig, who points it and thus obtains the scarcely intelligible sense: And the Almond tree refuses, i.e., does not permit the weak old man to obtain its fruit (which is to be understood according to the analogy of the Son 7:9). Still others, finally, force an unusual sense on the word as Hahn, who understands and translates it the waking, referring it to the human mind; the waking one acquires pinions, which is about equivalent to saying: The previously half-wakened spirit is, in the moment of death, released unto clear life and full liberty (against which explanation is the absence elsewhere of any Hiphil denominative from pinionAnd the Grasshopper shall be a burden (Zckler renders burdensome), on account of its singing and chirping, or also on account of its hopping flight and creeping. literally, locust, but here more fittingly translated by grasshopper, because, in rendering, locust, it is most probably the comparative smallness, as in Isa 40:22; Num 13:31, which is mainly considered (as though we should say: And the gnat becomes a burden, or the fly). For (fut. Hithpa of ) to become a burden, comp. Gesenius in the Thesaurus. Kimchi is correct regarding this, and he is followed by Gurlitt, especially among modern authors, and approximately also by Gesenius and Hengstenberg, of whom, however, the former thinks of the burdensomeness of the locust as an article of food, whilst the latter prefers to have locust understood figuratively in the sense of influences hostile to life. The numerous remaining hypotheses are to be decidedly rejected; they are divided into two groups, according as they interpret the locust as a symbol of the old man himself, that is as to the form of his body, or seek to alter the sense of by peculiar explanations. To the former group belong the Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, etc., which agree in the signification that the locust becomes fat (swells up), and understand the whole, though in opposition to the true signification of as a biblical representation of the corpulency of old men; and 2. those of Luther, Geier, Vaihinger, etc., who explain locust to mean the crooked or bent skeleton and spinal column of man in old age, and therefore translate: The locust is burdened; and 3. that of Hitzig: And the jumper permits himself to be carried, i.e., the one formerly hopping merrily about can no longer walk: 4. that of Oetinger: the locust becomes a burden to itself, i.e., drags its body about with difficulty; 5. those of Ewald, Heiligstedt, and Hahn, who agree in making locust point to the inner body, or to the mind of man (Ewald): and the locust rises, namely to fly; Heiligstedt: et tollit se ad volandum locusta; Hahn: And the locust unburdens itself, which is equivalent to our expression: And the butterfly bursts its cocoon. Among the second class we may count such illustrations as the Chaldaic, and that of Aben Ezra: when the ankle-bones become thick; that of Bochart, when the bones of the legs become heavy; and of Knobel: and the breathing is a burden (the last two on the basis of a peculiar signification of derived from the Arabic).[16]And desire shall fail, that is, when neither the appetite nor sexual desire can be excited by so strong a stimulant as the caper-berry. As has the meaning of Caper () by the testimony of the oldest translators as well as of the Rabbins (comp. Buxtorf, Lex Rabb. et Talm., p. 12, 2098), and as the use of the berries or buds of the caper-bush undoubtedly stimulate the appetite, and, according to the ancient oriental representation a voluptuous desire (comp. also Plutarch, Sympos., 6; Winer, Real Lexicon, Art. Caper), the correctness of this interpretation is not to be doubted, and Luthers translation: and all desire fails, appears at least consonant with the sense. Varying interpretations: 1) Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, Arabic; Rosenmueller, Heiligstedt, Ewald, Vaihinger: and the caper bursts, i. e., the spirit presses forth as a kernel from the husk; 2. Vers. Veneta ( ) Abulwalid, Luther, Hengstenberg, etc.: Since desire fails; 3. Schmidt, Dderlein, etc.: since the turtledove, the messenger of spring is despised; 4. Hahn: Since the poor one (fem, of ) bursts forth, i. e., since the imprisoned soul bursts its prison, its mortal coil, etc. Knobel, Hitzig, and Gurlitt are correct among the modern writers.Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. Clearly a parenthesis by which the previous description of the infirmities of age, especially that contained in the last three clauses, is strengthened by pointing to the imminent approach of death for the old man. Man passeth away, () i. e., he is on the point of going; comp. Gen 19:13-14, etc. His long home is the grave, from which there is no more return to earthly life (comp. Job 7:10; Psa 49:12; Isa 14:18, etc.). The same appellation is also found in Tob 3:6; Targ. Jonath. in Jes. 42:11; among the Egyptians (Diodorus Sic., Ecc 1:51). among the Arabians (Koran, Sur. 41:28) and the Romans (domus terna; marmorea domus, Tibull. Carm., III., 2, 22).

[The Eternal House.

Ecc 11:5. . Zcklers interpretation of this striking expression is scanty and misleading. It cannot, any more than Sheol, mean the grave simply. Without insisting upon the fact that the Hebrews had for that a distinct term (), when nothing more was intended (see Bibelwerk Gen. 536), it may be said that the context almost immediately following is at war with such an idea. The expression here, had it stood alone, might have been regarded, perhaps, as a figurative one for extinction of all being. The long home might have been thought to denote the dark house of bodily dissolution and spiritual nothingness; though still it would be a question whether language, thus implying residence, permanence, and something like continuance of self-hood, could ever, even in figure, have arisen from such a nihility of conception. What is said, however, in Ecc 11:7, forbids it altogether. The being of man, though one and inseparable in personality, is there regarded as locally divided: The dust goes down to the earth, the spirit returns unto God who gave it. Now to predicate this residence of the dissolving dust alone does not satisfy the conception. The passage, Job 7:10, to which Zckler refers, has no application, whatever; Isa 14:18 is only a highly figurative representation of the remains of monarchs, lying in state, or in their splendid mausoleums, and the of Job 30:23, the house of meeting, or of the assembly, which he might more properly have cited, has the same meaning as in this place; and every argument against regarding it as the mere place of deposit for the decomposing remains, which are not man in any sense, is as applicable to the one place as to the other. There is equal difficulty in regarding it as any separate mansion of the spirit by itself. Neither can be said to be man, the personality, the self-hood, when separately viewed; and yet it is man himself that has gone to the house of his olam, or rather to his olamic house; since the pronoun in belongs to the whole compound taken as one epithet. God is spoken of as the , the dwelling-place of His people (see Psa 90:1), but that cannot be the sense intended here; neither, on the other hand, can the spirits return to God be regarded as a pantheistic absorption, as Zckler well shows. No theism was ever more clear of such an idea, or more opposed to Buddhism, whether in its ancient eastern, or its modern transcendental form, than that of the old Hebrews. Although in the Old Testament God is represented as (Num 16:22) God of spirits, yet it would seem to go even to the extremes in setting forth His distinct and incommunicable personality, His unapproachable holiness, that is, His separation from all things, and all beings, even the highest whom He has created, or to whom He has given being. As it cannot, therefore, apply separately, either to the soul or the body, the term beth-olam must denote something consistent with such a modified being of both. It is clear, then, that it cannot express locality, nor even duration as such, but a state of being, unknown except as obscurely defined in what follows (Ecc 11:7), though positive as a fact. This state of being is so called in distinction from the present being upon earth. Although the idea of place is thus excluded, yet the word is used as suggested by the previous figure of the decaying mansion. The earthly house, , is dissolved, and now man goes to the , the olamic house, not under the law of space and time, the house not made with hands,whatever it may mean, whether the same as, or less than, Paul intends by the use of similar language. The term beth-olam, however it may have been suggested here, is in striking accordance with the corresponding classical Greek usage of (Homeric, , ) representing the other world, or the other condition of being, as a house, a home, or abode, though unseen and unknown. This was its pure primary sense and usage, denoting state alone, though afterwards the poetry and mythology gave it scenery and locality. here corresponds to Hades in etymological significance, as well as in its manner of usage. It is the hidden, the unmeasured, as that is the unseen. The idea of time, though in general inseparable, from , is not here predominant. It certainly does not denote an absolute, endless eternity. And so another phrase, , as used in Greek (Diodorus, Xenophon, and Plato; see Gen. p. 587) is etymologically the unseen, though coming to be used for eternal, or onian, through the near relation, and frequent blending of the Hadean and the onian, or olamic conceptions.

The view, then, of this phrase which is least liable to objection, or on which we can most safely rely, is that which is content with regarding it as simply the antithesis of this present worldly state of being. There is suggested the same rendering (world) which we have given Ecc 1:11; Ecc 3:11; Ecc 9:7. It is the other world in distinction from this, whether regarded as lying parallel or as succeeding. It is the house in which the dead (who yet have some unknown being) are to abide, while the world lasts (even this world) as we have rendered Ecc 9:7, in the Metrical Version.

Whilst the world lasts, no portion more have they,

In all the works performed beneath the sun.
In the same manner also, in our modern language, do we speak of this world, and the other world. We use the latter term in two ways; 1) as the great world, or olam, which, as a whole, is historically to succeed this as a whole that shall have passed away; or 2) as the world into which each individual goes at death,as though the finishing with this were virtually the entrance into that, although its historical manifestation for all men collectively may yet be far remote. Our mode of speech has not come from the Bible,certainly not from the English Bible,for its general mode of translating vaguely by forever and everlasting, and its avoiding the rendering world, are unfavorable to it. It is a thought born in the modern as in the ancient mind, and existing from the earliest ages. It was accompanied by no knowledge, yet none the less tenaciously held. It was the goal of the Patriarchs pilgrimage idea. They were going to Sheol, to the other world, yet all unknowing as Abraham was, when, at the command of God, he went out from Mesopotamia: , Heb 9:8. So went they out (from this world), confiding in God, hoping for a better country, yet not knowing whither they went, or having the least conception, perhaps, of the mode of being that was to follow.

We are simply told of the fact: man goes to the olam, the beth-olam, to the other world, and there the Old Testament leaves him; and leaves the interpreter to give it as high or as low a sense as his spiritual-mindedness or lack of spiritual-mindedness may lead him to prefer. It speaks of it as a state, but throws no light upon it as a mode of being. It is not wholly a blank, but in almost everything we deem of highest worldly importance, it is set forth as the opposite of the present life. These images, however, of stillness, unknowingness, (not to say unconsciousness), inactivity, want of interest, in a word, lack of vitality, as we would call it, and which would seem to reduce it almost to an embryo existence (see Ecc 9:5, and note p. 129), may be because the impossibility of our conceiving it aright, and the consequent veil of reserve which the old Scripture throws over the whole subject, leaves little else to the picturing imagination than a description of negatives. Any premature development in the other direction might have falsely stimulated the fancy, and led the divinely guarded people of God into many of those wild conceptions which so deform the Heathen mythologies of Hades, or the world of the dead.

In respect to other great ideas, however, as connected with such a state, the Old Testament is by no means silent. In some places it would seem to speak of death as though it were the end of man, as indeed it is of life, like the present. But again, it sets forth duties to God and man that cannot be measured by time, a law for the spirit, so searching, so high and holy as to seem incompatible with a mere finite earthly animal being; it speaks of relations to Deity, of awful accountabilities, that have no meaning, or that greatly collapse in their significance, if there be not for man another olam, another and greater state of being, either in itself, or to which it is preparatory. It never turns aside to explain any such seeming inconsistencies. Sublime in its reserve, in its types and shadows, in its mere hints of a post-mundane human destiny, as in its clearest announcements, this most suggestive Old Scripture goes on its majestic way, fearing no charge of contradiction, taking no pains to make any explicit provision against Sadducean cavils, and leaving the matter wholly to that spiritual discernment which the Saviour manifested (Mat 22:23-33) against those who sought to entangle him with verbal and casuistical difficulties. One great truth of this kind stands prominently out. It is the idea of a judgment, somewhere, and at some time in the great on of ons, the kingdom of God. This is especially the case in Koheleth, and all that is dark in the book is relieved by this one thought so firmly adhered to, so positively stated, so distinct in itself, or as a fact, yet so undefined in time, locality, and circumstance, as to make it extremely difficult for one who should demand attention to these in defending its consistency.T. L.]

The mourners going about the streets, is a vivid description of the preparations for a great funeral, which are often made by his heirs for a mortally sick old man even before his decease. With this explanation, (agreeing substantially with Hitzig) it is not necessary, with Hengstenberg, to consider as relative future, and therefore to translate: The mourners will soon go about. For the mourning customs of the ancient Hebrews consult Amo 5:16; Isa. 15:33; Jer 9:16 ff.; Mat 9:23; Mat 11:17, etc.

