yes, they shall be afraid of heights, and terrors will be on the way; and the almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goes to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the streets:
Parallel Translations
-
yes, they shall be afraid of heights, and terrors will be on the way; and the almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goes to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the streets:
-
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:
-
Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and terrors shall be in the way; and the almond-tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall drag itself along, and the caperberry shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets;
Cross-references (18)
Passages linked to Ecclesiastes 12:5 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Job 17:13 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,
- Job 30:23 For I know that you will bring me to death, To the house appointed for all living.
- Jeremiah 9:17-20 Yahweh of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come. Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’ ” Yet hear Yahweh’s word, you women. Let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach your daughters wailing. Everyone teach her neighbor a lamentation.
- Proverbs 16:31 Gray hair is a crown of glory. It is attained by a life of righteousness.
- Genesis 50:3-10 Forty days were used for him, for that is how many the days it takes to embalm. The Egyptians wept for Israel for seventy days. When the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to Pharaoh’s staff, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, ‘My father made me swear, saying, “Behold, I am dying. Bury me in my grave which I have dug for myself in the land of Canaan.” Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, and I will come again.’ ” Pharaoh said, “Go up, and bury your father, just like he made you swear.” Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, all the elders of the land of Egypt, All the house of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s house. Only their little ones, their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. There went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company. They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and severe lamentation. He mourned for his father seven days.
- Leviticus 19:32 “ ‘You shall rise up before the gray head and honor the face of the elderly; and you shall fear your God. I am Yahweh.
- Job 15:10 With us are both the gray-headed and the very aged men, much elder than your father.
- Psalms 49:10-14 For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after themselves. But man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish. This is the destiny of those who are foolish, and of those who approve their sayings. They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion.
- Psalms 71:18 Yes, even when I am old and gray-haired, God, don’t forsake me, until I have declared your strength to the next generation, your might to everyone who is to come.
- Genesis 42:38 He said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he only is left. If harm happens to him along the way in which you go, then you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.”
- Genesis 44:29 If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.’
- Genesis 44:31 it will happen, when he sees that the boy is no more, that he will die. Your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to Sheol.
- Proverbs 20:29 The glory of young men is their strength. The splendor of old men is their gray hair.
- Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.
- Isaiah 46:4 Even to old age I am he, and even to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear. Yes, I will carry, and will deliver.
- Jeremiah 1:11 Moreover Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”
- Mark 5:38-39 He came to the synagogue ruler’s house, and he saw an uproar, weeping, and great wailing. When he had entered in, he said to them, “Why do you make an uproar and weep? The child is not dead, but is asleep.”
- Hebrews 9:27 Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (17 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain They shall tremble as they go, as though they…
They shall tremble as they go, as though they were afraid.
They shall be able to bear nothing.
Read full note →
To climb high because of their weakness, or they stoop down, as though they were afraid, lest anything should hit them.
Their head shall be as white as the blossoms of an almond tree.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Ecc 12:5 Also [when] they shall be afraid of…
Ecc 12:5 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:
Ver. 5. Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high.] Hillocks or little stones standing up, whereat they may stumble, as being unsteady and unwieldy. High ascents also they shun, as being short winded; neither can they look down without danger of falling, their heads being as weak as their hams. Let them therefore pray for a guard of angels, putting that promise into suit. {Psa 91:11} Let them also keep within God’s precincts, as ever they expect his protection; and then, though old Eli fell, and never rose again, yet when they fall they shall arise, for the Lord puts under his hand. {Psa 37:24} Contrition may be in their way, but attrition shall not. Let them fear God, and they need not fear any other person or thing whatsoever.
Read full note →
And the almond tree shall flourish.] The hair shall grow hoary, those church yard flowers shall put forth. The almond tree blossoms in January, while it is yet winter, and the fruit is ripe in March. {a} Old age shall snow white hairs upon their heads. Let them see that they be "found in the way of righteousness."
And the grasshopper shall be a burden.] Every light matter shall oppress them, who are already a burden to themselves, being full of gout, and other swellings of the legs, which the Septuagint and Vulgate point at here, when they render it, impinguabiter locusta, - The locusts shall be made fat. Let them wait upon the Lord, as that "old disciple Mnason" {Act 21:16} did, and then they shall "renew their strength, mount up as eagles, run, and not be weary, walk, and not faint," even then, when "the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men utterly fall." {Isa 40:30-31}
And desire shall fail.] "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life." {1Jn 2:15} And this Cicero reckons among the commodities and benefits of old age, quod hominem a libidinis estu, velut a tyranno quodem liberet, - that it frees a man from the fire of lust. {b} It should be so doubtless, an old letcher being little less than a monster. What so monstrous as to behold green apples on a tree in winter? and what so indecent as to see the sins of youth prevailing in times of age among old decrepit goats? that they should be capering after capparis (καππαρις), the fruit of capers, as the Septuagint and Vulgate render it here.
