Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ecclesiastes 12:3
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,
3. in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble ] Here, as before, there is a vivid picture which is also an allegory. The words represent (1) the effect of terror, such as that produced by tempest, or by earthquake, in the population of the city; and (2) the fact which corresponds to these in the breaking up of life. As in the previous verse the phenomena of the firmament answered to those of the higher region of man’s nature, so these represent the changes that pass over the parts of his bodily structure. Here accordingly the mode of interpretation which was rejected before becomes admissible. The error of the allegorizers was that they had not the discernment to see that the decay of mental powers would naturally take precedence of that of the bodily organs and that they would as naturally be symbolized by sun, moon and stars. The “keepers” or “watchers” of the houses are in the picture those who stand at the gate as sentinels or go round about the house to see that there are none approaching with the intention to attack. In the allegory they represent the legs which support the frame at rest or give it the power of movement. The trembling is that of the unsteady gait of age, perhaps even of paralysis. Not a few features in the picture seem to indicate experience rather than observation, and this fits in with the thought, suggested in the Ideal Biography ( Introduction, ch. iii)., of a form of creeping paralysis depriving one organ after another of its functional activity yet leaving the brain free to note the gradual decay of the whole organism.
and the strong men shall bow themselves ] As the previous clause painted the effect of terror on the slave sentinels of the house, so this represents its action on the men of might, the wealthy and the noble. They too cower in their panic before the advancing storm. Interpreting the parable, they are the symbol of the arms as man’s great instrument of action. They too, once strong to wield sword, or axe, to drive plough, or pen, become flaccid and feeble. The “hands that hang down” (Job 4:3-4; Isa 35:3; Heb 12:12) become the proverbial type of weakness as well as the “feeble knees.” It should be added that the allegorizing commentators for the most part invert the order of interpretation which has been here adopted, finding the arms in the “keepers” and the legs in the “strong man.” Something may, of course, be said for this view, but the balance of probabilities turns in favour of that here adopted.
and the grinders cease because they are few ] Both this noun and “they that look out” are in the feminine, and this determines their position in the picture. As we found slaves and nobles in the first half of the verse, so here we have women at the opposite extremes of social ranks. To “grind at the mill” was the type of the humblest form of female slave labour (Jdg 16:21; Isa 47:2; Exo 11:5; Job 31:10; Mat 24:41; Homer, Od. xx. 105 8). To “look out of the windows” ( i.e. the latticed openings, glazed windows being as yet unknown) was as naturally the occupation of the wealthy and luxurious women of the upper class. So the ladies of Sisera (Jdg 5:28), and Michal, Saul’s daughter (2Sa 6:16), and the observing sage, or probably, Wisdom personified (Pro 7:6), and Jezebel (2Ki 9:30), and the kingly lover of the Shulamite (Song Son 2:9) are all represented in this attitude.
The interpretation of the parable is here not far to seek. The grinders (as the very term “molar” suggests) can be none other than the teeth, doing, as it were, their menial work of masticating food. They that look out of the windows can be none other than the eyes with their nobler function as organs of perception. So Cicero describes the eyes as “ tanquam in arce collocati tanquam speculatores altissimum locum obtinent.” “Placed as in a citadel, like watchmen, they hold the highest places” ( de Nat. Deor. ii. 140). The symbolism which thus draws, as it were, distinctions of dignity and honour between different parts of the body will remind a thoughtful student of the analogy on which St Paul lays stress in 1Co 12:12-26. Each member of that analogy may, of course, thus be used as a symbol of the other. Here the gradations of society represent the organs of the body, and the Apostle inverts the comparison.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The body in old age and death is here described under the figure of a decaying house with its inmates and furniture.
This verse is best understood as referring to the change which old age brings to four parts of the body, the arms (the keepers), the legs (the strong men), the teeth (the grinders), and the eyes.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Ecc 12:3
Those that look out of the windows be darkened.