Verses 6 and 7, following the description of hoary age, give that of his final end in death, and in such a way that the dissolution of the spiritual-bodily organism is first described in Ecc 11:6 in a variety of figures, and then literally or in accordance with its inner nature. In syntactical relation the two verses run parallel with Ecc 11:2, the construction there begun with before, being taken up again.Or ever the silver cord be loosedi. e., before the thread of life is ruptured. The thread of life is here designated as a silver cord, and not as a tent-cord (which keeps the tent from falling together, see Job 4:21; Isa 38:12), because the author imagines the living one, or rather his living organism, as a golden lamp hanging by a silver cord, as the sequel shows. Both figures, however, point, through the noble metals of which they speak, to human life as a valuable and noble possession; comp. the association of gold and silver in Pro 25:11.Read [17] discessit longe recessit (gives way), not (is unbound), as the Kri has it; nor as it stands in the text, nor [is torn asunder] (Pfannkuche), nor as Hitzig has it. These emendations are rendered unnecessary by the simplicity and perspicuity of the text.Or the golden bowl be broken, is literally equivalent to fountain (comp. Son 4:12 with Jos 15:19 and Jdg 1:15); in Zec 4:3 it signifies a vessel for oil, or an oil lamp, and is so to be considered here. The human body is therefore considered as a vessel in which is contained, as in a lamp, the oil, the blood, which is the supporter of the soul or of life [comp. Lev 17:14]. Like the precious oil of Zec 4:3, which is called golden oil, so is the blood the noble, precious fluid in the human organism; and with reference to it as the condition of life and health, the organism itself is called the golden bowl. Hengstenberg and Hitzig both maintain that this expression of the author here seems to be materially affected and modified by this possage in Zec 4:2 ff.And the pitcher broken at the fountain.The pitcher [] is not identical with the golden bowl, and therefore a figurative designation of the whole body, but only of a special organ of it; of that one, namely, with which we draw air or breath, that is, nourish the body from the fountain of all life that surrounds it. The previous figure is now abandoned, or rather insensibly changed into one nearly allied to it; the burning flame of the golden lamp becomes the invisible inner flame of the process of respiration, whose physical organ is the lungs. Its destruction in death is figuratively described as the breaking () of the pitcher at the fountain, from which it had hitherto daily drawn water,wherein there clearly appears an amplification of the expression as compared with the preceding form; comp. in Isa 42:3.Or the wheel broken at the cistern.Not a new figure, but only a more special illustration of the one just presented. The wheel at the fountain is the cistern wheel by which the bucket is raised or lowered, and cannot have a specific reference to any definite organ of the body, but symbolizes organic life itself in its continuous circle, just as the wheel of birth of Jam 3:6 ( ) based probably on this passage. The cistern () is not materially different from the fountain () and likewise means the air surrounding man and affording the most indispensable of all conditions of life, namely, breath; it does not mean the whole world, as Hengstenberg maintains, or the grave, as some others think. is moreover the same as at the fountain, comp. 1Sa 20:25; 2Sa 2:9 ff. Observe also the passive instead of the earlier active, ; it means that the golden bowl breaks, as it were, of its own accord, as soon as the silver cord that holds it is loosed; but the wheel is broken, is destroyed at the same time with the whole machinery of life, by an act of violence operating from without.[18]In oldercommentators there are many arbitrary physiological and anatomical interpretations of the respective points of the description: Melanchthon sees in the silver cord the nerves and sinews, in the golden fountain the heart, and in the pitcher at the fountain, the great vein over the liver; Praun [Physico- Anatomica Analysis, Cap. XII., Ecclesiastes] thinks the silver cord the lacteal vessel of the breast, and Witsius the golden bowl the brain, whilst Wedel makes it the heart, and Hottinger refers it to the gall. Since Harveys discovery of the circulation of the blood, many have seen this pictured in the golden bowl as in the fountain (Jablonski, Hansen, Michaelis, Starke, Scheuchzer, etc.), and have mingled many strange things with it, e. g.: the pitcher is the liver (Witsius), or the lymph (Wedel), or the stomach (Hottinger), or the chyle (Praun, Scheuchzer); the wheel signifies the kidneys, urinary passages, and bladder (Wedel), or the peristaltic motions of the bowels (Scheuchzer), or the motion of the lungs (Sibel, Jablonski). Look especially at Starke on this passage, and also at the Exegetical monographs quoted on page 27.Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was.Namely, as dust; comp. Gen 3:19; Psa 104:29; Job 34:15, to which passages, especially the first named, Koheleth conforms in expression. For the form comp. Ewald, 343 b.And the spirit shall return unto God who, gave it.[19]Namely, as the life-giving principle in the human organism, comp. Gen 2:7; Psa 104:30; Isa 42:5; Jer 38:16. This passage does not expressly affirm a personal immortality of the human soul, but it also does not deny it; for that the author is thinking of a pantheistic floating of the soul in the universal spirit, and that, separated into individual existence, this particle of the Divine breath poured forth into the world by God will again be drawn to Him, and thus again unite with His breath, the soul of the world (Hitzig)all this, only rationalistic extravagance, can find in this passage. Koheleths earlier testimonies rather show him to have thought of the return of the spirit to God as an entrance into the presence and eternal communion of God, and not as an absorption by God. And the arrival of the departed ones into the dark Scheol separating them from Divine light and life, so depicted in chap. 9, evidently appears to him only a provisional and intermediate condition which will finally be followed by an eternal existence with God after that judgment (Ecc 11:9). Compare Vaihinger: According to this the coming to God seems, in the conception of the Preacher, to be gradual, and the view in Psa 49:6 to have been in his mind, viz.: that the good will be liberated from Scheol, and, after being acquitted in the judgment, will live blessed in God, Psa 17:15, whilst the wicked will be cast back into Scheol after the judgment, and there eternally remain, Psa 49:15;[20] Luk 16:22 ff. Hengstenberg says: It is impossible that at the period of death the hitherto so marked difference between the just and the wicked will be suddenly effaced. The sharp earnestness with which the judgment of this world is every where announced, and especially in this book, decides against this. After all this, after the impressive emphasizing of the retributive justice of God, in which the entire book ends in 11:14, the return of the soul to God can only be that spoken of by the Apostle in 2Co 5:10; Rom 14:10; Heb 9:27. It is noteworthy also that the Avesta, of all the religious documents of the ancient heathen the one which is most nearly allied to the Old Testament revelation, and most in harmony with it, contains an assertion quite similar to the one before us:When the body dies here below, it mingles with the earth, but the soul returns to heaven. (Bundehesch, p. 384.) Something allied to this is found in some of the Greeks, e.g., Phokyllides, , and in Euripides Fragments [but more distinctly in the Drama of the Suppliants, Ecc 535: ( ) .T. L.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

(With Homiletical Hints.)

This section properly contains the net result of the religious speculation of the Preacher; and in it the positive ground thoughts of the entire book arrive at their fullest development, and most striking and definite expression. This is externally seen in the style, hitherto at times, languid, of prosaic latitude, and unharmonious, but now rising to the loftiest strains, and clothed with the richest figurative adornments. Chap. 10 had distinguished itself from the preceding by its greater wealth of figures and ingenious expressions; but now, from the very beginning of chap. 11, figure crowds on figure in a still more remarkable degree, until, in the introductory verses of the 12th chapter, or the third, strophe of this section, the figurative ornament of speech rises to a fullness of the most profound, vivid, and surprising comparisons, which here and there almost give the impression of excessive and tumid accumulation. And yet the single figurative expressions need only correct illustrations and fitting insertion into the combination of the whole, in order to stand justified against every suspicion of absence of taste or presence of excess, and to bring out into clearer light the object of the picture, viz., the many tribulations of age, the premonitions of approaching death, and finally the very process of lifes dissolution itself; all this, too, more vividly than is elsewhere in Holy Writ effected, at least in so restricted a space. It shows an imperfect comprehension of this most interesting and original of all the descriptions in the book, that several commentators, especially Umbreit and Elster, mistake the gradual progress of the described symptoms of dissolution from the commencement of senile feebleness till death, and, by means of an allegorical perversion, force on the details concerning old age as the forerunner of death (Ecc 11:3-5), a direct reference to death itself. The usual conception of these verses, according to which they describe the body of man, together with its organs, as they grow old under the figure of a household sinking into decay and dissolution, is precisely that which justifies the praise ever given to the author as the representative of a wisdom endowed with unusual penetration in the sphere of theological and anthropological research. That characterizing of Koheleth originating with Origen, and adopted by Hieronymus, giving to it the signification of a compendium of the physics of Solomon, (just as Proverbs contains the quintessence of his ethics, and the Song, the logic or dialectios of the wise kingcomp. the General Introduction to the Solomonic writings) appears very especially justified by this passage; but this can only be the case when it is understood on the basis of the above developed, and only just comprehension of it as a description of the sad autumn and winter of the corporeal life of this world, and therewith as a foundation for the conception of human nature as a manifoldly significant image of the universe in general.

Beneficent, prosperous, industrious, and cheerful labors in life, afford the strongest security for lasting happiness, and to this fundamental thought of the section, the description in question holds the double relation that, on the one hand, it is to present and confirm the preceding admonition to a cheerful enjoyment of the pleasures of lifes spring and summer, by reference to the contrast between these and the terrors of the autumn and winter of life, whilst, on the other hand, it is to present the basis for the farther admonition to that continual fear of God, which was necessarily to form the crowning termination and final goal of all the practical precepts of the author.Comp. Ewald, p. Ecc 324: The numerous tribulations of old age, and the mournful signs of approaching death, are described in the most striking figures, in order the more pressingly to admonish to a cheerful enjoyment of life at the proper period; but, at the same time, there appears most significantly the other truth by which the former receives its full light and correct limits, namely, that this very joy in life must not be blind and thoughtless, but thoughtful and conscious in remembrance of the eternal judgment over all things;a truth which is indeed to be understood in every stern view of life, and which, therefore, has been only cursorily touched at an earlier period, (Ecc 3:12; Ecc 3:17; Ecc 8:12 ff.), but which is purposely alluded to here, in order to avoid any possible misunderstanding before the final close.In view of the fearful earnestness of this concluding reference to death and eternity, every suspicion of Epicureanism, or of a frivolous, skeptical, and materialistic disposition, as a background for the preceding counsels to enjoy life, must disappear; and this the more so, since that which precedes this admonition to enjoyment of life testifies clearly enough of the deep seriousness and purity of the authors ethical views. For the admonition at the commencement of the 11th chap. (Ecc 11:1-3) which reminds us of that in Psa 112:9, counseling a profuse benevolence, mindful of no loss and of no gain, appears clearly as a true fruit of faith in a holy, just, and paternally loving God, but which could never spring from an Epicurean, skeptical, or fatalistic view of the world. The subsequent admonition to an unwearied fulfilment of our calling, unmindful of the future yet cautious and conscientious (Ecc 11:4-6), proceeds not from a dull, melancholy resignation, or a loathing despair of life, but simply and alone from a childlike yielding to the will of God, and obedient subjection to His counsels as the only wise. Indeed, even in the reference to the sweetness of light, and the loveliness of life under the sun, with which (in Ecc 11:7) he paves the way to that injunction to cheerful enjoyment, there is nothing in any way Epicurean, or that shows a one-sided, earthly, irreligious disposition. There is rather nothing expressed therein but the deep religious feeling of a pure joy in the beauty of the works of God, and an inwardly thankful appreciation of the proofs therein offered of His boundless goodness; a feeling that forms a contrast quite as opposite to all fatalism and gloomy atheistical materialism, as to every kind of moral levity, or thoughtless desire for enjoyment. See Elster, p. Ecc 125: The deep feeling for the beauty and loveliness of life, which Koheleth expresses in this verse, shows us that it was not a bitter discontent based on a dull insensibility of the inward spirit; but his grief lies therein that with this deep feeling for beauty which human existence bears within itself, he painfully encounters, on the one hand, the fact that men are mutually cheating each other out of the real profit of life, whilst, on the other, he perceives that this existence is fleeting and transitory, and that he has foreclosed the hope of a future clearing up of human destiny because the view of a life after death seems to him utterly dark and uncertain (? ?).The period which man is permitted to seize in the present, must now appear to him only so much the more important; and the only sure thing remaining to man must seem to him to be the holding fast of eternity by the highest activity in this particular period. Therefore to verse 8 there is again joined the admonition to pleasure, whose nature and character are clearly enough depicted in what precedes, as free from everything low and common, and rather as depending on the Most High and Eternal One.

Add to all this the fact, that the author marks the youthful vivacity and cheerfulness of life, which he recommends, expressly as a disposition to be tempered and purified by the thought of the retributive justice of God (Ecc 2:9) and that there is ever present as the final aim of every earthly-human development (according to Ecc 2:7), an eternal sojourn of the immortal soul with a holy and just Goda thought which Elster in the passage just quoted is clearly wrong in denying (see the exegetical illustrations to this passage),adding this, and there results from it most conclusively that character of his ethical wisdom which is in conformity with revelation, and indeed directly belonging to revelation. We see especially the divinely inspired and incomparable nature of the religious truths of this section, in which the devout meditation of the author has reached its highest point, and after vanquishing doubt and hostility, combines its positive results into a chain of the purest ethical maxims, and the most profound physicotheological observations.

Homily on the Entire Section: The fear of God is the foundation of all true virtue, and all lasting joys.Or: The fear of the Lord is the beginning and end of all wisdom.Or: Live so in thy youth that old age brings to thee not terrors, but only the desire of relief from the yoke of this earthly life, and the joyful hope of an eternal existence with God.Or: Use the morning of thy life profitably, that its evening may be calm and blissful; sow good seed in the spring-time of thy life, that thou mayest have a good harvest in the autumn.

HOMILETICAL HINTS ON SEPARATE PASSAGES

Ecc 11:1-3. Luther (Ecc 11:1):Be liberal whilst you can; use wealth in doing all the good in your power; for if you live long you shall receive a hundredfold.Cartwright:The universal instability of all things should excite you to munificence, whatever may happen in respect to you or the riches you may possess. Credit it for gain, whatever you may save from the flames and conflagration, as it were, by bestowing it upon the poor.Starke (Ecc 11:2):In giving alms we are not to look too closely at the worthiness of the individuals. God permits His sun to rise on the just and the unjust!Von Gerlach:Collect not thy treasures by gathering in, but rather by giving out, by a denial of self! Psa 112:9; 2Co 9:9.

Ecc 11:4-6. Hieronymus:In season, out of season, the word of God is to be preached; and so without thought of clouds, or fear of winds, even in the midst of tempests, may we sow (the word). We are not to say this time is convenient, another unsuitable, since we know not what is the way of the Spirit that controls all.

Hansen:In the distribution of his good deeds a man should not be too timorous; the left hand should not know what the right hand doeth.Lange (Ecc 11:5):One cannot know how much good God may effect for the perfection of the faith, even among the dissolute poor!Starke (Ecc 11:6):Do not delay thy amendment until an advanced age; begin early to fear God; thou wilt never repent of it. It is, however, better to repent even in age than to continue in ones sins. But he who fears God from youth up, will find his reward so much the more glorious, Rev 2:10.Hengstenberg (Ecc 11:6):Be incessantly active. In seasons of destitution be so much the more active, because just then many things may miscarry. The more doubtful the result, so much the less should we lay our hands in our lap.

Ecc 11:7-8. Melanchthon:Whilst God permits, reverently use His gifts; when He takes away, patiently submit; as Paul says, Let the peace of God dwell in your hearts.Cramer:Because man has a desire for natural light, and shuns darkness, he should, therefore, practice the works of light, and shun those of darkness. It is a piece of ingratitude that we think more of our past evil days than of the good ones. We must thank God for both: Job 2:10.Hengstenberg:However great are the sorrows of this life, however manifold its vanities, and sad its circumstances, it is nevertheless true that life is a good, and it is the office of the word of God to impress this truth when gloomy despondencey has gained the ascendency. Disgust of life is also sinful under the New Testament law. A pious spirit will find out the sunny side in this earthly existence, and rejoice in it with heart-felt gratitude.

