Ecclesiastes 12:1. Remember now thy Creator, &c.— The first point to be examined is, where the description of old age given in this chapter begins. Most interpreters, who begin it with these words in the first verse, the years draw nigh, &c. or, at least, with the mention made Ecc 12:2 of the sun, light, moon, and stars being darkened, are at great pains to guess what particular infirmities of old age may be represented by each of these phaenomena of bad weather. But those pains might have been spared. The image here set before us has too manifest a respect to that which we read but a few verses before, ch. Ecc 11:7-8 not to acknowledge some analogy between them. Truly the light is sweet, &c. It is plain, that seeing the light, and beholding the sun, are mentioned on no other account, than as proper emblems of a prosperous life. And, indeed, light and darkness are among the most frequent metaphors used by the Hebrews to signify prosperity and adversity. Therefore, when that image offers itself again, in an inference drawn from the premises wherein it had made its first appearance, with this only difference, that an affirmative attends it in one place, and a negative in the other, it is very natural that it should be understood of a painful and calamitous life. Being destitute of light, and living in a climate where the sky does not clear up after the rain, but is so continually overspread with clouds, that there is no seeing either sun, moon, or stars, is as truly unpleasant as seeing the light is sweet. Here may be truly applied a remark of Bishop Lowth, upon a parallel passage in Ezekiel 32:7-8. Notae sunt imagines, frequens earum usus, certa significatio; ideoque perspicua, clara, vereque magnifica.* Thus I would rather look upon this verse as a transition to the mention which is going to be made of old age, than as part of its description. If it has any respect to it, it seems to be but a very distant one to that time of life, as it is a painful and unpleasant one; and none at all to the particular infirmities to which it is liable. Solomon's design was, to inculcate the necessity of minding our Creator, before a constant course of adversity forces us to think of him. But as one might have objected, that it is not the fate of every man to fall into such misfortunes, it was proper that, after mentioning them in general terms, he should proceed to shew, that, according to the usual course of nature, no long liver can avoid leading, for some time, an unpleasant life as to nature; accordingly, he begins, in the next verse, to describe the state to which a man must at last be reduced, who has lived many years. The division of that description into three parts, and the reasons why I look upon the first and last only as poetical, shall be considered in the next note. See Desvoeux, and Bishop Lowth's 6th Prelection.
* The images are striking, their use frequent, their signification certain, and therefore perspicuous, clear, and truly sublime.

Ecclesiastes 12:4. And the doors shall be shut in the streets.— And the double gate shall be shut up towards the inner court, at the lowering of the voice of the grinding-maid: and then he shall rise up at the crowing of the cock, and all the daughters of the song shall be valued at nought.

