Ecclesiastes12:1-14 "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; 2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, 4 And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; 5 Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 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. 7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
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Request: Would anyone with a professional background in scientific or pathological research and/or with the gift of pastor/teacher be able to shed light on the literal meanings of these metaphorical references which presage our physical death within the Book of Ecclesiastes?,
Originally posted by Grampy BobbyWhy only request comment from those who have a: "professional background in scientific or pathological research and/or with the gift of pastor/teacher"?
[b]Ecclesiastes12:1-14 "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; 2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3 [i]In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble ...[text shortened]... these metaphorical references which presage our physical death within the Book of Ecclesiastes?,[/b]
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Originally posted by Grampy Bobbyhttp://www.raystedman.org/old-testament/ecclesiastes/before-its-too-late
[b]Ecclesiastes12:1-14 "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; 2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3 [i]In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble ...[text shortened]... these metaphorical references which presage our physical death within the Book of Ecclesiastes?,[/b]
Request: Would anyone with a professional background in scientific or pathological research and/or with the gift of pastor/teacher be able to shed light on the literal meanings of these metaphorical references which presage our physical death within the Book of Ecclesiastes?,No.
Originally posted by Metacomedian@Metacomedian: ]
No.
"In everlasting search of who I am."
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Did Rene Descartes get it right?
Originally posted by Grampy BobbyThis link will take you to a page where you can read what Matthew Henry had to say about Ecc.12. It's rather long, and so I do not copy/paste it here.
[b]Ecclesiastes12:1-14 "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; 2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3 [i]In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble ...[text shortened]... these metaphorical references which presage our physical death within the Book of Ecclesiastes?,[/b]
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Ecc/Ecc_012.cfm?a=671001
Originally posted by SuzianneMatthew Henry Commentary on Ecclesiastes Chapter 12:
This link will take you to a page where you can read what Matthew Henry had to say about Ecc.12. It's rather long, and so I do not copy/paste it here.
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Ecc/Ecc_012.cfm?a=671001
"The wise and penitent preacher is here closing his sermon; and he closes it, not only lie a good orator, but like a good preacher, with that which was likely to make the best impressions and which he wished might be powerful and lasting upon his hearers. Here is,
I. An exhortation to young people to begin betimes to be religious and not to put it off to old age (v. 1), enforced with arguments taken from the calamities of old age (v. 1-5). and the great change that death will make upon us (v. 6, 7).
II. A repetition of the great truth he had undertaken to prove in this discourse, the vanity of the world (v. 8).
III. A confirmation and recommendation of what he had written in this and his other books, as worthy to be duly weighed and concluded, with a charge to all to be truly religious, in consideration of the judgment to come (v. 13, 14).
Ecc 12:1-7
Here is,
I. A call to young people to think of God, and mind their duty to him, when they are young: Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. This is, 1. The royal preacher's application of his sermon concerning the vanity of the world and every thing in it. "You that are young flatter yourselves with expectations of great things from it, but believe those that have tried it; it yields no solid satisfaction to a soul; therefore, that you may not be deceived by this vanity, nor too much disturbed by it, remember your Creator, and so guard yourselves against the mischiefs that arise from the vanity of the creature.'