Because man goeth to his long home.] Heb., To his old home - scil., to the dust from whence he was taken; or to "the house of his eternity" - that is, the grave (that house of all living), where he shall lie long, till the resurrection. Tremellius renders it, in domum saeculi sui - to the house of his generation, where he and all his contemporaries meet. Cajetan, in demure mundi sui - into the house of his world; that which the world provides for him, as nature at first provided for him the house of the womb. Toward this home of his the old man is now on gait, having one foot in the grave already. He sits and sings with Job, "My spirit is spent, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me." {Job 17:1}
And the mourners go about the streets.] The proverb is, Senex bos non lugetur, - An old man dies unlamented. But not so the good old man. Great moaning was made for old Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Samuel. The Romans took the death of old Augustus so heavily, that they wished he had either never been born or never died. Those, indeed, that live wickedly die wishedly. But godly men are worthily lamented, and ought to be so. {Isa 57:1} This is one of the dues of the dead, so it be done aright. But they were hard bestead that were fain to hire mourners; that as midwives brought their friends into the world, so those widows should carry them out of it. See Job 3:8 Jer 9:17.
{a} Plin., lib. xvi. cap. 25.
{b} πρεσβυτης α πυρ και σβεω.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain They shall be afraid; the passion of fear is…
They shall be afraid; the passion of fear is observed to be most incident to old men, of which divers reasons may be given.
Of that which is high; either,
Read full note →
1. Of high things, lest they should fall upon them. Or rather,
2. Of high places, of going up hills or stairs, which is very irksome to them, because of their weakness, and weariness, ar, d giddiness, and danger, or dread of falling. And this clause, together with the next, may be rendered thus, and that agreeably to the Hebrew text,
Also they shall be afraid and terrified (two words expressing the same thing, which is very frequent in the Hebrew) of that which is high in the way. When they walk abroad, they will dread to go up any high or steep places.
And fears shall be in the way, lest as they are walking, they should stumble, or fall, or be thrust down, or some infirmity or mischief should befall them.
The almond tree shall flourish; their heads shall be as full of grey hairs as the almond tree is of white flowers. Such metaphors are not unusual in other authors. Hence Sophocles calls a grey or hoary head flowery, and again, covered with white flowers.
The grasshopper shall be a burden, if it doth accidentally hop up and rest upon them. They cannot endure the least burden, being indeed a burden to themselves. But the words may be, and are by others, rendered, the locust (as the ancient interpreters and many others render it; or, as ours and some others, the grasshopper, which comes to the same thing; for these two sorts of insects are much of the same nature and shape) shall be a burden to itself. And by the locust or grasshopper may be understood, either,
1. The old man himself, who bears some resemblance to it; in shape, by reason of the bones sticking out; in the constitution of the body, which is dry and withering; and in the legs and arms, which are slender, the flesh being consumed. Or,
2. The back, which fitly follows after the head, upon which the almond tree flourished, in which the strength of the body lay, and which formerly was able to bear great burdens, but now, through its weakness and crookedness, is a burden too heavy for itself. And some of the Jewish and other interpreters understand this word, which others render locust or grasshopper, to be some part of the body, either the back-bone, or the head of the thigh bone, or the ankle-bone, any of which may well be said to be heavy or burdensome to itself, when it moves slowly and listlessly, and not without difficulty and trouble. Desire, to wit, of meats, and drinks, and music, and other carnal delights, which are vehemently desired by men in the heat of their youth, but are unsavoury to old men; of which see an instance 2Sa 19:35. It is true, the former expressions are metaphorical, but the two next following are proper, and to be understood literally; and so may this clause also.
Man goeth, is travelling towards it, and every day nearer to it than other,
to his long home; from this place of his pilgrimage into the grave, from whence he must never return into this world, and into the state and place of the future life, which is unchangeable and everlasting.