Ecc 11:9-10. Luther:When the heart is in a right state no joy will harm, provided only it be true joy, and not merely a corrupting mirth. Enjoy it, then, if there is any thing pleasant for the sight or hearing; provided you sin not against God.Zeyss:If thou wilt be preserved against the sadness of the world, thou must carefully guard thyself against its causes, i.e., the ruling sins and vices, and accustom thy heart to the genuine fear of God, Sir 1:17.Wolle:He who would rejoice in the best bloom of his youth, must become acquainted with the Lord Jesus betimes, the fairest among the children of men, and make his heart a temple of the Holy Spirit, Sir 51:18 ff.Wohlfarth:That your youth may gladly enjoy youth, that the tempter may not destroy its roses and cast it into endless woe, have God before your eyes, ye young men and maidens, and remember the serious words: Every one who forgets Him, He will summon to judgment.

Ecc 12:1-5. Luther:Holy Writ calls consolation and happiness light, and tribulation darkness, or night. For boys, for youth, for manhood, there is joy. After rain comes the beautiful sunshine, i.e., although at times there may be tribulation, yet joy and consolation follow. But age has no joy; the clouds return after the rain; one misfortune follows another.Cramer (Ecc 12:1):Who would be devout must begin betimes; for it is unseemly to offer the dregs of life to God, after having given his blooming youth to the devil.[Matthew Henry (Ecc 12:5):Man goes to his long home. At death he goes from this world and all the employments and enjoyments of it. He has gone home; for here he was a stranger and a pilgrim. He has gone to his rest, to the place where he is to fix. He has gone to the house of his world, so some would render it; for this world is not his. He is gone to his house of eternity (Beth olamo). This should make us willing to die, that at death we go home; and why should we not long to go to our Fathers house? Ecc 12:6. Death will dissolve the frame of nature, and take down the earthly house of this tabernacle. Then shall the silver cord by which the soul and body were wonderfully fastened together be loosed, that sacred knot untied, and those old friends be forced to part. Then shall the golden bowl which held for us the waters of life be broken; then shall the pitcher with which we used to fetch up water, for the constant support of life, and the repair of its decays, be broken, even at the fountain; so that it can fetch up no more; and the wheel, all those organs that serve for the collecting and distributing of nourishment, shall be shattered, and disabled to do their office any more. The body has become like a watch when the spring has broken; the motion of all the wheels is stopped; they all stand still; the machine is taken to pieces; the heart beats no more, nor does the blood circulate.

Ecc 12:7 :So death resolves us into our first principles. Man is a ray of heaven united to a clod of earth; at death these are separated, and each goes to the place whence it came.T. L.]

Ecc 12:6-7. Luther:It is not defined where the spirit goes, but only that it returns to God from whom it came. For as we are ignorant of the source whence God made the spirit, so also we know not whither (or to what) it returns. Comp. Hengstenberg: The view that the individual soul returns to God, is supported by the fact that it had its origin immediately from God. According to this passage, creationism must be true, although it is a truth which, for certain significant reasons that favor traducianism, can only be regarded as a partial, or one-sided one. It is important that the two apparently opposing views should be reconciled by something common to both.

Zckler:Not a few older theologians have endeavored to interpret this passage (Ecc 12:7) in the interest of a one-sided creationism; e g., Hieronymus, who says: They are to be contemned who hold that souls are sown with bodies, and are born, not from God, but from the bodies of the parents. But since the flesh returns to earth, and the spirit to God who gave it, it is clear that God not man, is the parent of souls. To this the traducianist replies: Koheleth treats, in this verse, solely of the creation of the first man (or the first humanity)* and of his relation to God (and so, at least by intimation, Luther on this passage, and Cartwright in Hengstenberg, p. 258); but they are not able thereby to remove the partial creationistic sense of the passage. Compare Hengstenberg and Vaihinger.

Wolle:Unblessed is the old age and death of those who grow old in the service of sin. On the contrary, a conscience kept pure from youth up, lightens and sweetens both the toils of age and the bitterness of death, Job 27:6.Berleb. Bible:Souls come from eternity into the world as to a stage. There they manifest their persons (their masks) their affections, and their passions, whatever is in them of good or bad. When they have, as it were, sufficiently performed their parts, they again disappear, and lay off the persons that they have represented, and stand, naked as they are, before the divine tribunal. Universal as is the decree that all men are to return to God, there is, nevertheless, a great difference in them. The most return to him as to their offended Lord; but some as to the All-merciful, their friend and father. Because then this coming to God is certain and unavoidable, it should be our most necessary care that we are every moment concerned as to how we may come to Him rightly.Vaihinger:The divine judgment of the life and conduct of men, as mentioned in Ecc 11:9, is only rendered possible by the personal return of the spirit to God. Therefore in youth must we think of our Creator, and live in His fear (Ecc 3:14; Ecc 5:7); for the spirit does not become dust with the body; it returns not to the universal force of nature, but because it is from God it returns to God, to be judged by Him, e g., either to be blessed or condemned.

*[There is a sense in which creationism may be held in respect to the animal, and even the vegetable life. It is not irrational, it is not unscriptural, to suppose that in every true genesis there is a going on of the old unspent creative power, or word, acting in a plane above the ordinary mechanical and chemical laws which God has given to nature. In a still higher sense may this be held of the human generation,of the individual as well as of the first generic man (see Psa 139:13-16; Jer 1:4). And yet such a view is consistent with a doctrine of traducianism that connects every man with the first man, not by an arbitrary forensic decree, or appointment from without, but by a vital union, a psychological continuance of the same being, however great the mystery it may involve. There is a school of theologians who say that in some way, by Gods appointment, we are so connected with Adam that we sin in consequence of his sin, and suffer in consequence of his sin, though each succeeding human soul is born separate and pure. There is another school that brands this with heresy, or treats it as evasive, and claims for itself a higher orthodoxy on account of the use of the words federal headship, imputation, etc., whilst they equally affirm that Adams posterity are not morally guilty in respect to the first sin. It is a representative, a forensic guilt, though involving the most tremendous consequences. Any essential difference between these is not easily discerned. Both make it a matter of outward and arbitrary institution, as long as there is denied any such psychological and ontological connection between us and the first man as grounds this federal headship and imputation, as well as this certain consequence as a fact, on a remoter and deeper union. The first class of terms are very precious ones, and sustained by the figures and analogies of Scripture, but their meaning collapses, or becomes arbitrary, when we put nothing beyond them as a fact, however inexplicable that fact may be. Holding to such deeper union, we become, indeed, involved in a metaphysical mystery, but we get free from the moral mystery, which is a much more important thing.T. L.]

Footnotes:

[1][The heathen sentiment of Phocyllides is as nearly the direct opposite of Solomons as language could express, although it contains the same phrase here: . Do no favor to a bad man; you might as well sow in the sea.T.L.]

[2]See the text note.

[3][This is an unwarranted limitation. It refers evidently to Gods dealing in nature, present and past, as well as future; and especially to the mystery of generation.T. L.]

[4] [Ecc 11:8. . To take this as an exhortation: Let him rejoice, etc., would not seem very congruous to what follows: let him remember the days of darkness, which is certainly not a joyful thought. Our English translators have inserted the conjunction: and in them all rejoice, which gives the spirit of the passage, although there is no in the Hebrew. The better way is to regard the particles and as affecting both the futures, the second as well as the first, whilst the third, introduced by the conjunction, is the one exhortation of the sentence, to which the others are preparatory: For if a man shall live many years, if he shall rejoice in them all, or as it is elliptically, yet most literally, expressed in the Metrical Version

Yet if a man live many years, in all of them rejoice,
The days of darkness let him not forget.
Or it may be the imperative style with the conditional aspect: let him live, let him rejoice, (that is, though he live, though he rejoice) yet let him remember, etc. In such a rendering there is no discord in the thought.T. L.]

[5][Ecc 11:9. , a rising upon the word childhood, as is seen by the parallelism. It is the period of commencing manhood. Its etymological sense would be the choice period of life, from primary sense, that of exploring, proving (the keen eye), hence choosing, selecting that which is most precious. From this the idea of excellence, superiority. In the noun , it is taken collectively for the youth, the choice young men, as in Isa 40:29, where, in the parallelism it is a rising on , the youths shall be weary, even the young men shall utterly fall. Here it is an abstract noun in the fem, plural, to denote intensity. We have the masculine plural in the same way, Num 11:28. It is of the same form, in the masculine, with an intensive form to denote extreme feebleness of age. This is the direct opposite.T. L.]

[6][How is it certain, unless it be that the hard necessities of this exegesis demand such an assertion? The two expressions are precisely alike, both in their letter and their spirit. There is nothing said, Num 15:39, about amorous looks, since the word applies to any evil desire, any going away after the eye (see Psa 73:27), and is often used of idolatry. The term , which is so much used of female beauty, suggests the idea here, more than any thing in the other passage. Everywhere else this kind of language, following the heart, the desires of the heart, going after the eye, the sense (compare Job 31:7), is used in malam partem, and to give it just the contrary sense here, as something well pleasing to God, is to abandon every safe guide in interpretation. See the remarks on the solemn and sorrowful irony of this passage, in connection with Ecc 9:7-9 : Note on the Alleged Epicureanism of Koheleth; p. 132.T. L.]

[7][Still more striking allusions to such a judgment may be found Psa 1:5; Job 21:30, the , the , the dies ir (irarum) to which the wicked are reserved; as also to Psa 49:15, the morning () in which the just shall triumph.T. L.]

[8][Ecc 11:2. Whilst the sun or the light. This is not a tautology; nor does it mean the light as an element. That would be too abstract for such a writing as this. Aben Ezra gives a good interpretation in referring it to the morning light that precedes the sun rising. This is essentially the same with the light of the sun, but is phenomenally and poetically different.T.L.]

[9][Ecc 11:2. And the clouds return after the rain. There is no need of regarding this as denoting the winter season. It represents the subjective state of the old man. In youth the sunshine is predominant. The cloudy days are little remembered. The sun is ever coming out, or as it is expressed in the beautiful language of 2Sa 23:4, it is ever , clear shining after rain. In old age, especially the old age of the sensualist, who has no spiritual sun to cheer him, it is just the reverse. The clouds seem ever coming back. It is all dark, or the intervals of sunshine seem brief and evanescent.T. L.]

[10][Ecc 11:3. , The keepers of the house. Hitzig recognizes the comparison, throughout, of the human body to a house, but he trifles when he says, that this is suggested by the mention of the rain in Ecc 11:2, and that the figure is used because a house is made of loam and white bricks that are dissolved and worn away by the showers. Every thing goes to show that there is had in view, rather, the decay of some lordly mansion, the richly furnished house of some Dives, who had fared sumptuously every day, or of a castle with its apparatus of war and luxury, as we have said p. 153.T. L.]

[11] [Ecc 11:4. When the sound of the grinding is low. In Ecc 11:3 the , or female servants who grind the meal in the rich mansion, undoubtedly represent the teeth; that is, the term is directly metaphorical. Here, on the other hand, , the grinding, or the mill, is not so much metaphorical as illustrative. It is to be taken, therefore, in its primary sense as a fact showing the old mans dullness of hearing. The most familiar and household sounds, such as that of the grinding mill, are faintly distinguished. The making it represent the mouth masticating, as a mill grinding, has given rise to a great many disagreeable and very unpoetical images, marring, as Stuart admits, the otherwise admirable propriety, or keeping, of the picture. The mill, it is said, is the old mans collapsed mouth; the low sound of the grinding is the mumbling noise made by his feeble chewing, the sinking daughters of song are his feeble piping. Commentators seem to have vied with each other here in the exercise of their ingenuity. Some of these most unpoetical critics have referred the low grinding sound to the rumbling noises in the belly and stomach arising from poor digestion (see their names in Geier, also the commentators cited in Poles Synopsis). Stuart say truly: none of these interpretations (whether referring to the chewing or the piping or the digestion) are very inviting, and yet he is not prepared to give any other. He says well that eating seems to be dispatched in the 3d verse, and there is an incongruity in supposing it to be again introduced here. The incongruity is all the greater from bringing this lowest part of the human economy (even if it had not already had place enough) between the two noblest senses; for what follows ( ), undoubtedly refers to the hearing; or else (which would indeed be most strange) there is no notice taken at all of this most important function. We would not hesitate, therefore, to refer this clause also to that sense. There is, too, a wonderful pictorial propriety in it, when we consider the important part which this grinding, and its constant sound, must have borne in an ancient wealthy mansion. From the want of outside mills, this domestic occupation was in continual demand for the daily provisioning; and, in a large house, or castle, it must have employed a great many servants. It was generally done by women, and to this our Saviour refers, Mat 24:41, Luk 17:35 : Two women shall be grinding together. They must have been constantly at work to supply the demand for bread at every meal. Day and night the sound of the grinding was heard, like that which proceeded from the tired and drowsy female slaves in the house of Ulysses; as described in the Odyssey XX., Ecc 109:

, ,

, ,

, , .

The rest had lain them down to sleep, their weary task was done;
One still kept on the ceaseless toil, the weakest of them all; When suddenly she stopped the mill, and spake aloud the sign.
The account is very touching. It is very late at night, and near the dawn. These poor wearied creatures, who had been grinding all day for the rapacious suitors, finish their long tasks, one after another, and lie down, overcome by fatigue and drowsiness, until one alone is left in her late hour of toil. In answer to the prayer of Ulysses, Zeus had given the signal thunder in the early cloudless sky. Startled at the sound she stops the mill, and hails it as a signal of deliverance, whilst Ulysses recognizes her words as an auspicious omen.
There was hardly any part of the day or night when this work was not going on with its ceaseless noise. It was, indeed, a, sign, then, that the senses were failing in their office (), when this familiar, yet very peculiar, sound of the grinding had ceased to arrest the attention, or had become low and obscure.

When the hum of the mill is faintly heard,
And the daughters of song are still.
It is from this, too, that the words , which have been so much misunderstood, get their clearest exposition. has for its subject, not the old man, but the sound of the grinding, the last grammatical antecedent, and it presents a contrast, as Hitzig says, with preceding, as well as with following. Though it rise to the sparrows noteattain unto, as , with following, is used Zep 3:8, 1Sa 22:13, Mic 2:8, referring not so much to loudness, or volume of sound, as to that sharp, shrill noise which was ever ringing in the ears of others. Its real sound, shrill as the sparrows voice, is put in contrast with the dull droning sound that reaches the old mans ears. What follows would seem to put this interpretation beyond doubt. The term daughter () is used in Hebrew, not as Zckler takes it, but to intensify, to give the very best of a thing. , daughters of song, then, does not necessarily mean singers, though it may have that sense, but may be understood of the loudest, songs, or the loudest voices in the song. They are faintly heard; they sink down. The sound they make to the old man is exactly represented by the same word, Isa 29:4, where we have also used as it is here: And thou shalt speak low out of the ground ( ) and thy speech shall sound low ( shall sink down) out of the dust, and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and shall whisper out of the dust. See Metrical Version.T. L.]

