Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
And the doors ... is low - The house is viewed from without. The way of entry and exit is stopped: little or no sound issues forth to tell of life stirring within. The old man, as he grows older, has less in common with the rising generation; mutual interest and social contact decline. Some take the doors and the sound of the mill as figures of the lips and ears and of the speech.
He shall rise ... - Here the metaphor of the house passes out of sight. The verb may either be taken impersonally ( "they shall rise," compare the next verse): or as definitely referring to an old man, who as the master of the house rises out of sleep at the first sound in the morning.
All the daughters of musick - i. e., Singing women Ecclesiastes 2:8.
Be brought low - i. e., Sound faintly in the ears of old age.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Ecclesiastes 12:4:
Psalms 17:8
Psalms 71:9
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