Windows
In the description of the infirmities of old age, the window doubtless stands for the eyes, with lashes like lattice-work of an Oriental house, and the fringe of the iris regulating the light as a curtain. Observe that it is said, not that the windows, but those that look out of them are darkened: the reference, therefore, being not to the failing eyesight, as many have supposed, but rather to the growing dullness of the inner person, the mind, which takes less and less interest in the world as one advances towards senility. A person may be blind in years, yet young in heart, if he only keeps alert to the life about him. Think of Ranke beginning his Universal History at eighty-three years of age, and finishing his seventh volume at ninety-one! The venerable Kaiser Wilhelm not long before his death was asked by his daughter if he had not better rest a little. No, he replied, I will have plenty of time to rest by and by. In a call upon George Bancroft, at eighty-eight years of age, I found him as full of questions about men and things that he thought I knew of as if I were the representative of old times and he the interviewer. The eyes of such men may be dim, but the spirits that look out of them are not darkened. They are the really senile people who pull down the curtains of selfishness on amiable curiosity, on generous solicitude for the evils of society, and on delight in the good of the world, though they have not yet come to wear glasses. Let us keep at the windows until God closes them by dropping over them the curtain of the last night. And then, when the dusk of lifes eventide has fallen around us, when secular things do turn dim, we may look up through the window at the infinite sky, and see the stars of a better world coming out. (J. M. Ludlow, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. In the day when the keepers of the house] The BODY of man is here compared to a HOUSE: – mark the metaphors and their propriety.
1. The keepers shall tremble – the hands become paralytic, as is constantly the case, less or more, in old age.
2. The strong men shall bow] The legs become feeble, and unable to support the weight of the body.
3. The grinders cease because they are few] The teeth decayed and mostly lost; the few that remain being incapable of properly masticating hard substances or animal food. And so they cease; for soft or pulpy substances, which are requisite then, require little or no mastication; and these aliments become their ordinary food.
4. Those that look out of the windows] The optic nerves, which receive impressions, through the medium of the different humours of the eye, from surrounding objects – they are darkened; the humours becoming thick, flat, and turbid, they are no longer capable of transmitting those images in that clear, distinct manner, as formerly. There may be an allusion here to the pupil of the eye. Look into it, and you will see your own image in extreme minature looking out upon you; and hence it has its name pupillus, a little child, from pupus, a baby, a doll; because the image in the eye resembles such. The optic nerve being seated at the bottom of the eye, has the images of surrounding objects painted upon it; it looks out through the different humors. The different membranes and humours which compose the eye, and serve for vision, are, the tunica conjunctiva, the tunica sclerotica, the cornea, the iris, the pupil, the choroides, and the retina. The iris is perforated to admit the rays of light, and is called the pupil; the retina is a diffusion of the optic nerve in the bottom of the eye, on which the images are painted or impressed that give us the sensation we term sight or vision. All these membranes, humours, and nerves, are more or less impaired, thickened, or rendered opaque, by old age, expressed by the metaphor, “Those that look out of the windows are darkened.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The keepers of the house, i.e. of the body, which is oft and fitly compared to a house, as Job 4:19; Psa 119:54; 2Co 5:1; whose keepers here are either,
1. The ribs and bones into which they are fastened, which are the guardians of the inward and vital parts, which also are much weakened and shaken by old age. Or rather,
2. The hands and arms, which are mans best instruments to defend his body from the assaults of men or beasts, and which in a special manner are subject to this trembling, by paralytical or other like distempers, that are most incident to old men.
The strong men; either the back, or the thighs and legs, in which the main strength of the body doth consist, which in old men are very feeble, and unable both for the support of the body and for motion.
The grinders; the teeth, those especially which are commonly so called, because they grind the meat which we eat.
Cease, to wit, to perform their office,
because they are few, Heb. because they are diminished, either,
1. In strength. Or,
2. In number; being here one, and there another, and not united together, and one directly against another, and consequently unfit for their work.
Those that look out of the windows; the eyes. By windows he understands either,
1. The holes in which the eyes are fixed, Zec 14:12. Or,
2. The eye-lids, which, like windows, are either opened or shut. Or,
3. Those humours and coats of the eyes noted by anatomists, which are the chief instruments by which the eye sees.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. keepers of the housenamely,the hands and arms which protected the body, as guardsdo a palace (Gen 49:24; Job 4:19;2Co 5:1), are now palsied.
strong men . . . bow(Jdg 16:25; Jdg 16:30).Like supporting pillars, the feet and knees (So5:15); the strongest members (Ps147:10).
grindersthe molarteeth.
ceaseare idle.
