Ecclesiastes 12:5

Ecclesiastes 12:5

3 In the day when the keepers of the house tremble,
And the strong men bow down;
When the grinders cease because they are few,
And those that look through the windows grow dim;

4 When the doors are shut in the streets,
And the sound of grinding is low;
When one rises up at the sound of a bird,
And all ^athe daughters of music are brought low.

5 Also they are afraid of height,
And of terrors in the way;
When the almond tree blossoms,
The grasshopper is a burden,
And desire fails.
For man goes to ^ahis eternal home,
And ^bthe mourners go about the streets.

6 Remember your Creator before the silver cord is¹ loosed,
Or the golden bowl is broken,
Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
Or the wheel broken at the well.

7 ^aThen the dust will return to the earth as it was,
^bAnd the spirit will return to God ^cwho gave it.

8 “Vanity^a of vanities,” says the Preacher,
“All is vanity.”

The Whole Duty of Man

9 And moreover, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yes, he pondered and sought out and ^aset in order many proverbs.

Commentaries:

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown

<< Ecclesiastes 12:4

Ecclesiastes 12:6 >>

that which is high—The old are afraid of ascending a hill.

fears . . . in the way—Even on the level highway they are full of fears of falling, etc.

almond . . . flourish—In the East the hair is mostly dark. The white head of the old among the dark-haired is like an almond tree, with its white blossoms, among the dark trees around [HOLDEN]. The almond tree flowers on a leafless stock in winter (answering to old age, in which all the powers are dormant), while the other trees are flowerless. GESENIUS takes the Hebrew for flourishes from a different root, casts off; when the old man loses his gray hairs, as the almond tree casts its white flowers.

grasshoppers—the dry, shrivelled, old man, his backbone sticking out, his knees projecting forwards, his arms backwards, his head down, and the apophyses enlarged, is like that insect. Hence arose the fable, that Tithonus in very old age was changed into a grasshopper [PARKHURST]. "The locust raises itself to fly"; the old man about to leave the body is like a locust when it is assuming its winged form, and is about to fly [MAURER].

a burden—namely, to himself.

desire shall fail—satisfaction shall be abolished. For "desire," Vulgate has "the caper tree," provocative of lust; not so well.

long home— (Job 16:22; Job 17:13).

mourners— (Jeremiah 9:17-20), hired for the occasion (Matthew 9:23).

**Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Ecclesiastes 12:5:**

Job 33:20
Ecclesiastes 12:1
Ecclesiastes 12:6
Isaiah 14:18
Jeremiah 9:17
Amos 5:16

<< Ecclesiastes 12:4

Ecclesiastes 12:6 >>

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