2. It is the royal physician's antidote against the particular diseases of youth, the love of mirth, and the indulgence of sensual pleasures, the vanity which childhood and youth are subject to; to prevent and cure this, remember thy Creator. Here is, (1.) A great duty pressed upon us, to remember God as our creator, not only to remember that God is our Creator, that he made us and not we ourselves, and is therefore our rightful Lord and owner, but we must engage ourselves to him with the considerations which his being our Creator lay us under, and pay him the honour and duty which we owe him as our Creator. Remember thy Creators; the word is plural, as it is Job 35:10, Where is God my Makers? For God said, Let us make man, us, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
(2.) The proper season for this duty-in the days of thy youth, the days of thy choice (so some), thy choice days, thy choosing days. "Begin in the beginning of thy days to remember him from whom thou hadst thy being, and go on according to that good beginning. Call him to mind when thou art young, and keep him in mind throughout all the days of thy youth, and never forget him. Guard thus against the temptations of youth, and thus improve the advantages of it...." (to be continued)
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Ecc/Ecc_012.cfm?a=671001[/b]
Effects of Advancing Age
Solomon likens the time of youth to the Palestinian summer when sun, moon, and stars shed their light from a cloudless sky. Things then look very bright. In old age, however, a person’s days are like the cold, rainy season of winter, with one downpour of trouble after another. (Job 14:1)
Solomon next points to difficulties “in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the men of vital energy have bent themselves, and the grinding women have quit working because they have become few, and the ladies seeing at the windows have found it dark.” (Ecclesiastes 12:3) The “house” denotes the human body. (Matthew 12:43-45; 2 Corinthians 5:1-8) Its “keepers” are the arms and hands, which protect the body and supply its needs. In old age they often tremble with weakness, nervousness, and palsy. “The men of vital energy”—the legs—no longer are sturdy pillars but have weakened and bend so that the feet merely shuffle along.
“The grinding women have quit working because they have become few”—but how? The teeth may have decayed or been lost, with few if any left. Grinding solid food is difficult or ceases altogether. “The ladies seeing at the windows”—the eyes coupled with the mental faculties by which we see—become dim, if not completely dark.
“And,” continues the congregator, “the doors onto the street have been closed, when the sound of the grinding mill becomes low, and one gets up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song sound low.” (Ecclesiastes 12:4) The two doors of the mouth—the lips—no longer open much or at all to express what is in the “house,” or body, of those of advanced age who do not serve God. Nothing is sent forth on “the street” of public life.
The sound of the grinding mill becomes low as food is chewed with toothless gums. On his bed an old man does not sleep soundly. Even the chirping of a bird disturbs him. Few are the songs that he sings, and his rendering of any melody is feeble. “All the daughters of song”—the melodic notes—“sound low.” The elderly one’s hearing of music and song produced by others is poor.
Also, they have become afraid merely at what is high, and there are terrors in the way. And the almond tree carries blossoms, and the grasshopper drags itself along, and the caper berry bursts, because man is walking to his long-lasting house and the wailers have marched around in the street.” (Ecclesiastes 12:5) At the top of a high staircase, many of the aged are fearful of falling. Even looking up at something high may make them dizzy. When they must go out into crowded streets, they are struck with terror at the thought of injury or assault by thieves.
In the case of an old man, “the almond tree carries blossoms,” apparently indicating that his hair turns gray, then snow-white. The hoary hairs fall like the white blossoms of the almond tree. As he ‘drags himself along,’ perhaps bent over with arms hanging down or hands resting on his hips with the elbows crooked upward, he resembles a grasshopper.
The elderly person’s appetite is no longer keen, even if the food before him is as tasty as the caper berry. These berries have long been used to stimulate appetite. ‘The bursting of the caper berry’ suggests that when an old man’s appetite diminishes, even this fruit fails to awaken his desire for food. Such things indicate that he is nearing “his long-lasting house,” the grave.
We are urged to remember our Creator “before the silver cord is removed, and the golden bowl gets crushed, and the jar at the spring is broken, and the waterwheel for the cistern has been crushed.” (Ecclesiastes 12:6) The “silver cord” may be the spinal cord. Death is certain when this marvelous pathway of impulses to the brain is irreparably damaged. The “golden bowl” may denote the brain, contained in the bowllike cranium, to which the spinal cord is attached. Golden for preciousness, the brain when broken down spells death.
“The jar at the spring” is the heart, which receives the stream of blood and sends it out again for circulation through the body. At death, the heart becomes like a broken jar, shattered at the spring because it can no longer receive, contain, and pump out the blood vital for the body’s nourishment and refreshment. The ‘crushed waterwheel for the cistern’ ceases to turn, ending circulation of life-sustaining blood.