those that look out of thewindowsthe eyes; the powers of vision, looking out frombeneath the eyelids, which open and shut like the casement of awindow.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble,…. By the “house” is meant the human body; which is a house of clay, the earthly house of our tabernacle, in which the soul dwells, Job 4:19 2Co 5:1. The Targum interprets the keepers of the house, of the knees and the trembling of them; but the Midrash and Jarchi, much better, of the ribs; man being fenced with bones and sinews, as Job says,
Job 10:11; though trembling cannot be well ascribed to them, they being so fixed to the backbone: rather therefore, as Aben Ezra, the hands and arms are meant; which work for the maintenance of the body, and feed it with food, got and prepared by them; and which protect and defend it from injuries; for all which they are fitted, and made strong by the God of nature. The Arabic version renders it, “both keepers”; and, doubtless, respects both hands and arms; and which, in old age, are not only wrinkled, contracted, and stiff, but attended with numbness, pains, and tremor. Some, not amiss, take in the head; which is placed as a watchtower over the body, the seat of the senses; which overlooks, guards, and keeps it, and which often through paralytic disorders, and even the weakness of old age, is attended with a shaking;
and the strong men shall bow themselves; it is strange the Targum and Midrash should interpret this of the arms, designed in the former clause; Jarchi and Aben Ezra, more rightly, of the thighs; it takes in thighs, legs, and feet, which are the basis and support of the human body; and are strengthened for this purpose, having stronger muscles and tendons than any other parts of the body; but these, as old age comes on, are weakened and distorted, and bend under the weight of the body, not being able, without assistance, to sustain it;
and the grinders cease because they are few; the Targum is,
“the teeth of the mouth:”
all agree the teeth are meant; only the Midrash takes in the stomach also, which, like a mill, grinds the food. There are three sorts of teeth; the fore teeth, which bite the food, and are called “incisores”: the eye teeth, called “canini”, which bruise and break the food; and the double teeth, the hindermost, which are called “dentes molares”, the grinding teeth; and which being placed in the upper and nether jaw, are like to millstones, broad and rough, and rub against each other and grind the food, and prepare it for the stomach: these, in old age, rot and drop out, and become few and straggling, one here and another there; and, not being over against each other, are of no use, but rather troublesome;
and those that look out of the windows be darkened; the eyes, as the Targum and Ben Melech; and all agree that those that look out are the eyes, or the visive rays: the “windows” they look through are not spectacles; for it is questionable whether they were in use in Solomon’s time, and, however, they are not parts of the house; but either the holes in which the eyes are, and so the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions render it, to which the Targum agrees, paraphrasing it, the strong bounds of the head; and which are no other than what oculists call the orbits of the eye: or else the eyelids, which open and shut like the casement of a window, and through which, being opened, the eyes look; or the humours of the eye, the watery, crystalline, and glassy, which are transparent, and through which the visive rays pass; or the tunics, or coats of the eye, particularly the “tunica aranea” and “cornea”; as also the optic nerves, and especially the “pupilla”, or apple of the eye, which is perforated or bored for this purpose: now these, in old age, become weak, or dim, or thick, or contracted, or obstructed by some means or another by which the sight is greatly hindered, and is a very uncomfortable circumstance; this was Isaac’s case, Ge 27:1; but Moses is an exception to the common case of old men, De 34:7.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
To the thought: Ere the mind and the senses begin to be darkened, and the winter of life with its clouds and storms approaches, the further details here following stand in a subordinate relation: “That day when the watchers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and the grinders rest, because they have become few, and the women looking out of the windows are darkened.” Regarding with art.: eo ( illo) tempore , vid., under Son 8:8. What follows is regarded by Winzer, with Mich., Spohr, and partly Nachtigal, as a further description of the night to which old age, Ecc 12:2, is compared: Watchers then guard the house; labourers are wearied with the labours and cares of the day; the maids who have to grind at the mill have gone to rest; and almost all have already fallen