The mourners; either such as were hired to that end, of whom See Poole "Jer 9:17"; See Poole "Mat 9:23", See Poole "Mat 11:17", or true mourners, near relations, and dear friends, accompany the dead corpse through the streets to the grave.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Also when they shall be afraid of that which…
Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high,.... Not of the most high God, before whose tribunal they must shortly appear, as some; but rather of high places, as high hills, mountains, towers, &c. which aged persons are afraid to go up, because of the feebleness and weakness of their limbs, their difficulty of breathing, and the dizziness of their heads;
and fears shall be in the way; they do not care: to go abroad, being afraid of every little stone that lies in the way, lest they should stumble at it, and fall: some understand this of their fears of spirits, good or bad; but the former sense is best;
Read full note →
and the almond tree shall flourish; which most interpret of the hoary head, which looks like an almond tree in blossom; and which, as it comes soon in the spring, whence it has its name of haste in the Hebrew language; see Jer 1:11; and is a sure sign of its near approach; so gray hairs, or the hoary head, sometimes appear very soon and unexpected, and are a sure indication of the approach of old age; which Cicero (h) calls "aetas praecipitata",
"age that comes hastily on;''
though the hoary head, like the almond tree, looks very beautiful, and is venerable, especially if found in the way of righteousness, Lev 19:32;
and the grasshopper shall be a burden; meaning either, should a grasshopper, which is very light, leap upon an aged person, it would give him pain, the least burden being uneasy to him; or, should he eat one of these creatures, the locusts being a sort of food in Judea, it would not sit well, on his stomach: or the grasshopper, being a crumpled and lean creature, may describe an old man; his legs and arms emaciated, and his shoulders, back, and lips, crumpled up and bunching out; and the locust of this name has a bunch on its backbone, like a camel (i): Bochart (k) says, that the head of the thigh, or the hip bone, by the Arabians, is called "chagaba", the word here used for a locust or grasshopper; which part of the body is of principal use in walking, and found very troublesome and difficult to move in old men; and Aben Ezra interprets it of the thigh: the almond tree, by the Rabbins, as Jarchi says, is interpreted of the hip bone, which stands out in old age: and the Targum, of this and the preceding clause, is,
"and the top of thy backbone shall bunch out, through leanness, like the almond; and the ankles of thy feet shall be swelled.''
Some, as Ben Melech observes, understand it of the genital member, and of coitus, slighted and rejected, because of the weakness of the body; all desires of that kind being gone, as follows;
and desire shall fail; the appetite, for food, for bodily pleasures, and carnal delights; and particularly for venery, all the parts of the body for such uses being weakened, The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it, "the caper tree shall be dissipated", or "vanish", or "its fruit shall shrink"; so Dr. Smith, who understands it of the decrease of the fluids, as he does the former clause of the solid parts of the body; and the berries of this tree are said to excite both appetite and lust (l): and so Munster (m) interprets the word of the berries of the caper tree;
because man goeth to his long home; the grave, as the Targum, the house appointed for living, where he must lie till the resurrection morn; his eternal house, as Cicero calls it (n); and so it may be rendered here, "the house of the world", common to all the world, where all mankind go: or, "to the house of his world" (o); whether of bliss or woe, according as his state and character be, good or bad: Theognis (p) calls it the dark house of "hades", or the invisible state; and then this must be understood with respect to his separate soul, and the mansion of it; and Alshech says, every righteous man has a mansion to himself; see Joh 14:2;
and the mourners go about the streets; the relations of the deceased; or those that go to their houses to comfort them; or the mourning men and women, hired for that purpose.
(h) Fam. Epist. l. 11. Ep. 58. (i) R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 83. 1. (k) Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 4. c. 8. col. 494. (l) Avicenna spud Schindler. Lexic. col. 10. (m) Dictionar. Chaldaic. p. 13. (n) Tusculan. Quaest. l. 2. prope finem. (o) "ad domum seculi sui", Pagninus. Montanus, Vatablus, Mercerus. (p) v. 1008. vid. v. 244.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Afraid - The passion of fear is observed to…
Afraid - The passion of fear is observed to be most incident to old men. High - When they walk abroad they dread to go up high or steep places. Fears - Lest as they are walking, they should stumble, or fall. The almond-tree - Their heads shall be as full of gray hairs, as the almond-tree is of white flowers. The grasshopper - They cannot endure the least burden, being indeed a burden to themselves. Desire - Of meats, and drinks, and music, and other delights, which are vehemently desired by men in their youth. Goeth - is travelling towards it, and every day nearer to it. Long home - From this place of his pilgrimage into the grave, from whence he must never return into this world, and into the state of the future life, which is unchangeable and everlasting. Mourners - Accompany the corpse thro' the streets to the grave.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 5. When they shall be afraid of that…
Verse 5. When they shall be afraid of that which is high]
10. Being so feeble, they are afraid to trust themselves to ascend steps, stairs, c., without help. And when they look upwards, their heads turn giddy, and they are ready to fall.
Read full note →
11. Fears shall be in the way] They dare not walk out, lest they should meet some danger, which they have not strength to repel, nor agility to escape. A second childishness has taken place-apprehensions, fears, terrors, and weakness.
12. The almond tree shall flourish] ינאץ yenaets, not flourish, but fall off. The hair begins to change, first gray, then white it having no longer that supply of nutritive juices which it once had, this animal vegetable withers and falls off. The almond tree, having white flowers, is a fit emblem of a hoary head; or as Hasselquist says, who observed the tree in full flower in Judea, "like an old man with his white locks."