[12][Ecc 11:3. , The grinders fail. It is rendered cease in our E. V. Zckler, feiern, to rest, keep holiday. Gesenius, the same, feriati sunt. it is one of the words of this book reckoned to the later Hebrew. It is common, however, to all Shemitic tongues, and there is no reason why it should be regarded as either unhebraic, or as late in the Hebrew. Those who argue from its rare, or single, occurrence, should show that there is any other place in the scanty Hebrew writings we have, where it would have been more suited to the idea than the word or words used. The rendering of Zckler and Gesenius would make it synonymous with , but this is not its sense in the Arabic and Syriac, and an examination of passages would show how unsuitable it would have been as a substitute for , to cease, rest, keep holiday, in any of the many places where the latter occurs. Its true sense is to fail, or rather, to be worn out, to become useless. It may, therefore, be regarded as an old Hebrew word, but as used in this place only, because it is the only one in which its peculiar sense was required.T. L.]

[13] [Ecc 11:3. And they who look out of the windows be darkened ( ). All agree that this means the eyes in respect to the body; but what does it stand for in the figure, or parallel representation of the mansion? To this Zckler does not advert except in what he says about the mistresses, which is very inadequate and unpicturesque. His remarks, too, about the eyelids, and the threads of a net, with his reference to Pro 6:25, are fanciful prettinesses, which seem out of place in so serious yet so animated a description. The question is, what places and persons are meant? There is something here instructive of the character of the house that is pictured. As it had its strong men, its , so these are the castle-watchers who look out from the turrets, or rather, at or by the turrets ( instead of ). If we are to be governed by the gender of , we should think of women employed for that purpose, which would suit well enough,the strong men being otherwise employed but the gender may have been controlled by the thought of the thing represented, the eyes, which in Hebrew, are feminine. The word, , does not mean the ordinary windows of a house (), but some opening high up, in the roof, or in a turret. This is shown from all its uses, as in Gen 7:11; Gen 8:12, 2Ki 7:19, Isa 24:15, Mal 3:10, in all of which places it is rendered the windows of heaven (supposed openings in the sky) Hos 13:3, where it means chimneys, and Isa 9:8, where it is used diminutively for the openings in the dove houses. Here, therefore it must mean turret windows or openings, where the watchers are stationed, and this is in harmony with the usual sense of the verb , to lie. in wait, to watch. There is a striking pictorial propriety in this which has led to similar representations by other ancient writers. Thus the sight (says Plato in the Timus, 90 A), as the noblest of the senses, is placed in the highest part . So Cicero De Nat. Deorum, II., 140, Sensus autem, interpretes ac nuntii rerum, in capite, tanquam in arce, collocati sunt: The senses, as interpreters and messengers of things without, are placed in the head as in a watch tower. And this, he says, is especially true of the eyes as watchers: nam oculi, tanquam speculatores, altissimum locum obtinent, ex quo plurima conspicientes fungantur suo munere. Compare also Xenophon Memorabilia Lib. I., Ecc 4:11, where we have the same idea as in the well-known passage from Ovid Met. I., Ecc 85:

Os homini sublime dedit, clumque tueri,

Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.T. L.]

[14][Ecc 11:4. And the doors shall be shut in the streets; or rather, the doors to the street (the street doors) are shut (becoming shut, closing; see Metrical Version). The reference of this to the mouth, which began with Jerome, has been the occasion of much false interpretation, both here and in what follows. The dual number is just as applicable to the eyes and ears as to the lips. It agrees, therefore, far better with the whole context, to take it as Hengstenberg does, of the ears closing to sounds, or rather, of all the senses, as the avenues to the outer world. To say that this is too remote or abstract a sense for Koheleth, is to overlook the whole scope of this most thoughtful representation, and to fail in appreciating the spirit of its grand poetry. The old sensualist, he who had lived so much abroad, and so little at home, is shut in at last. Again, the language is inconsistent with the other and more limited view. With no propriety could the mouth be called the street door, through which the master of the house goes abroad: especially when regarded, as this interpretation mainly regards the mouth, in its eating or masticating function. It is rather the door to the interior, the cellar door, that leads down to the stored or consumed provision, the stomach, or belly. The word whether we render it in the street, or to the street, would be altogether out of place in such a narrow view, and more especially since has such a wide meaning (platea, wide place, foras, abroad), comp. Ecc 5:5, Pro 7:5, Cantic. Ecc 3:2. T. L.]

[15] [Ecc 11:5. , Zckler well defends here the old interpretation. The other mode of exegesis gives a poor and mean image, marring the poetry, and exceedingly farfetched as a supposed trait of old age; whereas the comparison of the hoary head to a flowering tree is very striking, as well as natural. The old mans mouth, and eating powers had been treated of before (ad nauseam, we might say, if, with some critics, we allow a second reference to it in Ecc 11:4, as well as in Ecc 11:3), whilst it would indeed be a wonder if so marked a characteristic as the gray head had been wholly omitted. By changing the punctuation to these critics would render it the almond disgusts; it is too hard a nut for the the old mans teeth to crack; or the almond disgusts, because it is sour grapes to the old man; it grows so high he cannot get at it. For other incongruous imagery, see Hitzig and Stuart. In regard to the orthography, whilst for (see Num 23:22, Psa 39:6, Psa 22:22) presents a parallel to or for , the other view of for is wholly unexampled. The objection from the color of the almond blossoms is well answered by Zckler. These difficulties settled, what can be more striking than the metaphor! A good parallel to it is found in Sophocles Electra 42, where it is said of the Tutor,

, , :

Theyll know thee not,
Through age and time thus blossomed;
Nor even have suspicion who thou art.
Some would explain this of the flowers and garlands he is supposed to wear as a messenger: but the critical reader must see that this would be altogether out of keeping with the circumstances, as there detailed, and especially with the sad message he was supposed to bear. The other objection, made by Bothe, that it would be a tautology with (age), is very trifling. It is the very nature of poetry thus to intensify, and often by what would be tautology in prose. Wunder gives an explanation from Fr. Jacobsius, which refutes completely his own criticism, and that of Bothe. He cites examples that put the meaning of Sophocles beyond a doubt; as from Cyril c. Julian VI., p. 157, ; and another, where the same figure is applied to the beard, De Chryse senc Christodor. Ecphr. Ecc 90:

.

Modern poetry has the same metaphor.T. L.]

[16][Most of these hypotheses seem absurd, and all of them inconsistent with the simplicity and directness of the whole picture. After all, none of them seem so obvious as that which is given by some Jewish commentators, and suggests itself directly from our common English Version: namely, that it is a hyperbolical expression of feebleness. He cannot bear the least weight.T. L.]

[17][The Ktib, or text as it stands in Niphal, , is better, since it has something of a passive or rather deponent sense: is partedparts, intransitively, or parts itself,elongabitur. It is the idea of giving way from stretching, or attenuation. The other various readings and renderings, as Zckler says, are useless.T. L.]

[18] [Zcklers general comment here is judicious and safe. Attempts to be more particular are apt to mislead into fanciful error. And yet there remains the impression from the whole, and especially from the evident particularity in the first four verses, that certain parts or functions of the body are directly intended by the golden bowl, the bucket at the spring, and the wheel at the cistern. The ancients had more knowledge of the human anatomy than we give them credit for. The Egyptians must have learned much from their continual processes of embalming. It would appear also from Homers minute and varied descriptions of wounds, and especially in passages from Aristotle and Plato that show even a scientific knowledge of the human system. There is, for example, a passage of some length in the Timus, extending from 70 B to 76 E, containing quite a full description of the more vital internal parts and their uses, with some things much resembling what we find her. In the assigning, too, of different spiritual powers and affections to different parts of the body, as though it were a kind of civil corporation, the author of the Timus reminds us of John Bunyan and his town of Mansoul. Solomon s golden bowl, too, is suggested, when we read in the Timus how the the divine seed of life was moulded into a round shape, and made the , or brain: and there are other things about the fluids and their , or circulations, that call up what is here said about the wheel and the fountain. Neither is there to be ridiculed and wholly rejected the idea which some have entertained that Solomon referred to the circulation of the blood. We need not suppose that he had anticipated Harveys great discovery; but the general idea that the human system had its period [or, to use Aristotles language before quoted, p. 46, that every organism was in the nature of a cycle, something going round and returning into itself] was a very early one. It came not so much from scientific or inductive observation, as from a sort of a priori thinking: so it must be; to constitute a living, or even an organic thing, there must be some such going round and round, to keep it from running out or perishing. It was this mode of thinking that showed itself in language, as in the Rabbinic and the , the wheel of generation of Jam 3:6, to which. Zckler refers.

As a lesson, however, to those who are inclined to be extravagant here, nothing can be more judicious than the remarks of Maimonides in the Preface to his More Nevochim, where he tells those who would demand a minute explanation of every part of a mashal or parable such, for example, as Pro 7:6-23that they will either miss the general thought, or get wearied in seeking particular illustrations of things that cannot be explained, and thus utterly fail in their vain attempt to get from the writer what perhaps never came into his mind.

On the whole, therefore, we cannot expect to get a much better interpretation of this passage than that early one given by Jerome: Funiculus autem argenti candidam hanc vitam, et spiramen quod nobis de clo tribuilur, ostendit; Phiala quoque aurea animam significat, qu illuc recurrit unde descenderat, etc.: The silver cord denotes the pure life and respiration [inspiration] which was given to us from heaven; the golden bowl also means the soul which returns whence it had descended; the breaking of the bucket at the fountain, and the shattering of the wheel at the cistern, are enigmatical metaphors of death; for as when the bucket which is worn out ceases to draw, and the wheel by which the waters are raised is broken, the flow of the water is in tercepted,so also when the silver cord (of life) has parted, the stream of vitality returns back to its fountain, and the man dies.

There must, however, be kept in mind the general parallel with the rich mansion of the voluptuary; and in this aspect the golden bowl is undoubtedly the lamp depending from the ceiling by the silver cord, as is described in the neid I. 726.

Dependent lychni laquearibus aureis
Incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt;

and which finally wears out and gives way. So the fountain and the cistern are the costly and curious water-machinery which such a mansion required for domestic drinking, and for irrigation. All is pictured as now in ruin, or going to ruin, like the curious circulating machinery of the human body with which it is compared. In regard to the reading of the text, we cannot do better than to retain the Ktib and, pointed as it is, in the Niphal. From the sense of distance comes easily that of elongation (elongabitur), and thence of giving way, or parting. The words and although they differ etymologically, are probably chosen only for the sake of variety.T. L.]

[19][Compare Ecc 3:21, and the marginal note, page 71, on the expression, who knows the spirit of man that goeth up, etc.T. L.]

[20][See the remarks on this passage Psa 49:15and the , the morning, or dies retributionis, in the Introd to Genesis 1, Bibelwerk, Genesis, page 142, and marginal note.T. L.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 846
REMEMBERING GOD IN OUR YOUTH

Ecc 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.

INSTRUCTION may profitably be given in a variety of ways: indeed, in order to be effectual, it must be accommodated in some measure to the dispositions and habits of the persons addressed. To one who is wayward and self-willed, the pungency of irony may be well applied; whilst with the tractable and docile, the more simple and direct way of affectionate exhortation may be of more avail. Both these methods are adopted by Solomon in the passage before us. In the verses immediately preceding our text, he addresses a young man whom he supposes to be bent on the prosecution of his evil ways: Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will call thee into judgment. Then, after a serious admonition to avoid the evils which ungovernable passions will bring upon him, he affectionately exhorts him to devote his early life to the exercises of true piety.
It is observed by some, that the word which in our text is rendered thy Creator, is, in the original, in the plural number, thy Creators: and the passage in that view is supposed to mark the concurrence of the three Persons in the ever-blessed Trinity, in the formation of man; according to what is written in the book of Genesis, Let us make man in our image [Note: Gen 1:26.]. But without drawing your attention to any observations of a critical nature, I shall endeavour simply to shew you,

I.

What is implied in remembering our Creator

Of course, it cannot be supposed that it is a mere act of the memory which is here recommended, but such a remembrance as befits the relation in which we stand to him as his creatures. We should remember then,

1.

His authority over us

[As the work of his hands, we have received from him all our powers, whether of mind or body. It is of his bounty alone that we have been endowed with the faculty of reason, which elevates us above all the rest of this lower world, and brings us into a near conformity with that higher order of created intelligences, the holy angels. But for what purpose has he thus distinguished us, but that we might render him services worthy both of our present state, and our future destinies? He has formed us for himself, that we might shew forth his praise. This is the end for which we are to live: nor is any thing on earth to divert us from the course which HE has marked out for us. Obedience, it is true, is due to our parents, and to all others whom the providence of God has placed over us: but the authority of the creature must always be regarded as subordinate to that of our Creator; and, if at any time the will of man stand opposed to the will of God, we must then reply, Whether it be right to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. Whatever solicitations we may have from without or from within to violate any part of Gods revealed will, we must withstand them manfully, and resist them even unto death. Knowing that we are not our own, but Gods, we must glorify him with our bodies and our spirits, which are his.]

2.

The commands he has given us

[We will not here enter into the different commandments of the law, but draw your attention rather to that great commandment of the Gospel to believe in Christ: This is his commandment, says St. John, that ye believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ [Note: 1Jn 3:23.]. This command should be had in constant remembrance. It is addressed to every child of man. There is no one so innocent, as not to need a Saviour; nor any one so guilty, but that he may, through penitence and faith, obtain an interest in that Saviour, whom God has provided for a ruined world. Do not imagine, my young friends, that you are not concerned in this, or that it will be time enough for you to attend to it, when you shall feel a greater need of mercy. You all are sinners: you all have a consciousness within yourselves that you have done many things which you ought not, and left undone many things which you ought to have done: you therefore have in your own bosoms a witness that you need a Saviour: and as in the presence of the Most High God, I declare unto you, that there is no mercy for the young, any more than for the old, but in the name, and through the mediation, of Jesus Christ: there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we can be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ. Go then to this Saviour, and implore mercy at his hands. Look to him as dying for your sins, and as reconciling you to God by the blood of his cross. Let every one of you from day to day wash in the fountain of his blood, and clothe yourselves with the robe of his unspotted righteousness, and live altogether upon his fulness, receiving out of it continual supplies of all needful grace.]