asleep; the women who look out from the windows are unrecognisable, because it has become dark. But what kind of cowardly watchers are those who “tremble,” and what kind of ( per antiphrasin) strong men who “bow themselves” at evening like children when they have belly-ache! Ginsburg regards Ecc 12:2-5 as a continuation of the description of the consequences of the storm under which human life comes to an end: the last consequence is this, that they who experience it lose the taste for almonds and the appetite for locusts. But what is the meaning of this quaint figure? it would certainly be a meaningless and aimless digression. Taylor hears in this verse the mourning for the dead from Ecc 12:2, where death is described: the watchers of the house tremble; the strong men bow themselves, viz., from sorrow, because of the blank death has made in the house, etc.; but even supposing that this picture had a connection in Ecc 12:2, how strange would it be! – the lookers out at the windows must be the “ladies,” who are fond of amusing themselves at windows, and who now – are darkened. Is there anything more comical than such little ladies having become darkened (whether externally or internally remains undetermined)? However one may judge of the figurative language of Ecc 12:2, Ecc 12:3 begins the allegorical description of hoary old age after its individual bodily symptoms; interpreters also, such as Knobel, Hitz., and Ewald, do not shrink from seeking out the significance of the individual figures after the old Haggadic manner. The Talm. says of s homre habbayith : these are the loins and ribs; of the anshe hehhayil : these are the bones; of harooth baarubboth : these, the eyes. The Midrash understand the watchers of the house, of the knees of the aged man; the men of strength, of his ribs or arms; the women at the mill, of the digestive organs ( ,
(Note: This hamses is properly the second stomach of the ruminants, the cellular caul.)
the stomach, from omasum ); those who have become few, of the teeth; the women looking out at the window, of the eyes; another interpretation, which by harooth thinks of the lungs, is not worth notice.
Here also the Targ. principally follows the Midrash: it translates the watchers of the house by “thy knees;” strong men by “thine arms;” the women at the mill by “the teeth of thy mouth;” the women who look out at the window by “thine eyes.” These interpretations for the most part are correct, only those referable to the internal organs are in bad taste; references to these must be excluded from the interpretation, for weakness of the stomach, emphysema of the lungs, etc., are not appropriate as poetical figures. The most common biblical figures of the relation of the spirit or the soul to the body is, as we have shown, Psychol. p. 227, that of the body as of the house of the inner man. This house, as that of an old man, is on all sides in a ruinous condition. The shomre habbayith are the arms terminating in the hands, which bring to the house whatever is suitable for it, and keep away from it whatever threatens to do it injury; these protectors of the house have lost their vigour and elasticity (Gen 49:24), they tremble, are palsied ( , from , Pilp. , bibl. and Mishn.: to move violently hither and thither, to tremble, to shake),
(Note: Vid., Friedr. Delitzsch’s Indogerm.-Sem. Stud. p. 65f.)
so that they are able neither to grasp securely, to hold fast and use, nor actively to keep back and forcibly avert evil. Anshe hehhayil designates the legs, for the shoqe haish are the seat of his strength, Psa 147:10; the legs of a man in the fulness of youthful strength are like marble pillars, Son 5:15; but those of the old man hith’authu ( Hithpa. only here) have bowed themselves, they have lost their tight form, they are shrunken ( , Job 4:4, etc.) and loose; 4 Macc. 4:5 calls this . To maidens who grind (cf. , Num 11:8 and Isa 47:2) the corn by means of a hand-mill are compared the teeth, the name of which in the old language is masc., but in the modern (cf. Pro 29:19), as also in the Syr. and Arab., is fem.; the reference of the figure to these instruments for grinding is not to be missed; the Arab. thinat and the Syr. tahonto signify dens molaris, and we now call 6 of the 32 teeth Mahlzhne (molar teeth, or grinders); the Greeks used for them the word (Psa 57:7, lxx). Regarding , lxx (= )
(Note: We find a similar allegory in Shabbath 152 a. The emperor asked the Rabbi Joshua b. Chananja why he did not visit (a place where learned conversation, particularly on religious subjects, was carried on). He answered: “The mount is snow (= the hair of the head is white), ice surrounds me (= whiskers and beard on the chin white), its (of my body) dogs bark not (the voice fails), and its grinders (the teeth) grind not.” The proper meaning of , Levy has not been able clearly to bring to light in his Neuhebr. u. Chald. W.B.)