13. The grasshopper shall be a burden] Even such an inconsiderable thing as a locust, or a very small insect, shall be deemed burdensome, their strength is so exceedingly diminished. In cases of the gout, especially in old men, the shadow of a person passing by puts them to acute pain! How much less can they bear the smallest pressure! But probably the words refer to the man himself, who, bent at the loins, and his arms hanging down, exhibits some caricature of the animal in question. The poor grasshopper has become a burden to himself. Another interpretation has been given of the grasshopper; but I pass it by as impertinent and contemptible; such commentators appear as if they wished to render the text ridiculous.
14. Desire shall fail] Both relish and appetite for food, even the most delicate, that to which they were formerly so much attached, now fails. The teeth are no longer able to masticate the food, or have all dropped out; the stomach no longer able to digest any thing; and, as the body is no longer capable of receiving nourishment, appetite and relish necessarily fail.
15. Because man goeth to his long home] אל בית עולמו el beith olamo, "to the house of his age;" the place destined to receive him, when the whole race or course of life shall be finished; for עולם olam takes in the whole course or duration of a thing; if applied to a dispensation, such as the LAW, it takes in its whole duration; to the life of man, it takes in the whole life; to time, it includes its whole compass; to eternity, it expresses its infinite duration. So old age terminates the olam, the complete duration of human life; and when life is no longer desired, and nutrition ceases, the olam of man is terminated. My old MS. Bible translates it, The hous of his everlastingness.
16. He is just departing into the invisible world; and this is known by the mourners going about the streets, the long hollow groans and throat rattlings which proceed from him; the sure prognostications of the extreme debility and speedy cessation of those essential animal functions next mentioned.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Ecc 12:5. When they shall be afraid, &c. —…
Ecc 12:5. When they shall be afraid, &c. — The passion of fear is observed to be most incident to old men, of which divers reasons may be given. Of that which is high — Of high things, lest they should fall upon them; or of high places, as of going up hills or stairs, which is very irksome to them, because of their weakness, weariness, giddiness, and danger, or dread of falling. And fears shall be in the way — Lest, as they are walking, they should stumble, or fall, or be thrust down, or some infirmity or evil should befall them. And the almond-tree shall flourish — Their heads shall be as full of gray hairs as the almond-tree is of white flowers. And the grasshopper shall be a burden — If it accidentally light upon them. They cannot endure the least burden, being indeed a burden to themselves. And desire shall fail — Of meats, and drinks, and music, and other delights, which are vehemently desired by men in their youth. Because man goeth — Is travelling toward it, and every day nearer to it. To his long home —
From this place of his pilgrimage into the grave, from whence he must never return into this world, and into the state of the future life, which is unchangeable and everlasting. And mourners go about the streets — Accompany the corpse through the streets to the grave.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain High - The powerful and the proud, such persons…
High - The powerful and the proud, such persons as an old man in his timidity might shrink from opposing or meeting: or, high ground which old men would avoid ascending.
Fears ... in the way - Compare Pro 26:13.
Read full note →
The almond tree - The type of old age. Many modern critics translate “The almond shall be despised,” i. e., pleasant food shall no longer be relished.
The grasshopper - Rather: “the locust.” The clause means, heaviness and stiffness shall take the place of that active motion for which the locust is conspicuous.
Desire - literally, the caper-berry; which, eaten as a provocative to appetite, shall fail to take effect on a man whose powers are exhausted.
Long home - literally, “eternal (see Ecc 1:4 note) house;” man’s place in the next world. Without attributing to the author of Ecclesiastes that deep insight into the future life which is shown by the writer of the Epistles to the Corinthians, we may observe that He by whom both writers were inspired sanctions in both books (see 2Co 5:1-6) the use of the same expression “eternal house.” In 2 Corinthians it means that spiritual body which shall be hereafter; and it is placed, as it is here (see Ecc 12:3), in contrast with that earthly dissolving house which clothes the spirit of man in this world.
Mourners - The singing women who attend funerals for hire (see Mat 9:23).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Way. They shall walk bent down, and afraid of…
Way. They shall walk bent down, and afraid of rough ground. --- Flourish. Their head shall become white, like the almond-flower, Jeremias i. 11. --- Fat. Septuagint, "heavy." --- Destroyed. The hair shall fall off. (Calmet) --- Concupiscence shall be extinct. (Vatable) (Tirinus) --- Eternity. The body being consigned to the grave, and the soul to the region of spirits, to have no farther concern with the transactions of the world. (Haydock) (Job vii. 9.) --- Street. This custom is often mentioned. (Herodotus ii. 85.) (Luke vii. 32.) --- The women dance, having one (Calmet) or two old people disfigured in the midst of them, to recount the actions of the deceased. (Brun.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain that which is high--The old are afraid of ascending…
that which is high--The old are afraid of ascending a hill.
fears . . . in the way--Even on the level highway they are full of fears of falling, &c.