Ecclesiastes 12:5. Also when they shall be afraid, &c.— They shall be afraid even of distant objects, nay, of the scare-crow, set on the way-side; the sex shall be neglected, and the grasshopper shall become a burden, and desire shall fail; for the man is going to his everlasting home, and the mourners are walking about the court, ready for his burial. These alterations of the version are from Mr. Desvoeux; who observes, that though interpreters are divided concerning the application of several particulars in this poetical description of old age, they all agree in the meaning of the first allegory, whereby the outward form of our body is represented as a house, and our limbs either as servants to whom several employments are devised, or as parts of the building. Thus, says he, I think every one allows that the arms and hands are the keepers or guards, to ward off danger; the knees and legs, which support the weight of the whole fabric, are the strong men, and the eyes are the spies or scouts which look out of the window, Ecclesiastes 12:3. Then, to complete the picture of the outward appearance of an old man, the falling-in of his lips is represented as the shutting up of a double gate; Ecclesiastes 12:4. Thus far I agree with them, and even farther: for I have no doubt but that the teeth are signified by the grinding-maids, as I call them, after the LXX and Saint Jerome, or the grinding-stones, as some will have it; but I prefer the former, not only because it is most agreeable to the original word, but because the ancients had only hand-mills, at which none but women worked; a custom which, we learn from Dr. Shaw, still prevails among those nations which have retained the ancient manners. The next difference likewise chiefly concerns the image rather than the main sense; for several interpreters, led by the context, observe, that the mouth was represented by what is called the streets in the received version, and in mine the inner court. Now the street, being a passage open through and through, does no way resemble a hollow vessel; that resemblance might rather be found in a market-place, surrounded with high buildings, with but a few outlets, hardly perceivable in comparison of the surrounding sides. Accordingly the LXX have rendered it αγωρα ; but it is plain that the original word שׁוק shuk, means more properly that part of the house which by its form mostly resembled both a market-place, and a bowl. Such was the inner court, which Varro calls cava, or cavum aedium, Pliny cavaedium, and Tully impluvium; and we learn from Dr. Shaw, that there was such a court in all the eastern houses. The shutting up of the double gate towards the inner court, is represented as either the occasion of, or being occasioned by, or a circumstance that happens at the same time with, another accident; for the original, at the lowering of the voice of the grinding-maid, may equally bear these three constructions; and there is none but may have a proper application to the subject understood by that allegory; for, since it is allowed on all hands that the teeth are meant by the last of these words, because they are the instruments wherewith we grind our victuals, there can be no difficulty in applying the former, either to the broken set of teeth which an old man has remaining in his mouth, or to the gum which must perform the office of teeth, or rather to the tongue which bears a considerable part in the act of mastication, and might on that very account be called the grinding-maid by way of eminence. Now the sinking of an old man's lips into his mouth not only happens at the time with, but is owing to, the want of his teeth; whereby the operation of chewing is rendered imperfect. On the other hand, the close compression of the lips may serve partly to drown the disagreeable noise of his chewing with his gums instead of his teeth. As for the literal sense of the image, I think the construction whereby the two facts are connected in point of time is the less subject to difficulties, because it requires no knowledge of ancient usages and customs; for any one sees that the time of shutting up the gate must be about the same hour that the necessary work is finished, or when the night is drawing near.

Ecclesiastes 12:6. Or ever the silver cord be loosed.— Remember thy Creator, I say, before the silver cord be removed, and the golden pully hasteneth its motion, and the jar be dashed to pieces upon the well, and the conduit be broken, through which the water used to run into the cistern. See the note on Ecclesiastes 12:2-3. It is on all hands allowed, that the picture-part of the emblem in this verse is a well once richly furnished with whatever is necessary both to draw water and to convey it to the proper places; but now becoming useless through the gradual decay of the several parts of the engine. To understand it right, therefore, it is necessary that we should have some notion of the thing described. It may be reasonably supposed, that kings and princes had such engines in their gardens as that to which our body is likened, either to supply their baths, or for the conveniency of watering; but the simplicity of those times, and the little progress then made in mechanical arts, may easily have persuaded us that they were of the less composed kind. Solomon tells us, chap. Ecc 2:6 that he had made ponds or reservoirs in his gardens; and the richness of the materials of which the several parts of the engine were made, may afford some reason to conjecture that the description in hand alludes to a machine which he had made to supply them with water. The several things necessary for that purpose, and which we may therefore expect to find mentioned in the description, were, besides the well itself, and a cistern or reservoir placed at a convenient distance, 1. A rope. 2. A pulley, to haul up and let down the rope more commodiously. 3. A bucket, or some other vessel in the nature of a bucket, hanging from the rope. 4. A conduit or gutter to convey the water from the upper edge of the wall which surrounded the well, to the reservoir. These several pieces, when in right order, may very well represent the hydraulic machine called a man; and of course their disorder is a proper image of the distempers whereby the constitution of our body is broken in old age. But, to apply every particular to that special circumstance of human infirmities which Solomon intended it should represent, is not an easy task; as it depends upon the notions which that prince had of the inward structure of our body, and of the office of each part: no one can be qualified to explain it who has not a competent skill in ancient anatomy; I say ancient, for it is not to be presumed that Solomon could or would allude to discoveries whereby he must have then been unintelligible; and Hippocrates himself, the father of physic, is but a modern with respect to our author. Therefore I content myself with explaining the letter of the allegory, and leave the accurate deciphering of it to professed anatomists; upon whose opinion, however, I would not advise the reader to place too great a dependence; as their decision, in this case, cannot be much better than conjecture. See Desvoeux, who has very largely and learnedly justified the above version, as the reader will find in the 376th and following pages of his essay. However, for the satisfaction of such as would wish to see some attempt to decipher this allegory, we shall subjoin at the end of this chapter such an attempt by an able writer; at the same time referring such as wish to see more on this subject, to the famous portrait of old age by Dr. Smith.