The clause (lxx ) assigns the reason that the grinders rest, i.e., are not at work, that they have become few: they stand no longer in a row; they are isolated, and (as is to be supposed) are also in themselves defective. Taylor interprets mi’etu transitively: the women grinding rest when they have wrought a little, i.e., they interrupt their labour, because on account of the occurrence of death, guests are now no longer entertained; but the beautiful appropriate allegory maintains its place against this supposed lamentation for the dead; also does not signify to accomplish a little (Targ.), but to take away, to become few (lxx, Syr., Jerome, Venet. Luther), as such as Pih. as Ecc 10:10, , to become blunt. And by we are not to think, with Taylor, of women such as Sidera’s mother or Michal, who look out of the window, but of the eyes, more exactly the apples of the eyes, to which the orbita (lxx ; Symm. ) and the eyelids with the eye-lashes are related as a window is to those who look out; (from , R. , to entwine firmly and closely) is the window, consisting of a lattice of wood; the eyes are, as Cicero ( Tusc. i. 20) calls them, quasi fenestrae animi ; the soul-eyes, so to speak, without which it could not experience what sight is, look by means of the external eyes; and these soul-bodily eyes have become darkened in the old man, the power of seeing is weakened, and the experiences of sight are indistinct, the light of the eyes is extinguished (although not without exception, Deu 34:7).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
PHYSICAL DETERIORATION
Verse 3 pictures the deteriorating impact of advancing age upon the arms (keepers of the house), the legs (strong men, Psa 147:10), the teeth (grinders) and the eyes (windows).
Verse 4 suggests that the aged are hindered by decreased access (shut doors), impaired hearing (sound seems low), erratic sleeping habits, (rise with bird) and voice problems that prevent singing with vigor as in earlier days.
Verse 5 pictures the increasing problems of the aged. He is afraid of heights and fearful of accidents if he walks. His hair Is like the flower of the almond tree, that. blossoms in winter, turns snowy white and falls to the ground. The slightest weight is a burden. The desire for food fails, and is not affected by appetite stimulants. The result of this deterioration is explained; death comes, man goes to a new home, and mourners accompany the body to a grave. The man is said to go to “his long home, emphasizing that it is eternal and irreversible. Life beyond death, is not dealt with here, but is recognized in Ecc 3:21; Ecc 12:7; Pro 14:32; Pro 11:7; and clearly affirmed in Luk 23:43; Luk 16:22-31; 2Co 5:1.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(3) In this verse we have a description of an afflicted and affrighted house: the servants below (keepers of the house; comp. 2Sa. 20:3) in consternation [the word for tremble occurs twice more in Biblical Hebrew (Est. 5:9; Hab. 2:7), but is common in Araman]; the masters (men of might, translated able men Exo. 18:21; Exo. 18:25; comp. mighty in power, Job. 21:7) in equal distress; so also the grinding maids below, discontinuing their work (Exo. 11:5; Isa. 47:1-2); the ladies, who look out at the lattices (Jdg. 5:8; 2Sa. 5:16; Pro. 7:6; 2Ki. 9:30), forced to withdraw. (For the four classes, comp. Isa. 24:2; Psa. 132:2.)
Expositors have generally understood the house here described as denoting the decaying body of the old man. To the English reader the grinders of our version suggest teeth in a way that the grinding maidens of the Hebrew does not; and the ladies looking out of the lattices can easily be understood of the eyes. But when it is attempted to carry out the figure, and to find anatomical explanations of all the other images employed, the interpretation becomes so forced that some have preferred to understand Ecc. 12:3 as only a general description of the consternation produced by such a tempest as is spoken of in Ecc. 12:2. I cannot but think that the house does denote the bodily frame; but I regard as unsuccessful the attempts which have been made to carry out this idea into its details.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. House The aged body is compared to a “house,” or rather to a mill structure, in which the vital functions and operations are a grinding, and which is defended by keepers, and upheld by strong men, with windows through which the inmates look out upon the world. These “keepers,” that defend, are the arms; these supporters are the legs; and the “windows” are the eyes. Of old age the arm and hand are tremulous, the legs bent and tottering, the teeth, or grinders, cease to masticate by becoming too few, and the eyes grow dim.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
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,
Ver. 3. In the day when the keepers of the house, &c., ] i.e., The hands and arms, wherewith we defend the head and whole body – called a house also by St Paul – from harm and danger, and maintain our lives; which are therefore called the “lives of our hands,” because upheld with the labour of our hands. Isa 57:10 These are fitly called keepers or guardians for their usefulness, and for their faithfulness too. Numa Pompilius consecrated the hands to faith; his successor, Tallus Hostilius, being a profane, perfidious person, and a condemner of all religion, as that which did but emasculate men’s minds, and make them idle, brought in and worshipped two new gods, viz., Paver and Pallor – Fear and Paleness. a Like another Cain, “Sighing and trembling he was upon the earth,” so the Septuagint renders that,. Gen 4:12 Not his hands only trembled, which is thought to be Cain’s mark, Gen 4:15 but his heart too. Isa 7:2 Not with old age either, as here, but with the terrors of an evil conscience. But to return to the text. Old men are full of the palsy for the most part, and many other infirmities, which here are most elegantly described by a continued allegory. Men draw forth as lively as they can the pictures of their young age, that in old age they may see their youth before their eyes. This is but a vanity, yet may good use be made thereof. So contrarily the Preacher here draws out to the life the picture of old age, b that young men may see and consider it together with death that follows it, and “after death, judgment.”