Read full note →
almond . . . flourish--In the East the hair is mostly dark. The white head of the old among the dark-haired is like an almond tree, with its white blossoms, among the dark trees around [HOLDEN]. The almond tree flowers on a leafless stock in winter (answering to old age, in which all the powers are dormant), while the other trees are flowerless. GESENIUS takes the Hebrew for flourishes from a different root, casts off; when the old man loses his gray hairs, as the almond tree casts its white flowers.
grasshoppers--the dry, shrivelled, old man, his backbone sticking out, his knees projecting forwards, his arms backwards, his head down, and the apophyses enlarged, is like that insect. Hence arose the fable, that Tithonus in very old age was changed into a grasshopper [PARKHURST]. "The locust raises itself to fly"; the old man about to leave the body is like a locust when it is assuming its winged form, and is about to fly [MAURER].
a burden--namely, to himself.
desire shall fail--satisfaction shall be abolished. For "desire," Vulgate has "the caper tree," provocative of lust; not so well.
long home-- (Job 16:22; Job 17:13).
mourners-- (Jer 9:17-20), hired for the occasion (Mat 9:23).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 5. They — The man himself; expressed in the…
5. They — The man himself; expressed in the plural because his various parts and powers have been personified as so many individuals.
Afraid of the high — In youth the man could look down from the high tower and not be dizzy; he could mount the cliff and not be exhausted. His brain and legs are now too weak; and he dreads all heights. Nay, fears of exposures to accidents, foes, or atmospheric miasms, are in the plain and level way.
Read full note →
The almond tree shall flourish — This “almond tree” has been supposed to refer to the grey hairs of the aged; but the almond does not blossom white but pink coloured. Modern scholars render the words, The almond shall disgust; that is, as an edible, because the toothless old man can no longer masticate it.
The grasshopper (rather locust) shall be a burden — Usually understood as a hyperbole expressive of extreme bodily weakness; the old man can scarce carry a grasshopper. But the locust was an article of food; and the meaning seems to be, that it will be too heavy a burden on the stomach for his digestion.
Desire — The appetites, especially the sexual. But scholars render the phrase, The kappar shall fail to stimulate. The kappar, or caper-sauce, used to rouse the system, shall be ineffective. Tonics, appetizers, and even medicines shall cease to affect the body so nearly lifeless.
Because — All these decays take place “because” man is a fading, dying being.
Goeth — The continuous permanent present to express a permanent continuous fact. Man is ever growing old and going to the grave.
Long home — Literally, his eternal “home,” in contrast with earth, his temporal “home.” Where that “home” is, Ecc_12:7 declares; the dust to the grave and the spirit to God. Yet these are one “home” in eternity; and none the less so because judgment (Ecc_12:14) shall within that “home” change the locality, and unite “dust” and “spirit” in final retribtution. As regularly as the corpse goeth to the grave, the mourners (perhaps in funeral procession) go, or wind, about the streets.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 5. also when they shall be afraid of that…
5. also when they shall be afraid of that which is high] The description becomes more and more enigmatic, possibly, as some have thought, because the special forms of infirmity referred to called for a veil. The first clause, however, is fairly clear if we omit the interpolated “when.” They (the indefinite plural, with the force of the French on) shall be afraid of a height, or hill. The new form of the sentence, the opening words also, indicate that the picture of the storm has been completed, and that symbolism of another kind comes in. We see, as it were, another slide in the magic lantern of the exhibiter. To be “afraid of a hill” expresses not merely or chiefly the failure of strength of limbs to climb mountains, but the temper that, as we say, makes “mountains out of molehills,” which, like the slothful man of Pro_22:13, sees “a lion in the path.” There are “fears in the way.” Imaginary terrors haunt the aged. Here again we have a parallel in Latin poetry:
“Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda; vel quòd
Read full note →
Quærit et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti,
Vel quòd res omnes timidè gelidèque ministrat.”
“Many the troubles that attend the old;
For either still he sets his mind on gains
And dares not touch, and fears to use his gains,
Or deals with all things as with chill of fear.”
Horace, Ep. ad Pis. 169–71.
So Aristotle among the characteristics of age notes that the old are δειλοὶ καὶ πάντα προφοβητικοὶ (timid and in all things forecasting fears) (Rhet. ii. 23). The interpreters who carry the idea of a storm through the whole passage explain the passage: “They (the people of the city) shall be afraid of that which is coming from on high,” i.e. of the gathering storm-clouds, but for the reasons above given, that interpretation seems untenable.
