Ecclesiastes 12:1

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,.... Or "Creators" (b); as "Makers", Job 35:10; for more than one were concerned, as in the creation of all things in general, so of man in

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw

CHAPTER 12 Early piety recommended before old age come on and death be near: old age described, and death, . The conclusion: all is vanity, . The preacher’ s end in this book, . The sum of all learning, experience, and happiness is to fear God, and keep his commandments, because God will bring all to judgment, ,14. Remember, to wit, practically, or so as to fear, and love, and faithfully serve and worship him, which when men do not they are said to forget God, 106:21, and in many other places. Thy Creator; the first author and continual preserver of thy life and being, and of all the perfections and enjoyments which accompany it, to whom thou hast the highest and strongest obligations to do so, and upon whom thou hast a constant and necessary dependence, and therefore to forget him is most unnatural, and inhuman, and disingenuous. In the days of thy youth; for then thou art most able to do it, and thou owest the best of thy time and strength to God; then thou hast opportunity to do it, and thou mayst not live to old age; then it will be most acceptable to God, and most comfortable to thyself, as the best evidence of thy sincerity, and the best provision for old age and death; and then it is most necessary for the conquering those impetuous lusts and passions which drown so many thousands of young men in perdition, both in this life and in that to come. The evil days; the time of old age, which is evil, i.e. burdensome and calamitous in itself, and far more grievous and terrible when it is loaded with the sad remembrance of a man’ s youthful follies and lusts, and with the dreadful prospect of approaching death and judgment, which makes him see that he cannot live, and yet dare not die, and with the consideration and experience of the hardness of his heart, which in that age is rarely brought to true repentance, and so generally expires either in vain presumption, or in hellish desperation. I have no pleasure in them; my life is now bitter and burdensome to me, and worse than death; which is frequently the condition of old age.

Ecclesiastes 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," and by David, the "Makers of Israel." So Isaiah 54:5, "Thy makers is thine husbands." "Let us make man"; and, Dii creavit. Those three in one, and one in three, made all things; but man he made "fearfully and wonderfully"; the Father did it; the Son; the Holy Ghost. To the making of man a council was called. Sun, moon, and stars are but the "work of his fingers"; but man is the "work of his hands." "Thine hands have made me," or took special pains about me, "and fashioned me," saith Job. Thou hast formed me by the book, saith David. Hence the whole Church so celebrates this great work with crowns cast down at the Creator’ s feet. 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," 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 ζωηνκαιπνοην, "life and breath." "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," and who will "remember the kindness of their youth, the love of their espousals." 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.

XII. (1) Creator.—This occurs as a Divine name in Isaiah 40:23; Isaiah 44:15. and elsewhere. Here it is in the plural, like the Divine name Elohim. (See also Note on Ecclesiastes 12:8.) We have “thy Maker” in the plural in Job 35:10; Psalms 149:2; Isaiah 54:5; and “Holy One” in Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 30:3; Hosea 11:12.

CHAPTER XII Youth should remember their Creator, 1. A description of old age and its infirmities, with the causes of death and dissolution, 2-9. How the Preacher taught the people knowledge, 9-11. General directions, and conclusion of the work, 12-14. NOTES ON CHAP. XII Verse 1. Remember thy Creator] בוראיך Boreeycha, thy CREATORS. The word is most certainly in the plural number in all our common Hebrew Bibles; but it is in the singular number, בוראך Borecha, in one hundred and seventy-six of Dr. Kennicott's MSS., and ninety-six of De Rossi's; in many ancient editions; and in all the ancient versions. There is no dependence on the plural form in most of the modern editions; though there are some editions of great worth which exhibit the word in this form, and among them the Complutensian, Antwerp, Paris, and London polyglots. The evidence, therefore, that this text is supposed to give to the doctrine of the ever blessed Trinity, is but precarious, and on it little stress can be laid; and no man who loves truth would wish to support it by dubious witnesses. Injudicious men, by laying stress on texts dubious in themselves, and which may be interpreted a different way, greatly injure the true faith. Though such in their hearts may be friends to the orthodox faith, they are in fact its worst friends, and their assistance is such as helps their adversaries. But what does the text say? It addresses the youth of both sexes throughout the creation; and says in effect: - I. You are not your own, you have no right to yourselves. God made you; he is your Creator: he made you that you might be happy; but you can be happy only in him. And as he created you, so he preserves you; he feeds, clothes, upholds you. He has made you capable of knowing, loving, and serving him in this world, and of enjoying him in his own glory for ever. And when you had undone yourselves by sin, he sent his Son to redeem you by his blood; and he sends his Spirit to enlighten, convince, and draw you away from childishness, from vain and trifling, as well as from sinful, pursuits. II. Remember him; consider that he is your Creator, your loving and affectionate Father. In youth memory is strong and tenacious; but, through the perversion of the heart by sin, young people can remember any thing better than GOD. If you get a kindness from a friend, you can remember that, and feel gratitude for it; and the person is therefore endeared to you. Have any ever given you such benefits as your Creator? Your body and soul came from him; he gave you your eyes, ears, tongue, hands, feet, c. What blessings are these! how excellent! how useful! how necessary and will you forget HIM? III.

1. Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth] The word for “Creator” is strictly the participle of the verb which is translated “create” in Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:27, and as a Divine Name is exceptionally rare, occurring only here and in Isaiah 40:23; Isaiah 44:15. It is plural in its form, as Elohim (the word for God) is plural, as the “Holy One” is plural in Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 30:3; Hosea 12:1, as expressing the majesty of God. The explanations which have been given of the words as meaning (1) “thy fountain” in the sense of Pro 5:18, “thy well-spring of sensuous joy,” or (2) “thy existence,” are scarcely tenable philologically, and are altogether at variance with the context. while the evil days come not] The description which follows forms in some respects the most difficult of all the enigmas of the Book. That it represents the decay of old age, or of disease anticipating age, ending at last in death, lies beyond the shadow of a doubt; but the figurative language in which that decay is represented abounds in allusive references which were at the time full of meaning for those that had ears to hear, but which now present riddles which it is not easy to solve. Briefly, the two chief lines on which commentators have travelled have been (1) that which starts as in the comment of Gregory Thaumaturgus (see Introduction, ch. vii.) from the idea of the approach of death as the on-coming of a storm; (2) that which assumes that we have as it were a diagnosis of the physical phenomena of old age and its infirmities, and loses itself in discussions as to what bodily organ, heart, brain, liver, gall-duct, or the like, is specially in the author’s mind. It will be seen, as the imagery comes before us in detail, how far either solution is satisfactory, how far they admit of being combined, or what other, if any, presents itself with stronger claims on our attention. The “evil days” are those which are painted in the verses that follow, not necessarily the special forms of evil that come as the punishment of sensual sins, but the inevitable accompaniment of declining years or of disease. There is the implied warning that unless a man has remembered his Creator in his youth, it will not then be easy to remember Him as for the first time in the “evil days” of age or infirmity. In those days it will be emphatically true that there will be no pleasure in them.

Remember now - Rather, And remember. The connection between this verse and the preceding one is unfortunately interrupted by our division of chapters.

1. Remember — Solemn reminder of what youth is inclined to forget. Thy Creator — Who formed the frame described in Ecclesiastes 12:6, and will bring thee to judgment, Ecclesiastes 12:14.