Ecclesiastes 12:7. Then shall the dust return to the earth.— Desvoeux connects this with the preceding verse; at the end of which he places a semicolon only, and reads thus, And the dust return into the earth as it was, and the spirit return unto God who gave it. From the 7th verse of the preceding chapter we have the third precept, which, on account of its importance, is more enlarged upon than the two former, and has some retrospect to the three propositions considered jointly, but a more special one to the third. It might be thus shortly expressed: "Since men (being ignorant or unmindful of what must come to pass after their death) cannot find their way to happiness in this world, they must look for it after death, and lead in this world a life suitable to that expectation." First then, Solomon puts us in mind that, however pleasant we may imagine a man's life to be when attended with uninterrupted prosperity, yet a single reflection upon his future state is sufficient to damp his joy, and to convince him that all the happiness he has enjoyed is but vain, on that very account, that it is past, chap. Ecclesiastes 11:7-8. Then, from that observation he infers, that we must always keep futurity in view, and remember Him at whose disposal we know that all future events are, Ecclesiastes 12:9-10. This we must do during the whole course of our life, even from our youth, and in our most flourishing state, because the whole of our conduct must be once canvassed and examined before the supreme judge. Here the author, who in this book seldom misses the opportunity of a description, not satisfied with the bare mention of old age, describes the infirmities of it in a very elegant manner. But, as the style of that description is mostly figurative, it is not perhaps very easy to point out with certainty the particular infirmities attending a decrepit state, which are therein mentioned: yet the general meaning is very plain, which is sufficient to answer the main purpose. However, the description seems to consist of three parts. The first allegorically points out, under the image of an ill-attended house, the most obvious infirmities of old age; that is to say, those which can scarcely escape the notice of any one who beholds an old man; Ecc 12:3 and part of the 4th. The second part of the description sets forth, chiefly in plain literal terms, those alterations for the worse, which too often age produces in a man's habit and inclinations; part of Ecclesiastes 12:4-5. The last part, under the emblem of a well which becomes useless through the decay of the engines, and other things necessary to draw water out of it, and to convey it to the proper places, represents the inward decay of the constitution, whereby we are at last brought to a state wherein (chap. Ecclesiastes 9:10.) there is no work nor device to be done, nor any use for knowledge and wisdom, Ecclesiastes 12:6. But, lest any one should suspect that Solomon involved the whole man in the ruin and destruction of the bodily machine, he does shortly assert a distinction of principles, and a difference of fate between body and soul. The one was made of earth, and returns into it. The other came from God, and returns to him. Ecclesiastes 12:7.

Ecclesiastes 12:8. Vanity of vanities.— The least reflection upon that ultimate term of all our occupations, enjoyments, and schemes of happiness in this world, death, naturally brings into one's mind the maxim set forth in the beginning of this discourse, and from which, by proving its truth with respect to all those, the Hebrew philosopher had endeavoured to evince the necessity of a future state. Wherefore it was proper to mention it again, in order to prepare the minds of his hearers for the general conclusion; which, however, he divided from it by the fourth and last precept or advice that he thought necessary to give; and which, as it had no particular retrospect to any argument used before, it was proper to divide, somehow or other, from those that had. See on the following verses.