and the almond tree shall flourish] The true meaning is to be found, it is believed, in the significance of the Hebrew name for almond tree (Sheked = the early waking tree, comp. Jer_1:11), and the enigmatic phrase describes the insomnia which often attends old age. The tree that flourishes there is the tree of Vigilantia or Wakefulness. As might be expected, the discordant interpretations of commentators multiply, and we may record, but only in order to reject them, the more notable of these. (1) The almond blossoms represent the white hairs of age. Those blossoms are, however, pink and not white, and few persons would find a likeness in the two objects thus compared. (2) The verb rendered “shall flourish” has been derived from a root with the meaning “to loathe—scorn—reject,” and the sentence has been explained either (2) he (the old man) loathes the almond, i.e. has no taste for dainties, or (3) turns away from the almond tree, i.e. has no welcome for the messenger of spring, or (4), with the same sense as (2), “the almond causes loathing.” Anatomical expositors strain their fancies to find in the almond that which answers to (5) the thigh bone, or (6) the vertebral column, or some other part of the body which age affects with weakness. Into the discussion what part best answers to the almond we need not follow them.
and the grasshopper shall be a burden] The word translated “grasshopper” is one of the many terms used, as in 2Ch_7:13, for insects of the locust class, as in Lev_11:22; Num_13:33; Isa_40:22, where the A. V. has “grasshopper.” It will be noted that in some of these passages (Num_13:33; Isa_40:22) it plays the part of the “mustard seed” of the Gospel parable (Mat_13:31) as the type of that which is the extreme of diminutiveness. And this we can scarcely doubt is its meaning here. “That which is least weighty is a burden to the timidity of age.” Assuming the writer to have come in contact with the forms of Greek life, the words may receive an illustration from its being the common practice of the Athenians to wear a golden grasshopper in their heads as the symbol of their being autochthones, “sprung from the soil.” Such an ornament is to the old man more than he cares to carry, and becomes another symbol of his incapacity to support the least physical or mental burden. As before we note a wide variety of other, but, it is believed, less tenable, explanations. (1) The locust has been looked on as, like the almond, another dainty article of food, which the terror of the storm, or the loss of appetite in age, renders unattractive. Commonly indeed they are said to have been eaten only by the poor, but Aristotle (Hist. Anim. v. 30) names them as a delicacy, and the Arabs are said to consider them as such now (Ginsburg). Entering once more on the region of anatomical exposition we have the grasshopper taken (2) for the bone of the pelvis which becomes sharp and prominent in age, (3) for the stomach which swells with dropsy, (4) for the ankles swelling from the same cause, and so on through various other members.
and desire shall fail] The word translated “desire” is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament, and this rendering rests on a somewhat doubtful etymology. The LXX. version, which may be admitted as shewing in what sense the word was taken at a very early date, and with which the Rabbinic use of the word agrees, gives κάππαρις, which the Vulgate reproduces in capparis, i.e. the caper or Capparis spinosa of botanists. It is in favour of this rendering that it preserves the enigmatic symbolism of the two previous clauses, while “desire” simply gives an abstract unfigurative term, out of harmony with the context. Possibly indeed the name was given to the plant as indicating its qualities as a restorative and stimulant (Plutarch, Sympos.; Athenæus, Deipnos, ix. p. 405). The pickled capers of modern cookery are the buds of the shrub, but the berries and leaves are reputed to possess the same virtues. Hence one of the Epicures in Athenæus (Deipnos. ix. p. 370) takes Νὴ τὸν κάππαριν (By the caper!) as a favourite oath, just as a modern gourmet might swear by some favourite sauce. So understood the meaning of the passage seems fairly clear. The caper-berry shall fall, i.e. shall no longer rouse the flagging appetite of age. There shall be a longa oblivio of what the man had most delighted in. It would seem indeed from the account of the capparis given by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xx. 59) that its medicinal virtues were of a very varied character. It was a remedy for paralysis and diseases of the kidneys and the liver, for tooth-ache and ear-ache, for scrofula and phagedænic ulcers. The words describe accordingly the infirmity which no drugs, however potent, can cure. It is as when Shakespeare says that “poppy and mandragora” shall fail to minister the “sweet sleep” of yesterday, as when we say of a man in the last stage of decrepitude that “no quinine or phosphorus will help him now.” See the Ideal Biography in the Introduction, ch. iii. So understood the Debater speaks with a scorn like that of Euripides (Suppl. 1060) of the attempts of the old to revive their flagging desires and avert the approach of death.
μισῶ δʼ ὅσοι χρῄζουσιν ἐκτείνειν βίον
λουτροῖσι, καὶ στρωμναῖσι καὶ μαγέυμασιν.
“I hate them, those who seek to lengthen life
With baths, and pillows, and quack-doctor’s drugs.”