And the strong men shall bow themselves.
And the grinders cease, because they are few.
“ Fragendus misero gingiva panis inermi. ” – Juvenal.
And those that look out at the windows. ] The eyes are dim, as they were in old Isaac and Jacob, A heavy affliction surely, but especially to those that have had “eyes full of adultery,” 2Pe 2:14 “evil eyes,” windows of wickedness, for the conscience of this puts a sting into the affliction, is a thorn to their blind eyes, and becomes a greater torment than ever Regulus the Roman was put to, e when his eyelids were cut off, and he set full opposite to the sun shining in his strength; f or than that Greek prince that had his eyes put out with hot burning basins, held near unto them. g
a Plutarch. Lactantius.
b Ecquem vero mihi dabis rhetorem tam magnifice et exquisite disserentem, et in non obscura sententia tot lumina, imo flumina orationis exserentem!
c Genua labant. – Virg.
d Lactant., De Opif. Dei.
e Plut.
f Oculus ab occulendo.
g Turkish History.
keepers of the house: i.e. the arms of the body.
house. The human body is often compared to a house (Isa 38:12. Job 4:19. 2Co 5:1, 2Co 5:2; 2Pe 1:13).
tremble. Occurs only here, Est 5:9 (“move”), and Hab 2:7 (“vex”). See App-76.
the strong men:. i.e. the legs. Hebrew. geber. App-14.
the grinders: i.e. the teeth.
cease = fail, or become unfit for use. Hebrew. batal = a passage; probably = the ear-passage. Occurs only in Solomon’s writings. Here, Ecc 12:5, Pro 7:8, and Son 3:2 (plural)
those that look out of the windows: i.e. eyes (“those” is feminine, agreeing with Hebrew “eyes”).
windows = lattices = the eyelids.
darkened = dimmed.
strong: 2Sa 21:15-17, Psa 90:9, Psa 90:10, Psa 102:23, Zec 8:4
and those: Ecc 12:2
Reciprocal: Gen 27:1 – dim 1Sa 3:2 – his eyes 1Ki 14:4 – for his eyes Luk 16:9 – when
Ecc 12:3. When the keepers of the house The body, which is often and fitly compared to a house; whose keepers are the hands and arms, which are mans best instruments to defend his body from the assaults of men or beasts, and which, in a special manner, are subject to this trembling. And the strong men shall bow themselves Either the back, or the thighs and legs, in which the main strength of the body consists, and which, in old men, are very feeble. And the grinders The teeth, those especially which are commonly so called, because they grind the meat which we eat; cease To perform their office; because they are few Hebrew, , because they are diminished, either in strength, or in number, being only here one, and there another, and neither united together, nor one directly opposite to another, and consequently unfit for their work. And those that look out of the windows be darkened The eyes. By windows he understands, either the eye-lids, which, like windows, are either opened or shut: or, those humours and coats of the eyes, which are the chief instruments by which we see.
12:3 In the day when the {b} keepers of the house shall tremble, and the {c} strong men shall bow themselves, and the {d} grinders cease because they are few, and those that {e} look out of the windows shall be darkened,
(b) The hands which keep the body.
(c) The legs.
(d) The teeth.
(e) The eyes.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes