Ecclesiastes 12:6

Or ever the silver cord be loosed,.... As the above are the symptoms and infirmities of old age; these in this verse are the immediate symptoms of death, or what attend it, or certainly issue in it.

Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

This verse is to be understood either, 1. literally, of the ornaments of life, such as chains, and jewels, and vessels of gold and silver, and of the instruments by which the necessary provisions and supports of life are conveyed to us, such as fountains of water, and pitchers, &c.; which may be said to be loosed or broken, because they are neglected as useless things to the dead man. Or rather, 2. Allegorically, of those inward parts of man’ s body which are the chief instruments of life, or sense and motion, and of the vital or animal operations, whether such from which they first proceed, or in which they are first elaborated and contained, which may fitly be compared to a bowl, and fountain, or cistern; or such by which they are derived or conveyed to the several parts of the body, which are very conveniently designed by the cord, and pitcher, and wheel; all which are truly said to be loosed or broken, i.e. dissolved, or become useless and insufficient for the performance of their several functions. This in the general. But it seems most probable that Solomon, who was so profound a philosopher, and doubtless had an accurate knowledge of all the parts of man’ s body, and their several offices and operations, doth by these several expressions describe so many particular parts and offices. By the silver cord, it is generally and most probably conceived that he understands the pith or marrow of the back-bone, which comes from the brain, and thence goeth down to the very lowest end of the back-bone, together with the nerves and sinews, which, as anatomists observe, are nothing else but the production and continuation of the marrow. And this is most aptly compared to a cord, both for its figure, which is very long and round, and for its use, which is to draw and move the parts of the body; and to silver, both for its excellency and colour, which is white and bright, even in a dead, and much more in a living body. And this may properly be said to be loosed, or dissolved, or broken, or removed, as others render the word, the sense of all these translations being the same, because it is relaxed, or obstructed, or otherwise disenabled for its proper service. And answerably hereunto, by the golden bowl he understands the membranes of the brain, and especially that innermost membrane which is called by anatomists the pious mother, because it doth with a motherly care defend the brain, and assist and govern its actions, which insinuates itself into all the parts of the brain, following it in its various windings and turnings, keeping each parcel of it in its proper place, and distinguishing and dividing one part from another, to prevent disorder and mischief.

Ecclesiastes 12:6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.Ver. 6. Or ever the silver cord be loosed.] Or, Lengthened - i.e., before the marrow of the back (which is of a silver colour) be consumed. From this cord many sinews are derived, which, when they are loosened, the back bendeth, motion is slow, and feeling faileth. Or the golden bowl be broken,] i.e., The heart, say some, or the pericardium; the brain pan, say others, or the pia mater, compassing the brain like a swathing cloth, or inner rind of a tree. Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain.] That is, The veins at the liver (which is the place of sanguification, or blood making, as one calls it), but especially Vena porta and Vena cava. Read the anatomists. Or the wheel be broken at the cistern,] i.e., The head, which draws the power of life from the heart, to the which the blood runs back in any great fright, as to the fountain of life.

(6) Golden bowl.—Zechariah 4:3.