Substantially most commentators agree in this meaning. The anatomical school, however, identify it, as before, with this or that bodily organ affected by old age, and one writer (Rosenmüller) thinks that the point of comparison is found in the fact that the caper-berry as it ripens, bends the stalk with its weight, and then splits open and lets the seeds fall out.
because man goeth to his long home] Literally, to the house of his eternity, i.e. to his eternal home. The description of the decay of age is followed by that of death as the close of all, and for a time, perhaps to link together the two symbolical descriptions, the language of figurative imagery is dropped. The “eternal home” is, of course, the grave (the phrase is stated by Ginsburg to be in common use among modern Jews), or more probably, Sheol, or Hades, the dwelling-place of the dead. In Tob_3:6, “the everlasting place” seems used of the felicity of Paradise, and it is, at least, obvious that the thought of immortality, though not prominent, is not excluded here. The term Domus æterna appears often on the tombs of Rome in Christian as well as non-Christian inscriptions, probably as equivalent to the “everlasting habitations” of Luk_16:9, and in these cases it clearly connotes more than an “eternal sleep.” An interesting parallel is found in the Assyrian legend of Ishtar, in which Hades is described as the “House of Eternity,” the “House men enter, but cannot depart from; the Road men go to, but cannot return” (Records of the Past, i. 143).
the mourners go about the streets] Literally, in the singular, the street or market-place. The words bring before us the most prominent feature of Eastern funerals. The burial-place was always outside the city, and the body was borne on an open bier through the streets and open places of the city, and the hired mourners, men and women, followed with their wailing cries, praising the virtues, or lamenting the death, of the deceased (2Sa_3:31; Jer_22:10; Jer_22:18; Mar_5:38). Sometimes these were short and simple, like the “Ah brother! Ah, sister! Ah, his glory!” of Jer_22:18. Sometimes they developed into elegiac poems like the lamentations of David over Saul and Jonathan (2Sa_1:17-27), and Abner (2Sa_3:32-34). So we have in the Talmud (quoted by Dukes, Rabbin. Blumenlese, pp. 256, 257) examples such as the following, “The palms wave their heads for the just man who was like a palm”—“If the fire falls upon the cedar what shall the hyssop on the wall do?” It is obvious that such elegies would often take the form of a figurative description of death, and that which follows in the next verse may well have been an echo from some such elegy.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (5) The old man is beset with terrors; terrors…
(5) The old man is beset with terrors; terrors from on high, terrors on the way: all in which he had taken delight before, has charms for him no longer; the almond causes loathing (for so may be translated the word rendered “flourished” in our version); the locust, in the East a favourite article of food, is now burdensome; the caper berry (translated “desire” in our version) fails; for man is going to his everlasting house, &c
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Also when they shall be afraid of that which…
Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high. There is no "when" in the original, which runs, "Also, or yea, they fear on high." "They" are old men, or, like the French on, "people" indefinitely; and the clause says that they find difficulty in mounting an ascent, as the Vulgate renders, Excelsa quoque timebant. Shortness of breath, asthmatic tendencies, failure of muscular power, make such an exertion arduous and burdensome, just as in the previous verse a similar cause rendered singing impossible. The description is now arriving at the last stage, and allegorizing the closing scene. The steep ascent is the via dolorosa, the painful process of dying, from which the natural man shrinks; for as the gnome says
Tou zhn gar oujdeiskwn ejra
Read full note →
None dotes on life more than the aged man.
The old man is going on the appointed road, and fears shall be in the way; or, all sorts of fears (plural of intensity) are in the path; as in his infirm condition tie can walk nowhere without danger of meeting with some accident, so analogously, as he contemplates his end and the road he has to travel, "fearfulness and trembling come upon him, and horror overwhelms him". (Psa_55:5) Plumptre sees in these clauses a further adumbration of the inconveniences of old age, how that the decrepit man makes mountains of mole-hills, is full of imaginary terrors, always forecasting sad events, and so on; but this does not carry on the picture to the end which the poet has now in view, and seems tame and commonplace. The supporters of the storm-theory explain the passage as denoting the fears of the people at what is coming from on high the gathering tempest, these fears extending to those on the highway, which is feeble. And the almond tree shall flourish; or, is in blossom. The old man is thus figured from the observed aspect of this tree. It blossoms in winter upon a leafless stem, and its flowers, at first of a pale pink color, turn to a snowy whiteness as they fall from the branches. The tree thus becomes a fit type of the arid, torpid-looking old man with his white hair. So Wright quotes Virgil, "AEneid," 5:416
Temporibus geminis canebat sparsa senectus;
