Ecclesiastes 12

Ecclesiastes 12:1

thy Creator.] Heb. Creators, Father, Sonne, and Holy Ghost. So God my Makers, Job XXXV. 10. The Makers of Israel, Psal. CXLIX. 1. thy Makers is thy husbands, Esay LIV. 5. Gods created, Gen. I. 1.

youth] Youth is slippery, prone to lusts and sensual pleasures, apt to put off the evil day farre from them, to look on death and judgement as at a great distance; as evil men use to do, Ezek. XII. 27. Amos VI. 3. 2 Pet. III. 3, 4. Solomon here calls on them to remember themselves better, to minde God in the Spring of their age, to present the first-fruits to God, as young Samuel, Jeremy, and Timothy did; and not to leave and reserve the dregs and snuffs to God.

while the evil dayes] Old age is very unfit to begin so great a work in. Old age will bring evils enough of its own besides.

Ecclesiastes 12:2

While the Sunne] Before the sight of thine eyes grow dimme. Or, before thy most delightful and pleasant things begin to grow unwelcome, unpleasant to thee.

The darknesse of lights about them, as of the Sun, candles, torches, &c. Whence we need Spectacles.

Returning of the clouds after the raine, alludes to the winterly state of old age. In summer after raine, the clouds break up, and fair weather comes. Not so in winter. So in youth—Not so in old age—

nor the clouds return] One grief comes upon the neck of another, as the billows of the sea wallow and tumble upon the back one of another. A proverbial speech, as Psal. XLII. 7.

Ecclesiastes 12:3

the Keepers of the house] The hands and armes. Some here take in the head, and ribs, and outward senses, and inward faculties; but not so properly.

strong men] Thighs and legs. Here some take in the feet.

Grinders] The teeth. They come not with us into the world. And they commonly leave old men before they go out of the world.

look out of the windows] The eyes: out of the eye-lids.

darkened] A further degree of dimnesse then that, ver. 2.

Ecclesiastes 12:4

And the doores] Old men shall shut the street-dooers, shall stay within doores, because the weaknesse of their appetite, and digestion, when the sound of the grinding with the teeth was low, and doth cause them to eat little, and so weakens their bodies, to stir abroad. Others, by streets here understand those Pipes and passages, which are for the meat to go down to the stomach; and for the breath and aire to go down to the lungs; which passages have doores and covers, which open, and shut: And these being weakened in old age, breed weaknesse of the body, and difficulty of swallowing, and of speaking. Those which stretch the words to the Hearing; or to the eye-lids; or to all the senses, seeme to misse most of the true meaning.

doores] Lips. When for want of teeth, the meat is rolled and ravelled in the mouth, and hath need of shut lips to keep it from falling out of the mouth.

at the voice of the bird] Shall wake out of sleep at every little noise, through the badnesse of sleeping: and wearines to lie long in bed, by reason of little ease, and much paine and akings.

daughters of musik] That we can neither sing our selves; nor be delighted with the musik of others, 2 Sam. XIX. 34, 35.

Ecclesiastes 12:5

afraid of that which is high] To go up it, being weak, and short-winded. And fear stumbling at every little stone in the way. Both heights, and hollows, in the way annoy their goings.

almond-tree] The gray-hairs; which some call the white flowers of the Church-yard.

grashoppers] Every light thing shall be a burthen to them, who are now already become a burthen to themselves.

and desire shall faile] The lust of the flesh (libido) As also the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. In decrepit age all these desires die, though they reigned and raged in him before.

long home] The grave, his own house, and long home; Nox est perpetua Vna dormienda, Esay XIV. 18. never to returne hither again, Job VII. 10. But long to abide there, till the Resurrection-day.

Ecclesiastes 12:6

mourners] Jer. IX. 17. and XXII. 18. Amos V. 16. See Job III. 8.

silver cord] The marrow of the back-bone; be loosed, or lessened and contracted; whence old men grow crooked and bending in the back. Some take this for the sinewes, which are the ligaments of all the members; and are loosened by cold humours, and palsie-distempers.

golden bowle] The heart, the blood of it, or the pericardion, or the brain pan, pia-mater, and pericranion. Some understand this of the cista fellis, the gaul and choler, which easily breaks out in old men. Some of the skull, parted in the stures and seams of it: diseases grow round, as a bowle-golden, for the colour and precious use of it in preserving the brains.

or the pitcher be broken at the fountain] By fountain we may understand those principal parts, as the Heart, Head, Liver, from whence the vital supplies of spirit, heat, blood, sense, and motion are drawn into the body. By Cisterne the same aforesaid; or those places of the body whereinto those vital supplies are drawn and conveyed. By the pitcher, and wheele, the veins, arteries, and sinewes, which as subservient instruments do conveigh those supplies into the several parts of the body. Some understand by the pitcher, the bladder; and by the cisterne, the belly; that neither duly performe their office: by the fountaine or spring, the issuing forth of the water; the retentive faculty of the muskle at the neck of the bladder being broken, so that water, the urine issueth from him insensibly, without stay.

the wheele broken at the cisterne] The Lungs broken off from their motion of inspiration and respiration by phlegme from the stomach, stopping and stifling the Lungs. The Lungs are as the wheele transmitting the aire in, and out, up and down: and when this free course is stopped, then follows ratling in the throat, and death after. The stomach is the cisterne from all the body.

Ecclesiastes 12:7

And the spirit shall returne] Gen. II. 7. Joh XXXIV. 14, 15. And even the wisest Heathen have avouched the immortality of the soul; and a life of joy, or paine after this life ended, according to our carriage here. So Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Plutarch, Epicharmus, Euripides, Lucretius, Heraclitus, Virgil, and others.

Ecclesiastes 12:8

Vanitie of vanities] He resumes and concludes his main Text, ater his large demonstration of it, by so many convincing arguments.

Ecclesiastes 12:9

the Preacher was wise] And moreover, because he knew how hard it is to work man to a firme belief of this maxime, That all these earthly things are but vanity, he heaps up in these few words of his conclusion many cogent arguments yet more to re-inforce the same; from his own wisdome, from his care to teach the knowledge of this principal lesson, his heed, his search, his ordering of it, and other Proverbs; from the delight and acceptablenesse of it; from the uprightnesse, and truth of it. All which as they may relate to his teaching, and writing in general; so more specialy to the subject matter of this Book.

Ecclesiastes 12:11

The words of the wise] In this Solomon riseth higher, and comes up to the praise of the words of the wise in general, which is most appliable to the Word of God in the Scripture; the praise is from their power and efficacie; they are as Goads; as Nailes: And from their Authority, fastened d managed by the Masters of Assemblies, the Preachers and Ministers; And the Word, and they, both given from one Shepheard, the great Shepheard of the Sheep, the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet some would make this understanding of this verse, That the Authors of these Collections compiled them together into one body under the name of Solomon, guided thereunto, and so given, by and from Zerubbabel.

Ecclesiastes 12:12

by these] and by no other; no humane and vaine words or writings, Psal. XIX. 11. These are sufficient. Some conceit that Zerubbabel speaks thus to Abihud.

Many books] This most true in this age, if not more then any other. But these many, in comparison of the Scriputure, may well be called wast-papers. And much study in them is a wearinesse of the flesh.

Ecclesiastes 12:13

The Conclusion of the whole matter let us hear] The first word of this verse, rendered Conclusion is written in the Original with an extraordinary big letter; to put an extraordinary mark of Attention upon it. The meaning of the words of this, and the last verse, need no Explanation.