3.

His continual presence with us

[God is in every place, beholding the evil and the good, and wherever you are, you should see, as it were, this inscription written, Thou God seest me [Note: Gen 16:13.]. This is a point which you should never forget for one single moment: for it is only by bearing this in mind that you will be kept from the indulgence of secret sins. When no human eye is upon us, we are apt to think that we may give a greater latitude to our conduct: but we should remember that the darkness is no darkness with God, but the night and the day to him are both alike: there is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. Oh, if you bear this in remembrance, you will never do what you know to be wrong, nor utter what you know to be false: you will act in all things as in the immediate presence of your God, and will do nothing but what you believe to be good and acceptable in his sight.]

4.

His determination to judge us in the last day

[God has appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained, even by his Son Jesus Christ. In that day all shall be summoned to his judgment-seat, the old and the young, the rich and the poor: not one that has ever been born into the world shall then be absent: the child that died in the birth, as well as the man of a hundred years old, shall be summoned to receive his everlasting doom, according to what they have done in the body, whether it be good or evil. To those who die before they have attained the knowledge of good and evil, we doubt not but that the mercy of God will be extended: but to those who have lived to your age, judgment or mercy will be dispensed according as you have remembered or forgotten God. Most awful is that declaration of the Psalmist, The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God [Note: Psa 9:17.]. If you have forgotten his authority over you, and especially his command to believe in his Son Jesus Christ; if you have forgotten that his eye was always upon you, inspecting your most secret thoughts, and noting them down in order to his future judgment; and if you have lived without any concern about the sentence that shall then be passed upon you; it will indeed be an awful day to you, a commencement of such misery as no words can describe, no imagination can conceive. Remember then that God marks down in the book of his remembrance your every act, and every word, and every thought; and that it is your wisdom so to live, that, whether called at an earlier or later period of life, you may give up your account to him with joy, and not with grief.]

Such is the duty of all without exception: but the text requires me more particularly to shew,

II.

Why we should thus remember him in early life

It were easy to accumulate reasons on so plain a point: but we shall content ourselves with assigning a few of the most obvious;

1.

This is the most favourable time

[It is of the nature of sin to harden the heart and to sear the conscience: and therefore the less we have been habituated to sin, the more hope there is that a good impression may be made upon our minds. We cannot agree with those who represent the hearts of youth as a sheet of white paper, on which you may write either good or evil: for, alas! there is evil, not merely written, but inscribed there in a most abundant measure, and in characters that are almost indelible: but we cordially accede to this truth, that the young are as yet only like plants sprouting from the earth, pliable and easy to be trained; whilst at a more advanced age they become like trees, which retain their form, unyielding, and unmoved. From the very employments too of men in more advanced life, there arise many disadvantages: being drawn to a more vigorous pursuit of earthly things, they are, not unfrequently, so oppressed with the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things, that the good seed which has been sown in them, cannot grow up unto perfection. But from these things young people are comparatively free. Besides, at this season they have an express promise from God, which they cannot plead in future life [Note: Pro 8:17.]: and therefore in a variety of views they may well consider this as the most convenient season for piety that can ever occur.]

2.

It may, for aught we know, be the only time that shall be allotted us

[The youngest and the healthiest amongst us may be speedily removed. Let any one survey the monuments that surround him, and he will see that multitudes have been cut off at his age, though once they appeared as likely to live as any who have survived him. And what if disease or accident arrest you before you have truly devoted yourselves to God? Will you have any opportunity to repair your error in the grave? Is there any work or device there, by which you can accomplish what here was left undone? No: as the tree falleth, so it lieth: and as you die, in a converted or unconverted state, so you must remain for ever. To-day then, while it is called to-day, harden not your hearts, as the generality, alas! are but too prone to do.]

3.

No other thing in the universe can so contribute to our present happiness

[It is quite a mistake to imagine that happiness can be found in the vanities of time and sense. From infallible authority we can declare that every thing under the sun is mere vanity and vexation of spirit. But in the service of God there is real joy: his ways are all, without exception, ways of pleasantness and peace: and in keeping his commandments there is great reward. Ask any one whether he ever regretted that he had given himself up to God too soon? We have heard of men, even of good men, as Job and Jeremiah, cursing the day of their birth: but who ever cursed the day of his new birth? At every period of life this is a subject that will bear reflection and impart delight: and in proportion as we grow in piety will our joy in God be increased.]

4.

There will certainly come a time when we shall wish we had sought the Lord in early life

[The text speaks of evil days as coming: and sooner or later they are coming to all. There is a time of sickness or old age coining, wherein we shall have no pleasure in earthly things: and shall we not then wish, that we had sought the Lord in our youth? Shall we then look back with pleasure on the sins that we have committed, or on the vanities that have kept us from God? Nothing but the consolations of God will then be of any avail to make us happy amidst the evils, which, from pain or debility, we shall have to sustain. But there is a time of death also which we must meet: and what will be our thoughts at that period? Then it will be of little moment to us what joys or sorrows we have met with in our former life. All our anxiety will be about the future. Oh! with what force will that question press upon the mind, Am I ready? Am I prepared to meet my God? How different will our feelings then be, according as we have given up ourselves to God in our early youth, or put off the work of our souls to a dying hour! and what an unfit season will that be to begin that work! Go one step farther: follow the soul into the eternal world: view it standing at the judgment-seat of Christ: What will be its feelings at that day? I need not say: your own consciences will tell you. At this moment, even though you choose not to live the life of the righteous, you are saying inwardly in your hearts, Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. Then, as these times must come, let us work while it is day, knowing assuredly, that the night is coming when no man can work, and when we shall bitterly lament, that ever we lost this day of our visitation, and neglected the things belonging to our everlasting peace.]

Address
1.

The younger part of our audience

[You are now going to take upon you the vows that were made in your behalf in baptism [Note: Confirmation.]. Now therefore more particularly remember God. Remember, that he sees the way in which you perform this duty: he sees whether you endeavour truly to approve yourselves to him, or whether you only mock him by a thoughtless compliance with an established form. Go to him, and surrender up yourselves wholly to him, as the first-fruits of his creatures, and you will have reason to bless God to all eternity that ever you were called to perform this solemn service. But, if you go without any sincere desire to devote yourselves to him, you will only harden your own hearts, and increase the guilt you have already contracted. Let me however hope better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak. Yes, dearly Beloved, we will hope, respecting some of you at least, that we have not bestowed upon you labour in vain.]

2.

To those who have grown to mans estate

[Every argument used with the young, presses with additional weight on you, and says, with greatly augmented force, Remember NOW thy Creator. If in your earlier days you were led to comply with this advice, I will venture to ask, Do you repent of having done so? Is not the chief matter of your regret, that you did not give yourselves up to him at a yet easier period, and that you have not adhered more steadfastly to the engagements you entered into? If you have, on the contrary, advanced in the Divine life, and grown from babes to young men, or from young men to fathers, does not that afford you matter of very exalted joy? Go on then, forgetting what is behind, and reaching forward to that which is before: and know that, when the days arrive in which you shall say, you have no pleasure in them, you shall experience a joy with which the stranger intermeddleth not; which this world can neither give nor take away; and which shall be to you a pledge and earnest of everlasting felicity in the bosom of your God.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

CONTENTS

In this Chapter the Preacher finisheth his discourse, and a beautiful close he makes of it, running up all into the love and fear of God, as the great object of man’s creation, and the ultimate end of man.

Ecc 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;

A beautiful and most affectionate address the Chapter opens with to the youthful part, in recommending and enforcing an earnest regard to God, as the Creator. No doubt the Preacher meant it, under both views of the Creator, in nature and in grace: and having closed the former Chapter with an address to the young, he begins this in the same strain. We may consider this as one of the inferences from the whole sermon. Having fully proved the vanity of human life, the younger part of those who attended to his discourse, are here called upon to make the proper conclusion from it. There is a beauty in this verse, which a mere English Reader, unacquainted with the original Hebrew, could not possibly know, unless pointed out to him. I mean, that the word Creator, is in the original plural Creators; and ought by our translators to have been so rendered. And the importance of it is much greater than at first view some may imagine. For it implies the grand fundamental truth of the Bible, namely, that the one glorious and eternal, Jehovah, hath his existence and self-being totally distinct from all his creatures, and doth exist in a three-fold character of persons; Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Hereby confirming the same glorious truth as was revealed at the opening of the Bible; Jehovah Alehim, in each person of the Godhead, concurred and co-operated in the creation of man. Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness: Gen 1:26 . And as a still further confirmation of this glorious doctrine, we find the same word in that passage plural; Job 35:10 , where is God my makers, who giveth songs in the night?

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Ecc 12:1

Samuel Rutherford, in some letters addressed to young Scotchmen, often enlarges on this idea. ‘A young man is often a dressed lodging for the devil to dwell in.’ ‘I know that missive letters go between the devil and young blood. Satan hath a friend at court in the heart of youth; and there pride, luxury, lust, revenge, forgetfulness of God, are hired agents.’ ‘Youth ordinarily is a fast and ready servant for Satan to run errands.’ ‘Believe it, my lord,’ this in a letter to a young Scottish nobleman ‘it is hardly credible what a nest of dangerous temptations youth is; how inconsiderate, foolish, proud, vain, heady, rash, profane, and careless of God, this piece of your life is…. For then affections are on horseback, lofty and stirring, and therefore, oh, what a sweet couple, what a glorious yoke are youth and grace, Christ and a young man! This is a meeting not to be found in every town.’

Kingsley, in North Devon, describing the wreck of a ship on the Hartland Cliffs, tells of the sad records found in her log-book. ‘Notice after notice, “on this day such an one died,” “on this day such an one was washed away ” the log kept up to the last, even when there was only that to tell, by the stern, business-like merchant skipper, whoever he was; and how at last, when there was neither food nor water, the strong man’s heart seemed to have quailed, or, perhaps, risen with a prayer, jotted down in the log, “The Lord have mercy on us!” and then a blank of several pages, and, scribbled with a famine-shaken hand, “Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth ” and so the log and the ship were left to the rats, which covered the deck when our men boarded her.’

Ecc 12:1

I have made a sketch of a golden twelve-rayed sun with the clock in the centre. The rays correspond to the hours, and in each of the golden points a word is painted in Gothic letters. Here they are as they stand in succession: I. we begin, II. we want, HI. we learn, IIII. we obey, V. we love, VI. we hope, VII. we search, VIII. we suffer, IX. we wait, X. we forgive, XL we resign, XII. we end. The advancing handle marks the hour and its word, and there is many a one we should like to pass quickly by, so as to tarry longer at others but we must accept all the hours, the good and the bad ones, as they follow each other on life’s inexorable great clock.

The Letters Which Never Reached Him, p. 206.

See Jowett’s College Sermons, pp. 1 f.

References. XII. 1. W. Brock, Midsummer Morning Sermons, p. 68. XII. 1, 2. W. H. Simcox, The Cessation of Prophecy, p. 201. XII. 1, 6, 7. J. M. C. Bellew, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 289. XII. 1-7, 13, 14. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Ecclesiastes, p. 402.

Ecc 12:2

Things are alive, and the life at the heart of them, that keeps them going, is the great, beautiful God. So the sun returns for ever after the clouds. A doubting man, like him who wrote Ecclesiastes, puts the evil last, and says the clouds return after the rain; but the Christian knows that One has mastery who makes the joy the last in every song.

George Macdonald.

Ecc 12:3-4

After the water-skins a pair of mill-stones is the most necessary husbandry in an Arabian household. To grind their corn is the housewives’ labour; and the dull rumour of the running mill-stones is as it were a comfortable voice of food in an Arabian village, when in the long sunny hours there is often none other human sound. The drone of mill-stones may be heard before the daylight in the nomad menzils.

Doughty’s Arabia Deserta, II. p. 180.

Ecc 12:5

Solomon saith, Man goeth to his long home. Short preparation will not fit so long a journey. O let me not put it off till the last, to have my oil to buy, when I am to burn it, but let me so dispose of myself, that when I am to die I may have nothing to do but to die.

Thomas Fuller.

References. XII. 5. E. A. Askew, Sermons Preached in Greystoke Church, p. 156. D. Swing, American Pulpit of Today, vol. i. p. 205. J. M. Neale, Sermons for Some Feast Days in the Christian Year, p. 177.

The Individuality of the Soul

Ecc 12:7

Survey some populous town: crowds are pouring through the streets; some on foot, some in carriages; while the shops are full, and the houses too, could we see into them. Every part of it is full of life. Hence we gain a general idea of splendour, magnificence, opulence, and energy. But what is the truth? why, that every being in that great concourse is his own centre and all things about him are but shades, but a ‘vain shadow,’ in which he ‘walketh and dis-quieteth himself in vain’. He has his own hopes and fears, desires, judgments, and aims; he is everything to himself, and no one else is really anything. No one outside of him can really touch him, can touch his soul, his immortality; he must live with himself for ever. He has a depth within him unfathomable, an infinite abyss of existence; and the scene in which he bears part for the moment is but like a gleam of sunshine upon its surface. When we read history, we meet with accounts of great slaughters and massacres, great pestilences, famines, conflagrations, and so on; and here again we are accustomed in an especial way to regard collections of people as if individual units. We cannot understand that a multitude is a collection of immortal souls. I say immortal souls: each of those multitudes, not only had while He was upon earth, but has a soul, which did in its own time but return to God who gave it, and not perish, and which now lives unto Him. All those millions upon millions of human beings who ever trod the earth and saw the sun successively, are at this very moment in existence all together…. We may recollect when children, perhaps, once seeing a certain person, and it is almost like a dream to us now that we did. It seems like an accident which goes and is all over, like some creature of the moment, which has no existence beyond it The rain falls, and the wind blows; and showers and storms have no existence beyond the time when we felt them; they are nothing in themselves. But if we have but once seen any child of Adam, we have seen an immortal soul. It has not passed away as a breeze or sunshine, but it lives; it lives at this moment in one of those many places, whether of bliss or misery, in which all souls are reserved until the end.

J. H. Newman.

The Two Returns

Ecc 12:7

The book of Ecclesiastes has been described as the ‘confession of a man of wide experience, looking back upon his past life, and looking out upon the disorders and calamities which surround him’.