The congregator added: “Then the dust returns to the earth just as it happened to be and the spirit itself returns to the true God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:7) With the “waterwheel” crushed, the human body, originally made out of dust from the ground, returns to the dust. (Genesis 2:7; 3:19) The soul dies because the spirit, or life-force, given by God returns to and resides with our Creator.—Ezekiel 18:4, 20; James 2:26.
jw.org
Originally posted by Grampy BobbyMatthew Henry Commentary on Ecclesiastes 12:1-14:
Matthew Henry Commentary on Ecclesiastes Chapter 12:
"The wise and penitent preacher is here closing his sermon; and he closes it, not only lie a good orator, but like a good preacher, with that which was likely to make the best impressions and which he wished might be powerful and lasting upon his hearers. Here is,
I. An exhortation to young people t ...[text shortened]... es of it...." (to be continued)
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Ecc/Ecc_012.cfm?a=671001
"II. A reason to enforce this command: While the evil days come not, and the years of which thou shalt say I have no pleasure in them. 1. Do it quickly, (1.) "Before sickness and death come. Do it while thou livest, for it will be too late to do it when death has removed thee from this state of trial and probation to that of recompence and retribution.' The days of sickness and death are the days of evil, terrible to nature, evil days indeed to those that have forgotten their Creator. These evil days will come sooner or later; as yet they come not, for God is long-suffering to us-ward, and gives us space to repent; the continuing of life is but the deferring of death, and, while life is continued and death deferred, it concerns us to prepare, and get the property of death altered, that we may die comfortably.
(2.) Before old age comes, which, if death prevent not, will come, and they will be years of which we shall say, We have no pleasure in them,-when we shall not relish the delights of sense, as Barzillai (2 Sa. 19:35),-when we shall be loaded with bodily infirmities, old and blind, or old and lame,-when we shall be taken off from our usefulness, and our strength shall be labour and sorrow,-when we shall either have parted with our relations, and all our old friends, or be afflicted in them and see them weary of us,-when we shall feel ourselves die by inches. These years draw nigh, when all that comes will be vanity, the remaining months all months of vanity, and there will be no pleasure but in the reflection of a good life on earth and the expectation of a better life in heaven.
2. These two arguments he enlarges upon in the following 2. These two arguments he enlarges upon in the following verses, only inverting the order, and shows, (1.) How many are the calamities of old age, and that if we should live to be old, our days will be such as we shall have no pleasure in, which is a good reason why we should return to God, and make our peace with him, in the days of our youth, and not put it off till we come to be old; for it will be no thanks to us to leave the pleasures of sin when they have left us, nor to return to God when need forces us. It is the greatest absurdity and ingratitude imaginable to give the cream and flower of our days to the devil, and reserve the bran, and refuse, and dregs of them for God; this is offering the torn, and the lame, and the sick for sacrifice; and, besides, old age being thus clogged with infirmities, it is the greatest folly imaginable to put off that needful work till then, which requires the best of our strength, when our faculties are in their prime, and especially to make the work more difficult by a longer continuance in sin, and, laying up treasures of guilt in the conscience, to add to the burdens of age and make them much heavier. If the calamities of age will be such as are here represented, we shall have need of something to support and comfort us then, and nothing will be more effectual to do that than the testimony of our consciences for us that we begin betimes to remember our Creator and have not since laid aside the remembrance of him. How can we expect God should help us when we are old, if we will not serve him when we are young? See Ps. 71:17, 18" (to be continued) https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Ecc/Ecc_012.cfm?a=671001
Originally posted by robbie carrobieThanks, robbie...........
Effects of Advancing Age
Solomon likens the time of youth to the Palestinian summer when sun, moon, and stars shed their light from a cloudless sky. Things then look very bright. In old age, however, a person’s days are like the cold, rainy season of winter, with one downpour of trouble after another. (Job 14:1)
Solomon next points to difficultie ...[text shortened]... force, given by God returns to and resides with our Creator.—Ezekiel 18:4, 20; James 2:26.
jw.org
Originally posted by SuzianneCopy/paste with no accompanying comment is such a lazy way to post I feel. It just gives the poster a sense of false intellectual gratification that they have somehow contributed something. Seeing GB "thank" Robbie for something in his copy/paste that he now won't even divulge is as lame as it is embarrassingly fake.
I dunno. It reminded me somewhat of the Jethro Tull song "Aqualung". The JWs always have to taint everything with their bizarro dogma.