Ecclesiastes 12:2

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened,.... The wise man proceeds to describe the infirmities of old age, and the troubles that attend it; in order to engage young

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: Be not darkened - i:e., before they be so.

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, Heb. While the sun, and the light, and the moon, &c. That clause, and the light, seems to be added to signify that he speaks of the darkening of the sun, and moon, and stars, not in themselves, or in their own bodies, but only in respect of that light which they afford to men. And therefore the same clause which is expressed after the sun, is to be understood after the moon and stars, as is very usual in Scripture in like cases. And those expressions are to be understood either, 1. Literally, of the dim-sightedness of old men, by reason whereof the light of the sun, &c. seems dark to them; which seems not to agree with the context, partly because the dimness of their sight is expressed in the next verse, and partly because both his and the following verses are wholly allegorical. Or rather, 2. Figuratively, and that either, 1. Of the outward parts of the body, and especially of the face, the beauty of the countenance, the lightsome and pleasant complexion of the cheeks, the liveliness of the eyes, which are compared to the sun, and moon, and stars, and which are obscured in old age, as the Chaldee paraphrast understands it. Or, 2. Of the inward parts of the mind, the understanding, fancy, memory, which may not unfitly be resembled to the sun, and moon, end stars, and all which are sensibly decayed in most old men. For it may seem improbable that Solomon in his description of the infirmities of old age should omit the decays of the most noble part of man, which are commonly incident to old age. And yet, with submission to those worthy persons who think otherwise, it seems not necessary that he should here speak of those inward decays, partly, because they are not so general in old men as the decays of the body are; partly, because he here directeth his speech to sensual men, who are more affected with corporal than with intellectual maladies; and partly, because both the foregoing and following passages concern the state of men’ s bodies, and their outward condition. Or rather, 3.

Ecclesiastes 12:2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:Ver. 2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, &c., ] i.e., While greater and lesser comforts fail not; or before the sight of thine eyes grow dim, and as unfit to let in light as an old dusty window. The air to aged eyes seemeth dusty and misty, and the sun wadeth as the moon in a foggy evening, and the stars are out of sight; they "see through a glass darkly," as the apostle speaks in another case, they can know no kin without spectacles; the defluxion of rheum, which trickleth down the nose and cheeks, being as it were the rain, the gathering of new matter, which continually distilleth, being as it were the returning of the clouds after the rain in a moist season, and waters into an emptied fountain. Some, with relation to the former verse, interpret the words thus: Let thy Creator be remembered while the "sun is not darkened" - that is, while youth continueth; or if not so, while "the light of the sun" is not gone - that is, while thy manhood lasteth; or if not so, while the "moon is not darkened," - that is, while thine elder years are not spent; or if not so, while the "stars are not shut up," while the worst of old age hath not seized upon thee; for then "the clouds will return after the rain," - that is, one grief comes upon the neck of another, "as deep calleth upon deep at the noise of the waterspouts." One affliction followeth and occasioneth another, without intermission of trouble, as one billow comes wallowing and tumbling upon another, or, as in April weather, one shower is unburdened, another is brewed. Hence some of the ancient patriarchs are said to have died old men, and full of years, - they had enough of this world, and desired to depart, as Abraham, Simeon, others. Hence the poets feign that Tithonus, when he might have had immortality here, he would not. And Cato protested, that if when old he might be made young again, he would seriously refuse it. Watery matter secreted by the mucous glands or membranes, such as collects in or drops from the nose, eyes, and mouth, etc., and which, when abnormal, was supposed to cause disease; hence, an excessive or morbid ‘ defluxion’ of any kind. Cic. de Senectute.

(2) Here the style rises, and we have a figurative description of the “evil days;” but, as sometimes happens in the case of highly wrought poetry, it is much easier to perceive the general effect intended than to account for all the words which produce it. English readers generally have been deeply impressed by Ecclesiastes 12:6-7, in a general way understanding them as speaking of the dissolution of the noble structure of the bodily frame; and they scarcely gain anything by the efforts of commentators to explain to them what exactly is meant by the “silver cord” and the “golden bowl.” After using all the help my predecessors have given me, I frankly own myself unable to give more than a vague account of the figures employed in this whole passage. Darkened.—See Ecclesiastes 11:8. On darkness of the heavens as a symbol of calamity, comp. Isaiah 13:10-11; Jeremiah 4:28-29; Ezekiel 32:7-9; Joe 2:1-10; Amos 8:9-10; and contrast Isaiah 30:26; Isaiah 60:10.)

Verse 2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened] i.e., in the SPRING, prime, and prosperity of life. Nor the clouds return] The infirmities of old age of which WINTER is a proper emblem, as spring is of youth, in the former clause of this verse.

2. while the sun, or the light] The imagery falls in naturally with the thought that the approach of death is represented by the gathering of a tempest. It does not follow, however, that this excludes the thought of a latent symbolism in detail as well as in the general idea. The thought that man was as a microcosm, and that each element in the universe had its analogue in his nature, was a familiar one to the Greek and Oriental mind, and was susceptible of many applications. So, to take an instance belonging to a different age or country, we find an Eastern poet thus writing, circ. a. d. 1339, “Of all that finds its being in the worldMan in himself the symbol true may find.His body is as earth, and as the HeavenHis head, with signs and wonders manifold,And the five senses shine therein as stars.The Spirit, like the sun, pours light on all.The limbs, that bear the body’s burden up,Are as the hills that raise their height to heaven.Hair covers all his limbs, as grass the earth,And moisture flows, as flow the streams and brooks.So on the day when soul and body part,And from the body’s load the soul is freed,Then canst thou see the body all a-tremble,As earth shall tremble at the last great day;The Spirit with its senses fall away,As stars extinguished fall on earth below;The last death-sigh with which the body diesThrill through the bones, like tempest-blast and storm.As on that day the hills shall pass away,So does death’s storm break up our mortal frame.A sea of death-damps flows from every pore:Thou plungest in, and art as drowned therein:So is thy dying like the great world’s death;In life and death it is thy parallel.”From the Gulschen Ras of Mahmud, quoted in Tholuck’s Blüthen-Sammlung aus der morgenländischen Mystik, p. 213. It will be admitted that the parallelism is singularly striking and suggestive. With this clue to guide us we may admit all that has been urged by Umbreit, Ginsburg and others in favour of the “storm” interpretation and yet not reject the more detailed symbolic meaning of Jewish and other commentators. We may have the broad outline of the phenomena that precede a tempest, sun, moon and stars, hidden by the gathering blackness. A like imagery meets us as representing both personal and national calamity in Isaiah 13:10; Jeremiah 15:9; Amos 8:9. The sun may be the Spirit, the Divine light of the body, the moon as the Reason that reflects that light, the stars as the senses that give but a dim light in the absence of sun and moon.

While ... not - Or, Before. The darkening of the lights of heaven denotes a time of affliction and sadness. Compare Ezekiel 32:7-8; Job 3:9; Isaiah 5:30. Contrast this representation of old age with 2 Samuel 23:4-5.

2. The old age of the God-forgetter is a world with its lights, sun, moon, stars, all darkened. The night of the soul within sheds blackness on the world without.