The subject of the paragraph is the wisdom of remembering God in youth. A lively picture is drawn of the infirmities and incapacities of old age, as the best of reasons why the great ‘remembering’ should not be deferred till that part of life. Let us consider the great end which is before each of us an end in which each must be alone an end which is also a beginning. The fact of death, the corporeal fact, is full of significance, and should never be frowned away. If this fact were pondered over, if it even were rehearsed to ourselves morning by morning, it would cause some alterations in the habits which we allow, and in the lives which we live. It is, however, the other half of the text which gives the chief solemnity even to this. If the whole of dying were just the getting rid of the mortal then there would be no positive ‘sting’ in death. But ‘the spirit must return unto God who gave it’. It is commonly said that the Old Testament has no revelation of immortality. What can we say of the text? Is it consistent with the dream of extinction, of absorption, of annihilation? Why not say then at once, dust and spirit together shall return to earth as they were? This we say that no saint of God from first days till latest was ever left destitute of the instinct of immortality.

I. The spirit. It is one half of us. It contains the ‘willing’ of which the body does the ‘running’. This spirit is God’s gift. Angel, I must be, or else devil, in virtue of this gift.

II. The return. The spirit has to go back to its Giver. It was not for Solomon to enter into niceties and subtleties such as those of the intermediate state, the Hades, between death and resurrection. Enough for him to see the ‘return’.

III. The receiver. ‘To God Who gave it’ That spirit as it came from God’s hand was not necessitated to evil. In what state, of what colour does it return? Oh, to think of carrying all this filth into heaven! to think of going back to the Father of Spirits with that lie, with that lust black and hideous upon thee! It is this which frightens and confounds us. The Gospel of our Lord does not leave us in despair: ‘Come unto Me,’ I will save, My rod and staff shall support.

C. J. Vaughan, The Clerical Library, vol. II. p. 165.

References. XII. 7. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches, p. 319. J. C. M. Bellew, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 81.

The Pessimistic and Optimistic Views of Life

Ecc 12:8 , Joh 10:10

These two texts, one of the Old Testament and one of the New, mark very pointedly the eternal contrast between the two ways of life possible to man, the one way darkened with the riddle of an inscrutable mystery, the other brightened with the Gospel message of a coming King.

I. ‘What is the plan of life,’ men ask its purpose, its aim? And to that riddle of the Sphinx there are always two answers. ‘There is no plan,’ cries the old Jewish sceptic. ‘Life itself, human life, is but a, grim game of chance played by a silent angel who seems to play with loaded dice.’ In the end the dust is laid upon us; we go down into the darkness of the tomb and all is soundless and silent And on the other hand, there is the Gospel answer of joy and hope and victory. Christ has come that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly. God has a plan for the world in Christ, a great educational plan by which both the perfection of the individual and the perfection of the race is to be accomplished. To the dark riddle of life, which is the true answer?

II. There are few more tragic books in all sacred literature than the book of Ecclesiastes, in which the old Jewish sage preaches to mankind his sad and mournful sermon. We know how, in his later life, he had fallen from his great estate, and to gratify his passion and pride had outraged the most sacred ordinances, neglected the most sacred duties that can cluster round life. It is at that time, when the bloom of purity and grace had gone out of him, when his sin had made him blind to his blessings of nature, and home, and God, and his bad life had drawn bad men towards him and driven good men away, when his relation to women is such as to drive him from the presence of such pure and noble women as, thank God, never failed out of the world it is then that Solomon is represented as writing his cynical estimate of God and nature, life and death, men and women. Some centuries after this first sad sermon upon the meaning of life was written, there came to that same land and people another teacher born, it was said, after the flesh of the same royal line as the first, and upon Him as upon His earthly ancestor long before it was laid to preach upon the same mighty theme. That sermon as you know is handed down to us, and the distance between the two sermons bridges the whole distance between the two great estimates of life taught on this side by Jesus and on that by Solomon. Take the kernel of each in a representative sentence. ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ cries the first preacher. ‘Blessed are the poor, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the frank and open-hearted, blessed are the hungry for justice, blessed are the forgiving, blessed are the pure, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the sufferers for right,’ says the second.

III. It is possible of course to regard the teaching of Jesus under very many different aspects, but if you are studying it as a way of life and are putting it into comparison with some such philosophy as that to be found in the book of Ecclesiastes, there are two principles which by and by you will find fundamental in Christ’s teaching, and which have absolutely no place in the scheme of the old Jewish sceptic and his modern representatives. Those principles are these: first God has a plan for the world, a great educational plan, by which both the perfection of the individual and the perfection of the race is to be accomplished; secondly God means man to co-operate with him in the working out of the plan.

C. W. Stubbs, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxii. 1907, p. 113.

Reference. XII. 8-14. T. C. Finlayson, A Practical Exposition of Ecclesiastes, p. 267.

Ecc 12:9

That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws (i.e. Nemesis) which the pulpit, the senate, and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets and workshops by flight of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of birds and flies.

Emerson.

References. XII. 9, 10. R. Buchanan, Ecclesiastes: its Meaning and Lessons, p. 422. J. H. Jowett, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. vi. p. 204.

Requirements and Difficulties of the Preacher

Ecc 12:10-11

The preacher’s work is a serious business for three reasons:

I. Because it is his duty to speak for God. He is an apostle, a man with a message. He preaches not in his own name. He is one who is sent to declare the counsel of the Most High God. A man may philosophize as much as he pleases, but when he preaches he must speak for God and keep within the horizon of that which is clearly revealed. He is an ambassador. With what fidelity and with what searching of heart, and communion with the Holy Spirit, he should declare in the words of man the counsel of God.

II. Preaching is a serious business, because it is speaking about the interests of the soul. That is a liberal definition of the objects of preaching. The preacher’s duty is to convince men of sin and lead them to salvation from sin; and sin of whatever origin ends, unless it is cured, in death, and salvation, where-ever it begins to work, brings the gift of God through Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. The preacher must serve His Master rationally, freely, carefully, speaking the truth in love upon every subject that has a bearing upon the welfare of the soul.

III. There are certain difficulties which ought to be remembered. For one thing, preaching has been going on in the world for a long time, and that is a fact which makes absolute originality difficult, if not impossible. And yet there are people who demand originality as if it were more important than the truth. Another difficulty that the preacher has to face is the intense competition of other claims upon the interests of the people. The real thing is the advance, the forward movement, and if it can be done with the joy and courage and inspiration and happiness within you, so much the better, so much the surer.

H. Van Dyke, Homiletic Review, vol. lii. 1906, p. 461.

Ecc 12:11

Bentham used to declare that his own thoughts were mainly excited by favourite aphorisms and proverbs, such as those of Bacon. These furnished the foundation for his arguments and the stimulus of his ideas and opinions.

See Walton’s description of Andrew Melville as ‘master of a great wit; a wit full of knots and clenches’.

‘Give me,’ says Thomas Fuller, ‘such solid reasons whereon I may rest and rely. Solomon saith, The words of the wise are like nails, fastened by the masters of the assembly. A nail is firm, and will hold driving in, and will hold driven in. Send me such arguments.

Thomas Lower also came to visit us, and offered us money, which we refused; accepting his love nevertheless. He asked us many questions concerning our denying the Scriptures to be the Word of God; and concerning the sacraments, and such like; to all which he received satisfaction. I spoke particularly to him, and he afterwards said my words were as a flash of lightning, they ran so through him. He said he never met with such men in his life, for they knew the thoughts of his heart, and were as wise as the master-builders of the assemblies, that fastened their words like nails. He came to be convinced of the truth and remains a Friend to this day.

George Fox’s Journal, 1656.

A collection of anecdotes and maxims is of the highest value to the man of the world, if he knows how to introduce the one clearly into his conversation at the proper moment, and to recall the other when occasion arises.

Goethe.

The Words of the Wise

Ecc 12:11

The lesson we learn from our text is that God’s words are meant to stimulate men and spur them on. In all circumstances of an outward kind men need to be excited into spiritual alacrity. In prosperity a man is apt to say, ‘My mountain is strong; I shall not be moved,’ as the flocks and herds would linger amid tufts of grass. In adversity, too, men need spiritual stimulus. Adversity is a powerful instrument in God’s hands for the spiritual good of man; but in itself it only depresses and unnerves. God in His Providence often steps in and helps men in an outward way, bringing them down from prosperity on the one hand, raising them out of adversity on the other. But His chosen way is rather to spur them on in the midst of untoward circumstances than to remove these. God’s favourite work is done in man’s soul, and not on his outward path. His words are as goads.

I. Even in regard to intellectual activity, God’s words act as goads. The very form of the Bible stirs men out of mental slumber. It speaks in history, prophecy, parable, paradox. It often needs great labour to understand it, to square it with known facts, to harmonize its own utterances. Men rail at this; but, meanwhile, the work intended is done. They are forced to think; and, as is admitted on all hands, the knowledge of the Bible and mental activity are at the present day co-terminous. And in anything like a true revival of religion, one which sends men to their Bibles, intense mental activity ensues.

II. God’s words act on men’s hopes and fears. They will not let men rest in the present. ‘This is not your rest.’ Earth is only a wilderness, with the Promised Land at the farther side, a race-course with the goal at the end, a warfare with victory or defeat as the issue. Will ye not be goaded on? This is the short spring in which we must sow. What a man soweth he shall reap. What will be in the end thereof?

III. God’s words stir up men by witnessing to their corruptions. We are morally diseased. As the chambers in Ezekiel’s vision showed greater and yet greater abominations, so do God’s searching words lead us to ever-new and humiliating discoveries in our own heart.

IV. God’s words goad on by providing a remedy for our corruptions. It needs the voice of the Deliverer to rouse a people from the base contentment to which despair has brought them. Christ’s call is, ‘Flee to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope’. Rise, He calleth thee, He Whose voice the very grave obeys. ‘Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light’

V. God’s words give rest to the soul. ‘I will give you rest’ rest from fear; rest in Christ’s finished work; rest in God’s promises; rest here and for ever.

Ecc 12:12

Of making many books there is no end, complained the preacher; and did not perceive how highly he was praising letters as an occupation. There is no end, indeed, to making books or experiments, or to travel, or to gathering wealth. Problem gives rise to problem. We may study for ever, and we are never as learned as we would…. In the infinite universe there is room for our swiftest diligence, and to spare. It is not like the works of Carlyle, which can be read to an end. Even in a corner of it, in a private park, or in the neighbourhood of a single hamlet, the weather and the seasons keep so deftly changing that although we walk there for a lifetime there will be always something new to startle and delight us.

R. L. Stevenson, El Dorado.

Solomon informs us that much reading is a weariness to the flesh; but neither he, nor other inspired author, tells us that such and such reading is unlawful; yet certainly had God thought good to limit us therein, it had been much more expedient to have told us what was unlawful than what was wearisome.

From Milton’s Areopagitica.

Much reading deprives the mind of all elasticity; it is like keeping a spring perpetually under pressure.

Schopenhauer.

Compare Religio Medici, I. sec. xxiv.

I have never cared much for books, except in so far as they might help to quicken our sense of the reality of life, and enable us to enter into its right and wrong.

F. J. A. Hort.

More than thirty years ago I remember meeting on the Surrey downs a remarkable-looking man: one who has been thought to be, as perhaps he was, a great teacher of this and a former generation. Shall I tell you his name? It was Thomas Carlyle. He said to me, ‘I am wearied out with the burden of writing, and I am just come to spend a day or two in walking about among the hills’.

Jowett (in 1885).

It is an uneasy lot, at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy; to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small, hungry, shivering self never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted.

George Eliot.

See Emerson’s The American Scholar, II.

Ecc 12:13

See Butler’s Sermons, No. xv., at the close, and the last paragraph of Sterne’s sermon on Psa 4:6 , with his sermon (No. 39.) on this very text.

Ecc 12:13

I have too strong a sense of the value of religion myself not to wish that my children should have so much of it (I speak of feeling, not of creed) as is compatible with reason. I have no ambition for them, and can only further say in the dying words of Julie, n’en faites point de savans faites-en des hommes bienfaisants et justes .

W. Rathbone Greg.

‘Gil Blas,’ says Kingsley in his Lectures on the Ancien Rgime, ‘is a collection of diseased specimens. No man or woman in the book, lay or clerical, gentle or simple, as far as I can remember, do their duty in any wise, even if they recollect that they have any duty to do. Greed, chicane, hypocrisy, uselessness, are the ruling laws of human society. A new book of Ecclesiastes, crying, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” the “conclusion of the whole matter” being left out, and the new Ecclesiast rendered thereby diabolic, instead of like that old one, Divine. For, instead of “Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man,” Le Sage sends forth the new conclusion, “Take care of thyself and feed on thy neighbours, for that is the whole duty of man”. And very faithfully was his advice easy enough to obey at all times obeyed for nearly a century after Gil Blas appeared.’

The Religious Life

Ecc 12:13

I. The Attributes of the Religious Life.

a. Holy fear. ‘God,’ says the Psalmist, ‘is greatly to be feared.’ This is not a slavish fear, such, for example, as Felix had (Act 24:25 ), but a holy affection or gracious habit wrought in the soul by the Spirit of God on its conversion to God. Faith and love strengthen it, and it soon becomes the cardinal passion of the soul. There is no air of misery about it; it so reverences God that it would not displease Him, and hence He looks upon it with approval and delight.

b. Constant obedience. Though the soul be free from all condemnation, the moment faith is exercised in Christ, yet from that very moment the believer is bound by the strongest obligations to constant obedience. In fact, he has been freed from the bondage of sin that he might keep God’s commandments. And when faith works by love, the duty of obedience is refined into a grace, and the Divine behests are exalted into privileges. Hence they are willingly obeyed; and this is according to God’s mind.

II. The Importance of the Religious Life.

a. Honour and happiness are secured by it. A good man is ‘the highest style of man’; he is one of ‘the excellent of the earth,’ one of ‘a chosen generation,’ one of ‘a royal priesthood,’ one of ‘a holy nation,’ one of ‘a peculiar people’; nay, he is ‘an heir of God, a joint-heir with Jesus Christ’. There is no honour equal to this in any world! And the good man is the happiest style of man also. True, he has days of cloud and sadness; but ofttimes, when living in holy obedience, springtides of joy ‘unspeakable and full of glory’ sweep over his soul, and he shares in the bliss of the skies.

b. This life demands the entire being. It is indeed ‘the whole of man,’ all his business on earth; and therefore he gives his full attention to it, consecrating body, soul, and spirit to its interests. It matters little or nothing to him whether he is rich or poor, high or low; but it is a point of transcendent moment with him to ‘fear God, and keep His commandments’. This is his Alpha and Omega his life and his all.