Verse 6. Or ever the silver cord be loosed] We have already had all the external evidences of old age, with all its attendant infirmities; next follow what takes place in the body, in order to produce what is called death, or the separation of body and soul. 1. The silver cord. - The medulla oblongata or spinal marrow, from which all the nerves proceed, as itself does from the brain. This is termed a cord, from its exact similitude to one; and a silver cord, from its colour, as it strikingly exhibits the silver gray; and from its preciousness. This is said to be loosed; as the nervous system became a little before, and at the article of death, wholly debilitated. The last loosing being the fall of the under jaw, the invariable and never-failing evidence of immediate death; a few struggles more, and the soul is dismissed from its clay tenement. 2. The golden bowl be broken] The brain contained in the cranium, or skull, and enveloped with the membranes called the dura and pia mater; here called a bowl, from its resemblance to such a vessel, the container being put for the contained; and golden because of its colour, and because of its exceeding preciousness, as has been noticed in the former case. Broken - be rendered unfit to perform its functions, neither supplying nor distributing any nervous energy. 3. Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain] The vena cava, which brings back the blood to the right ventricle of the heart, here called the fountain, המבוע hammabbua, the spring whence the water gushes up; properly applied here to the heart, which by its systole and diastole (contraction and expansion) sends out, and afterwards receives back, the blood; for all the blood flows from, and returns back to, the heart. 4. The wheel broken at the cistern] The great aorta, which receives the blood from the cistern, the left ventricle of the heart, and distributes it to the different parts of the system. These may be said, as in the case of the brain above, to be broken, i.e., rendered useless; when, through the loosening of the silver cord, the total relaxation of the nervous system, the heart becomes incapable of dilatation and contraction, so that the blood, on its return to the right ventricle of the heart, is not received, nor that already contained in the ventricles propelled into the great aorta. The wheel is used in allusion to the Asiatic wheels, by which they raise water from their wells and tanks, and deep cisterns, for domestic purposes, or to irrigate the grounds. Thus, then, the blood becomes stagnate; the lungs cease to respire; the blood is no longer oxidized; all motion, voluntary and involuntary, ceases; the body, the house of the immortal spirit, is no longer tenantable, and the soul takes its flight into the eternal world. The man D-I-E-S! This is expressed in the following verse: -

6. or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken] The figurative character of the whole section, reaches its highest point here. It is clear however that the figures, whatever they may be, are symbolic of nothing less than death. We have had the notes of decay in organs and in functions brought before us one by one. Now we come to the actual dissolution of soul and body. It will help us to a right understanding to begin with the golden bowl. The noun is the same as that used in Zechariah 4:3-4, for the bowl of the golden seven-branched candlestick (better, lamp) of the Temple. It was the vessel, or reservoir, from which the oil flowed into the lamps. The lamp itself was, in the judgment of most students of the Mosaic ritual, the symbol of life—perhaps, even in its very form, of the Tree of life—in its highest manifestations. The symbolism of Greek thought harmonized with that of Hebrew, and “the lamp of life” was a familiar image. So when Pericles visited Anaxagoras, as he was dying of want and hunger, the sage said reproachfully “When we wish to keep the lamp burning, we take care to supply it with oil.” (Plutarch, Pericles.) So Plato (de Legg. p. 776) and Lucretius (ii:78) describe the succession of many generations of mankind, with an allusive reference to the Lampadephoria, or torch races of Athens. “Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt.”“Like men who run a race, hand on the lamp of life.”So the “light of life” appears in Greek epitaphs, Νὺξμὲνἐμὸνκατέχειζωῆςφάοςὑπνοδοτείρη“Sleep-giving night hath quenched my light of life.”Anthol. Graec. Ed. Jacobs, App. 265. It can scarcely remain doubtful then that the “golden bowl” is life as manifested through the material fabric of man’s body. And if so, the “silver cord” in the imagery of the parable can only be the chain by which, as in houses or temples, the lamp hangs, i.e. when we interpret the parable, that on which the continuance of life depends. Death, elsewhere represented as the cutting of the thread of life by the “abhorred shears” of the Destinies, is here brought before us as the snapping of the chain, the extinction of the principle of life. The anatomist commentators have, as before, shewn their lack of poetic feeling by going in omnia alia as to the interpretation of the symbols. The “golden bowl” has been identified with the skull or the stomach, and the “silver cord” with the tongue or the spinal marrow, and so on into a region of details into which it is not always pleasant to follow the interpreter. or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern] Better, or the pitcher be shattered. As with the Hebrews so also with the Greeks, life was represented by yet another symbol almost as universal as that of the burning lamp. The “fountain of life” was with God (Psalms 36:9).

Be loosed - The termination of life is signified generally by the snapping of the silver cord by which the lamp hangs from the ceiling; by the dashing in pieces of the cup or reservoir of oil; by the

6. So far decay of age is depicted; now dissolution itself. We can hardly agree with the commentators who deny that the bowl, the pitcher, and the wheel, must not each be applied to a definite object or part of dying man.