References. XII. 13. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Master’s Message, p. 125. G. Salmon, Sermons in Trinity College, Dublin, p. 148. J. Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. i. p. 10. J. Thain Davidson, Talks with Young Men, p. 275.

Ecc 12:14

‘This is the day,’ writes Sir Thomas Browne, ‘that must make good that great attribute of God, His justice; that must reconcile those unanswerable doubts that torment the wisest understandings; and reduce those seeming inequalities and respective distributions in this world to an equality and recompensive justice in the next… This is the day whose memory hath, only, power to make us honest in the dark, and to be virtuous without a witness.’

Reference. XII. 14. J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes (1st Series), p. 4.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

The Whole Duty of Man

Ecc 12

Now we come upon the exhortation which Coheleth addresses to the young man, and we have seen how high is his title to assume the office of teacher of youth. We are not about to listen to a preacher who has had no experience of the world. We cannot taunt this man, saying, “If you knew more, you would say less.” Here is a “man who knows the whole round of pleasure, a man who has drained every goblet of offered joy, and who comes to us from the market-place, from gardens of delight, from palaces of royalty, and gives us his exhortation. Let us listen to it, and be wise.

“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” ( Ecc 12:1 ).

You say you can remember things that took place forty or fifty years ago better than you can recollect what happened last week. There is a whole philosophy in that word. The memory is quick in youth. It seems made to take hold of things, and to keep them in firm grasp. What is it to the young mind to commit poetry to memory, to store the recollection with figures, words, terms, formularies? That which is impossible to age is comparatively easy to youth. In this particular we may be said to enjoy in old age what we gather in early life. So we come to the strange fact that youth is not only a seedtime but a harvest-time, wherein we cut down many golden crops, and store them in the granary of a faithful recollection, that we may have quiet and rich enjoyment in the time of old age and retirement; then come up the youthful songs, then we drink over again the dew of the morning, and again and again we pluck and bind the sweet flowers of life’s spring-time, and think there is none like them in all the gardens of old age. It is a pleasant illusion, but thus we are cheered and soothed and tempted down to the grave by easy but sure approaches. Amid all the recollections of our youth, the wise man would put first and foremost the Creator, not to make youth old, but to make old age young. In this case, if the last be made first, the first shall be made last; and the evening hour will glow with warmth and be radiant with light; the little child shall reappear in the old man not to enfeeble and humble him, but to save his decay from gloom and despair. Remember now thy Creator, recognise his existence, set him at the front of thy thinking, connect the great scheme of life with his person and government; do not start life under the impression that things make themselves, rule themselves, shape themselves, and that he who is strongest will get uppermost, without any regard to right. Observe what the word is. It is “Remember.” It is not, Fear; it is not, Tremble before; it is not, Run away from; it is sweet remembrance, vivid recollection, keeping God steadfastly before the vision of hope and imagination. Then remembrance is urged for what may be called cautionary reasons “while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.” Thus we are taught to look upon life as a whole, and to know the right time for doing anything. If a husbandman did not see the whole year, he would not know what to do with any part of it. If a builder did not know the climate of his country for a whole year, he would not know how to put up his edifice. It is one thing to build for a calm summer day, and another to build for a year that has in it winter as well as summer. The builder really puts up his building for the one day of storm that is to be in the year. Wherever the beam is solid, the iron is thick, and the roof is guarded at every point, we may be sure that the builder has foreseen the evil days days of tempest and of danger. Who has not seen travellers proposing to undertake a certain journey, and forecasting the incidents of the way and the nature of the way itself? For miles the road is known to be smooth and easy, but for other miles it is also known to be rough, stony, and dangerous. For which part of the road does the traveller most carefully qualify himself? If these things are done upon the low levels of consideration and arrangement, what should be done in the higher ranges of religious preparation and spiritual forecast? Men who do not remember their Creator in the days of their youth may seek to remember him when memory has failed. You believe there is a Creator; you would not deny the existence of a Creator on any consideration whatever; therefore let me preach to you the solemn and awful doctrine that if you do not remember this Creator you will be judges against yourselves; for in theory you were religious, but in practice you were profane. Oh! be wise: may I not say? be decent, be just, be fair, in your dealings with your Creator. He deserves all, he demands all, and only in giving him all we are and have do we realise the full possibilities of life, physically, socially, religiously, and in view of the solemn and endless future.

Coheleth now gives a beautiful picture of the decay of manhood, beautiful indeed, yet it may bring pain and tears to those who think what they are coming to:

“While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain” ( Ecc 12:2 ).

All the great comforts contract and withdraw. Once your house had large well-kept windows through which the light streamed; but they are now dusty, weather-stained, and the morning is blurred and dimmed when it tries to get at you through so defective a medium. Is there a more pitiable object anywhere than the sun struggling with a thick, murky fog? It looks so white, as if it were weary with long watching and strife; so round and bare, like a king who has lost his robes and his crown, and of whom his subjects are ashamed. A white, watery, forsaken-looking thing, half wheel, half eye, trying to see and yet afraid to look, peeping behind the thick curtain with an eye without eyelids, a bleary and forlorn object altogether. Yet is there any change in the sun itself? No: the change is wholly in the medium. So life is as strong, as joyous, as songful as ever, but the days through which it shines are murky, fog-laden, and shrunken to a mere span. Coheleth warns us to be ready against the time when life itself will be shorn of its power to give enjoyment and satisfaction. Many different interpretations have been given of this picture, but happily it is a picture which every man may interpret for himself, and apply to himself, without running any danger of opposing the spirit of its deepest meaning. Say that it applies to the body, say that it is a picture of old age, say that it depicts certain realities that must occur in every full-grown life, the moral comes to this, that there is in front of us a time of impoverishment, enfeeblement: a time when we are no longer our own selves, enjoying our full strength, exerting our complete energy; we are but part of ourselves, the rest we have buried in the long past. Coheleth would have us ready for that time of self-shrinking. His way of getting ready for that time is to think well of the Creator in early days, to be familiar with the principles of his government, with the objects of his rule, with the meaning of his providence, and with the infinite gospel embodied in the saving Cross. Why do we put off religious considerations until the last? Is this wise? Is this worthy of us? Need I do more than ask the questions? Do they not instantly bring with them their own answer an answer of conviction and accusation to many, and an answer of thankfulness and consolation to not a few?

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” ( Ecc 12:13-14 ).

The Preacher had found all outward things to be vanity. Now, is it true that the world is vanity? or did Coheleth simply utter a sentiment heedlessly or in the spirit of revenge, because of his own personal disappointments? The world is vanity to the man who is morally wrong. Immorality spoils everything. The man’s spirit is wrong, and therefore he takes a wrong view of everything he looks upon. There is a sense in which we bring everything into our own quality: to the mean man all things are mean; to the narrow-minded man all things are narrow; to the good man all things are beautiful or hopeful, or if he must admit the existence of evil he delights rather to magnify points of excellence which his own vivid imagination may suppose itself to have discovered. “To the pure all things are pure,” is a doctrine which applies not only to spiritual relations and ministries, but to everything which constitutes part of the world. The pure man could hear language which to an impure man would contain all manner of baleful suggestion; and yet the pure man could listen without a blush. The man who uses the world merely for the sake of gratifying his appetites will find it to be but vanity, simply because all lower appetites burn themselves out, and give up the quest of good, because they are satiated, and the very power of enjoyment is destroyed. An exhausted appetite thus passes judgment upon the world, and that judgment is unjust: if the world had been properly used, under intelligent discipline, it would have yielded very different results, but because it has been abused, the appetite which is exhausted by satiety turns round upon the world, and writes upon it a vengeful criticism.

But there is a sense in which the world is truly vanity. What is that sense? It turns altogether upon the conception which is formed of man. It is the greatness of man that dwarfs the world. The cradle is adapted to the child of days, but it has no relation whatever to the man who has come to maturity. If a man should persist in carrying his cradle about with him, and contending that it is sufficient, that it once measured his necessities and therefore must continue to measure them, he would be condemned as insane. So the world was once enough for us; we were delighted with its beauty, we were satisfied with its abundance, we sunned ourselves in the light which made it warm, and said, How truly joyous is the present sphere of existence. For the time being that judgment was right, because it exactly expressed the measure of our capacity; but we have grown, we have become conscious of new powers, we have seen in the far distance outlines of realities which tempt our imagination, and lure us onward by a singularly fascinating power, so that now the things that are round about us appear to be small and unworthy, not that they have changed their nature or uses, but because we ourselves have outgrown them. That which was useful to the child is useless to the man. That which satisfied us in our infancy is mere vanity now, and we cannot stoop to it, or for a moment tolerate it. So, then, a distinction must be made between the world and the men inhabiting it. For a time, the world was large enough, yea, too large, but little by little we conquered it, saw all its surface, understood all its meaning, exhausted all its uses, and now to offer us that world in satisfaction of new aspirations is simply to mock our growing manhood.

What is it that will put everything right? Coheleth tells us in the thirteenth verse: “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” When you are right, the earth is right. “Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee…. Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.” “Fear God” not in any servile sense, as a slave might fear a master, but fear him filially, reverentially, with all the joy of purest love; then the mind shall be uplifted in nobler elevation, and the whole outlook of life shall be brightened. We know that we fear God when we keep his commandments; that is, we look out for the things that are written for our guidance and instruction; we study them; we do not try to pervert them, but to extract their obvious and deepest spiritual meaning, and then our holy endeavour is day by day to exemplify them in simplicity of motive and pureness of action. The whole operation is not to end in merely intellectual homage: a man might lift up his eyes to heaven, and his tongue might utter loud words of adoration, and the man might claim thereby to be “fearing” God, yea, to be so fearing him as to pay no attention to discipline or to the detail of duty. If this is not hypocrisy, it is certainly sentimentalism or superstition of the most mischievous kind. Our awe of God ought to lead us to a deeper study of his word and commandment, that we may balance our homage by our obedience, and thus realise a complete and acceptable worship. If God has given commandments, where are they to be found? Here we are thrown back upon our old and well-established doctrine that we are not called upon to invent commandments for ourselves, but to obey those which have been laid down for us. We may begin with them as commandments, feeling all their hardness, and difficulty, and seeming impracticableness, but we are to comment upon them by endeavouring to carry them out; our exposition is to be in practical behaviour, not in daintily-chosen words or in felicitous phrases of commendation. Are we not to live under command that is to say, under the authority and order of the living God? When we come to know ourselves really, we shall find that it is simply impossible that we should invent our own commandments. That God himself is required to issue commandments for the guidance of human life is, when properly apprehended, a tribute to the greatness of that life: how intricate must be the machinery which only God himself can keep in order; how invaluable the life which he has created when only himself can sustain it! The commandments of God are indeed at the first grievous, because we have either lost the power, or the desire, or both, to do them; but after we have been inspired by the Holy Ghost, and trained in the uses of life, we begin to see that only in law is there true liberty, and only in obedience is there true harmony or rest. That which at the first seems to be arbitrary or mechanical is proved at the last to be moral and spiritual. We may begin under military drill, but we end in childlike obedience and love. It has been well said, “The Book of Ecclesiastes begins with ‘All is vanity,’ and ends with ‘Fear God, and keep his commandments.'” We begin at vanity, and never know perfectly that we are vain until we come to fear God and keep his commandments.

“For this is the whole duty of man,” otherwise, “this is the duty of all men,” which is considered to be the only possible rendering of the Hebrew; the difference between the Authorised Version and this rendering being that the latter leaves nothing further to be done, whereas this literal rendering calls upon all men to do the same thing namely, to fear God, and keep his commandments. I cannot recognise any vital difference between the two ways of putting the truth. It may be supposed that there is nothing evangelical in the exhortation to fear God and keep his commandments, but let any man try to carry out that exhortation, and he will soon feel his need of evangelical direction and support. We cannot know God except through evangelical methods, nor can we find our way into the secret meaning of his commandments but by the leading of the Holy Spirit. True, we may begin by a general conception of God’s creatorship, and may be religious in a deistic sense, but God is a larger term than any one word which can be used in its definition: though God is one, yet there is also a sense in which God is many, that is to say, many in his aspects and many in his attributes; and it is not given to every man to comprehend the total unity of God, and regard him under one term or figure. We speak of God as Creator, Sovereign, Father, Shepherd, Redeemer, Judge; all this God is, and yet infinitely more; but some men can only begin at one term, and pass gradually from the one to the other, until their spiritual education is completed. When we ask what it is to fear God, we begin to ask what God himself is, and to that inquiry there is no sufficient answer but that which has been returned by the Son of God, who dwelt in the bosom of the Father.

What is our great hope in view of all the strife, vanity, disappointment, tumult, and apparent failure of this world? What of its injustice, its tyranny, its selfishness, its policy of might against right? The answer is, “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” That is not a terror, it is a hope. Whilst bad men may read the words and tremble under them, good men should repeat them and take heart again. Men can deal only with actions, and can pronounce opinions only upon that which is superficial and obvious. God will deal with motives, with operations of the mind which are hidden from observation, with the secret thoughts and intents of the heart, and his judgment shall thus be complete in its justice. Let those who are conscious of being right maintain their confidence, however much appearances may be against them, and however much for the time being they may appear to be the sport of circumstances or the victims of oppression. The true judgment does not lie between points of conduct, but between qualities of motive. He who maintains a right cause, at what cost soever of time, money, strength, and reputation, shall in the long run be vindicated. Terrible beyond all imaginable disaster would it be if this world’s history were to close without divine judgment. Assure the tyrant that there is no judgment beyond, and then he will strike more terribly and swiftly than ever he struck before. Tell the man of might that he may do what he pleases, and that he will never be called to account; and then say what measures may be set to his evil purpose. But it is the business of the Bible to declare that every work and every thought shall be brought into judgment, and that every man shall receive for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. There is a day of reckoning coming, and on that day the first may be last, and the last be first; but whatever the order may be it will be established in righteousness, it will be determined by divine judgment of human conduct. What a reversal of position and fate will then take place! How applause will be turned into denunciation, and how denunciation will be turned into applause! All we can do in the meantime is to fear God and keep his commandments, study the law of God night and day, make it the man of our counsel, and the guide of our heart, and pursue all its injunctions to whatsoever issue they may lead. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord.” The Christian man ought to have no desire to take the law into his own hands; his one object should be to live in God, to obey God, to love and serve God, and then to leave all consequences under God’s disposal. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: he shall bring forth thy judgment as the morning, and make thy righteousness clear as noonday. God will vindicate the honest man. Let us leave our cause quietly and lovingly in his hands, for he will do more and better for us than we can do for ourselves.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XXVIII

THE MEANS USED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM

CONDEMNED AND THE FINAL CONCLUSIONS

Ecc 8:16-12:14

There are three reasons given in Ecc 8:16 to Ecc 9:6 as to why the means used were condemned, to wit: 1. They were wearisome; wore out the life finding the solution (Ecc 8:16 ).

2. Finite wisdom could not fathom it (Ecc 8:17 to Ecc 9:1 ) compare 1Co 1:19 f.

3. Death comes alike to all (Ecc 9:2-6 ) Here comes a bundle of conclusions expressed in Ecc 9:7-10 , thus: (1) Go on and eat and drink; (2) Dress well and keep yourself in trim; (3) Live in domestic felicity with one woman; (4) Do with your might whatever comes to your hand, for no one can work after death.

The fourth reason assigned for failure is that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. Everything in life is uncertain and there are snares set for man’s destruction everywhere (Ecc 9:11-12 ).

We find further observations in Ecc 9:13 to Ecc 10:4 illustrating this principle and the conclusion therefrom. This is the case of the poor wise man who delivered a city and was forgotten, yet his wisdom was better than strength. It was a case of wise words in the quiet which are better than the cry of a man who rules among fools. It was true then and it is true now, that “wisdom is better than weapons of war.” “But one sinner destroyeth much good.” Like dead flies in the ointment, he spoils whatever he touches, as his folly outweighs wisdom and honor. In meeting all these things it is well to keep in mind that “gentleness allayeth great offenses.” But there are certain drawbacks to this passive resistance, get forth in Ecc 10:5-15 , as follows:

(1) The promotion of fools. The ruler sets folly in great dignity and puts the more influential in low places. He puts servants on horses and causes princes to walk like servants (Ecc 10:5-7 ).

(2) A man’s labor turns against him. He that digs a pit may fall into it, or whoso breaks through a wall may be bitten by a serpent, or whoso hews out stones may be hurt by them. A dull tool requires more strength, but the wise can direct to more profit. It is too late to send for the charmer after you are bitten by the serpent (Ecc 10:8-11 ).

(3) The foolishness of fools overbalances the wisdom of the wise. The fool begins in foolishness and ends in madness; he multiplies words to no purpose and throws everything into confusion (Ecc 10:12-15 ).

The last reason assigned for condemning the means is that the king may be a child, given to revelry, drunkenness, and slothfulness, and when this is so it is, “Woe unto the land I” What follows is set forth in three proverbs thus: By slothfulness the roof sinketh in; And through idleness of the hands the house leaketh. A feast is made for laughter, And wine maketh glad the life; And money answereth all things. Revile not the king, no, not in thy thought; And revile not the rich in thy bed chamber; For a bird of the heavens shall carry the voice, And that which hath wings shall tell the matter.

If the means of solution be discarded, the first thing to do, then, is to “Cast thy bread upon the waters” (Ecc 11:1 ) which refers to the ancient method of sowing on the overflow of the Nile, which came annually, a-“d covering the seed by driving oxen over them, the only way it could be done. The spiritual significance of this is the investment of a life in doing good.

The second thing to do is to “Give a portion to all” (Ecc 11:2 ), i.e., Do good as you purpose in your heart while opportunity is afforded you. But there is a warning given in Ecc 11:3-5 : Don’t watch the wind and the clouds, for the man who watches the clouds is fearful and will not succeed. Do not hesitate because you do not understand the principles and methods of God’s providences.

The next thing enjoined is to work at all seasons (Ecc 11:6-8 ). Remember there will be dark days, but be diligent in view of the passing of your opportunity. Then comes a solemn warning to the young in Ecc 11:9 to Ecc 12:8 . Let them in their joys, remember the judgment; that God will bring everything into judgment; that old age will come when they will have no pleasure in it if their lives are spent in folly; that the grave and the judgment are the final destiny of man. Here we have in Ecc 12:3-8 , the great figure of the human body, with the following expressions: “The keepers of the house,” which are the hands that have grown weak and palsied; “the strong men,” which are the legs, giving way under old age; “the grinders,” which are the teeth, and most of them gone, having lost them on account of extreme age; “those that look out of the windows,” which are the eyes, having grown dim with age; “the doors,” the mouth which is not closed because of the absence of the teeth; “the grinding,” which is the sound of the chewing, now low because the teeth are gone; “rising up at the voice of a bird,” which is early rising in the morning, at first cock-crowing, because unable to sleep; “the daughters of music,” which are the tongue and the ears, the tongue no longer able to make music and the ears no longer able to hear and appreciate it; “they shall be afraid of that which is high,” which means that he is afraid to go up on anything high, as to ascend a ladder; “terrors shall be in the way,” which means that he is always finding bugbears in the way, such as wagons, carriages, streetcars afraid of things that he did not notice in early life; “the almond-tree shall blossom,” means that he is now covered with silvery locks, very much like the almond-tree just before putting out, covered with its silvery blossoms; “the grasshopper shall be a burden,” which means one of two things, viz: (1) a little weight, as the weight of a grasshopper upon him, becomes a burden; (2) much more probable, that he now, in his stiffness, resembles the grasshopper dragging himself along; “desire shall fail,” i.e., the appetite is almost gone and he does not relish things that he once did; “man goeth to his everlasting, home,” which means his final destiny, he is very near the end now; “mourners go about the streets,” which refers to the hired mourners, according to the custom in the East, or friends and relatives; “before the silver cord is loosed,” i.e., the spinal cord which resembles silver in color; “the golden bowl,” which means the brain pan; “the pitcher is broken at the fountain,” which refers to the heart, very much like a pitcher in shape; “the wheel broken at the cistern,” which refers to the aorta, just above the heart, where it acts like a wheel and pumps the blood up from the heart; “the dust returneth to the earth as it was and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it,” referring to death, at which the body returns to dust of which it was made and the spirit goes to God.

In Ecc 12:9-10 we have an account of what the Preacher did further: “And further, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he pondered, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written uprightly, even words of truth.”

Then follows a proverb and a warning in Ecc 12:11-12 : “The words of the wise are as goads; and as nails well fastened are the words of the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And furthermore, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”

What, then, the real good thing to do and why? The answer is found in Ecc 12:13-14 : “This is the end of the matter; all hath been heard: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”

The impress of this book upon the world’s literature has been marvelous. It has made a most wonderful impress upon the world’s greatest authors. In Shakespeare’s As You Like It and Tennyson’s In Memoriam are many references to this book. In fact, this book exploded the philosophies of the Epicureans and Stoics long before these philosophies were developed by the ancient Greeks.

QUESTIONS

1. What are three reasons in Ecc 8:16 to Ecc 9:6 as to why the means used were condemned ?

2. What conclusions are expressed in Ecc 9:7-10 ?

3. What is the fourth reason assigned in Ecc 9:11-12 ?

4. What are the observations in Ecc 9:13 to Ecc 10:4 illustrating this principle and what are the conclusion therefrom?

5. What are the drawbacks of passive resistance, set forth in Ecc 10:5-15 ?

6. What is the last reason assigned and what are the proverbs based thereon?

7. If the means of solution be discarded, what is the first thing to do and what does it mean?

8. What is the second thing to do and its meaning?

9. What warning given in Ecc 11:3-5 ?

10. What is the next thing enjoined?

11. What is warning to the young in Ecc 11:9 to Ecc 12:8 ?

12. On Ecc 12:3-8 , the great figure of the human body, answers (1) What “the keepers of the house”? (2) What “the strong men”? (3) What “the grinders”? (4) What “those that look out of the windows”? (5) What “the doors”? (6) What “the grinding”? (7) What the meaning of “rising up at the voice of a bird”? (8) What “the daughters of music”? (9) What is the meaning of “they shall be afraid of that which is high”? (10) What is the meaning of “terrors shall be in the way”? (11) What is the meaning of “the almond-tree shall blossom”? (12) What is the meaning of “the grasshopper shall be a burden”? (13) What is the meaning of “desire shall fail”? (14) What is the meaning of “man goeth to his everlasting home”? (15) What is the meaning of “mourners go about the streets”? (16) What is the meaning of “before the silver cord is loosed”? (17) What is the meaning of “the golden bowl”? (18) What is the meaning of “the pitcher is broken at the fountain”? (19) What is the meaning of “the wheel broken at the cistern”? (20) What is the meaning of “the dust returneth to the earth as it was and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it”?

13. What did the Preacher further do?

14. What proverb and what warning is in Ecc 12:11-12 ?

15. What, then, is the real good thing to do and why?

16. What can you say of the impress of this book upon the world’s literature?

17. What are the philosophies exploded in this book?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Ecc 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;

Ver. 1. Remember now thy Creator. ] Heb., Creators – scil., Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, called by Elihu, Eloa Gnosia, “God my makers,” Job 35:10 and by David, the “Makers of Israel.” Psa 149:2 So Isa 54:5 , “Thy makers is thine husbands.” “Let us make man”; Gen 1:26 and, Gen 1:1 Dii creavit. Those three in one, and one in three, made all things; but man he made “fearfully and wonderfully”; Psa 139:14 the Father did it; Eph 3:9 the Son; Heb 1:8 ; Heb 1:10 Col 1:16 the Holy Ghost. Psa 33:6 ; Psa 104:30 Job 36:13 ; Job 33:4 To the making of man a council was called. Gen 1:29 Sun, moon, and stars are but the “work of his fingers”; Psa 8:3 but man is the “work of his hands.” Psa 139:14 “Thine hands have made me,” or took special pains about me, “and fashioned me,” saith Job. Job 10:8 Thou hast formed me by the book, saith David. Psa 139:16 Hence the whole Church so celebrates this great work with crowns cast down at the Creator’s feet. Rev 4:10-11 And hence young men also, who are mostly most mindless of anything serious, for childhood and youth are vanity, are here charged to remember their Creator – that is, as dying David taught his young son Solomon, to know, love, and “serve him, with a perfect heart, and a willing mind,” 1Ch 28:9 for words of knowledge in Scripture imply affection and practice. Tam Dei meminisse opus est quam respirare, To remember God is every whit as needful as to draw breath, since it is he that gave us being at first, and that still gives us , “life and breath.” Act 17:25 “Let everything therefore that hath breath, praise the Lord,” even so long as it hath breath; yea, let it spend and exhale itself in continual sallies, as it were, and egressions of affection unto God, till it hath gotten, not only a union, but a unity with him. Of all things, God cannot endure to be forgotten.

In the days of thy youth, ] Augustus began his speech to his mutinous soldiers with Audite senem, iuvenes, quem iuvenem senes audierunt, You that are young hear me that am old, whom old men were content to hear when I was but young. And Augustine beginneth one of his sermons thus, Ad vos mihi sermo, O iuvenes, flos aetatis, periculum mentis, To you is my speech, O young men, the flower of age, the danger of the mind. To keep them from danger, and direct them to their duty, it is that the Preacher here exhorts them to remember God betimes, to gather manna in the morning of their lives, to present the firstfruits to God, whose “soul hath desired the first ripe fruits,” Mic 7:1 and who will “remember the kindness of their youth, the love of their espousals.” Jer 2:2 God of old would be honoured with the firstlings of men and cattle, by the firstfruits of trees, and of the earth, in the sheaf, in the threshingfloor, in the dough, in the loaves. He called for ears of corn dried by the fire, and wheat beaten out of the green ears, Lev 2:14 to teach men to serve him with the primrose of their childhood. Three sorts there were of firstfruits: First, Of the ears of grain offered about the passover; secondly, Of the loaves offered about pentecost; lastly, About the end of the year, in autumn. Now of the first two God had a part, but not of the last. He made choice of the almond tree, Jer 1:11 because it blossometh first; so of Jeremiah from his infancy, Timothy from his mother’s breasts, &c. He likes not of those arbores autumnales autumnal trees Jdg 1:13 which bud at latter end of harvest. He cares not for such loiterers as come halting in at last cast to serve God, when they can serve their lusts no longer. The Circassians, a kind of mongrel Christians, are said a to divide their life between sin and devotion – dedicating their youth to rapine, and their old age to repentance. “But cursed be that deceiver,” saith the prophet, “that hath a male in his flock, and yet offereth to the Lord a corrupt thing.” Mal 1:14 Wilt thou give God the dregs, the bottom, the snuffs, the very last sands, thy dotage, which thyself and friends are weary of? Shall thine oil, which should have been fuel for thy thankfulness, increase the fire of thy lusts, and thy lusts consume all? Jam 4:3 How much better were it to sacrifice early, with Abraham, the young Isaacs of thine age? to bring as he did young rams unto the Lord, and even, while thou art yet a lad, a stripling, to “take heed to thy ways according to God’s Word.” Psa 119:9 Ye shall not see my face, saith Christ, as once Joseph, except you bring your younger brother with you.

While the evil days come not, ] viz., Of old age and misery; for these are seldom separated. Senectus, ut Africa, semper aliquid novi adportat, As Africa is never without some monster, so neither is old age ever without some ailment. Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda, b Many are the inconveniences that do encompass an old man. Solet senectus esse deformis, infirma, obliviosa, edentula, lucrosa, indocilis, et molesta, saith Cato in Plutarch, c Old age useth to be deformed, weak, forgetful, toothless, covetous, unteachable, unquiet. Now shall any man be so besotted and bewitched as to make that the task of his old age which should be the trade of his whole life? and to settle his everlasting only surest making or marring upon so sinking and sandy a foundation? A ship, the longer it leaks, the harder it is to be emptied; a land, the longer it lies, the harder it is to be ploughed; a nail, the further it is driven in, with the greater difficulty it is pulled out. And shall any man think that the trembling joints, the dazzled eyes, the fainting heart, the failing hands, the feeble legs of strengthless, drooping, untractable, wayward, froward old age can break up the fallow ground, can ever empty and pluck out the leaks and nails of so many years flowing and fastening?

a Breerwood’s Inquiry, 135.

b Horat.

c Plut. in Apoph. Rom.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)