though there the idea is rather of mingled black and grey hair than of ahead of snowy whiteness. Canon Tristram ("Nat. Hist. of the Bible," p. 332), referring to the usual version of this clause, adds, "But the better interpretation seems to be, that as the almond blossom ushers in the spring, so do the signs referred to in the context indicate the hastening (shaked, "almond," meaning also "hasten") of old age and death." Plumptre adopts the notion that the name of the tree is derived from a stem meaning "to watch, and that thus it may be called the early-waking tree, (see Jer_1:11) the enigmatic phrase describing the wakefulness that often attends old age. But this seems a refinement by no means justified by the use of the word. Others find in the verb the signification "to disdain, loathe," and explain that the old man has lost his taste for almond nuts, which seems to be an unnecessary observation after the previous allusions to his toothless condition, the cracking and eating of such things requiring the grinders to be in perfect order. The versions are unanimous in translating the clause as the Authorized Version. Thus the Septuagint, ajnqhsh togdalon: Vulgate, fiorebit amygdalus. (So Verier. and the Syriac.) Wright takes this clause and the next to indicate the opening of spring, when nature reawakens from its winter sleep, and the dying man can no longer respond to the call or enjoy the happy season. The expositors who adhere to the notion of the storm would translate, "the almond shall be rejected," alluding to fear taking away appetite; but the rendering is faulty. And the grasshopper shall he a burden. Chagab, rendered "grasshopper" here and Lev_11:22; Num_13:33, etc., is rightly translated "locust" in 2Ch_7:15. It is one of the smaller species of the insect, as is implied by its use in Isa_40:22, where from the height of heaven the inhabitants of earth are regarded as chagabim. The clause is usually explained to mean that the very lightest burden is troublesome to old age, or that the hopping and chirping of these insects annoy the querulous senior. But who does not see the incongruity of expressing the disinclination for labor and exertion by the figure of finding a grasshopper too heavy to carry? Who would think of carrying a grasshopper? Plumptre, who discovers Greek allusions in the most unlikely places, sees here an intimation of the writer"s acquaintance with the Athenians" custom of wearing a golden grasshopper on their heads as a token that they were autochthones, "sprung from the soil." Few will be disposed to concur with this opinion. Ginsburg and others consider that Koheleth is regarding the locust as an article of food, which it was and still is in the East (Lev_11:21, Lev_11:22; Mat_3:4) In some places it is esteemed a great delicacy, and is cooked and prepared in a variety of ways. So here the writer is supposed to mean that dainties shall tempt in vain; even the much-esteemed locust shall be loathed. But we cannot imagine this article of food, which indeed was neither general nor at all seasons procurable, being singled out as an appetizing esculent. The solution of the enigma must be sought elsewhere. The Septuagint gives, kaiv: the Vulgate, imping, uabitur locusts, "the locust grows fat. Founded on this rendering is the opinion which considers that under this figure is depicted the corpulence or dropsical swelling that sometimes accompanies advanced life. But this morbid and abnormal condition could not be introduced into a typical description of the usual accompaniments of age, even if the verb could be rightly translated as the Greek and Latin versions give it, which is more than doubtful. Delitzsch, after some Jewish interpreters, considers that under the term "locust" is meant the loins or hips, or caput femoris, which is thus named" because it includes in itself the mechanism which the two-membered foot for springing, placed at an acute angle, presents in the locust." The poet is thought to allude to the loss of elasticity in the hips and the inability to bear any weight. We cannot agree to the propriety of this artificial explanation, which seems to have been invented to account for the expressions in the text, rather than to be founded on fact. But though we reject this elucidation of the figure, we think Delitzsch and some others are right in taking the verb in the sense of "to move heavily, to crawl along." "The locust crawls," i.e. the old man drags his limbs heavily and painfully along, like the locust just hatched in early spring, and as yet not furnished with wings, which makes it8 way clumsily and slowly. The analogy derives another feature from the fact, well attested, that the appearance of the locust was synchronous with the days considered most fatal to old people, namely, the seven at the end of January and the beginning of February. So we now have the figure of the old man with his snow-white hair, panting and gasping, creeping painfully to his grave. One more trait is added. And desire shall fail. The word rendered "desire" (hnwOYbia) is found nowhere else in the Old Testament, and its meaning is disputed. The Authorized Version has adopted the rendering of some of the Jewish commentators (and that of Venet., hJ urexiv), but, according to Delitzsch, the feminine form of the noun precludes the notion of an abstract quality, and the etymology on which it rests is doubtful. Nor would it be likely that, having employed symbolism hitherto throughout his description, the writer would suddenly drop metaphor and speak in unfigurative language. We are, therefore, driven to rely for its meaning on the old versions, which would convey the traditionary idea. The Septuagint gives, hJ kappariv, and so the Vulgate, capparis, by which is designated the caper tree or berry, probably the same as the hyssop, which is found throughout the East, and was extensively used as a provocative of appetite, a stimulant and restorative. Accordingly, the writer is thought here to be intimating that even stimulants, such as the caper, affect the old man no longer, cannot give zest to or make him enjoy his food. Here, again, the figurative is dropped, and a literal, unvarnished fact is stated, which mars the perfection of the picture. But the verb here used (parar) is capable of another signification, and is often found in the unmetaphorical sense of "breaking" or "bursting;" so the clause will run, "and the caper berry bursts." Septuagint, kaippariv: Vulgate, dissipabitur capparis. The fruit of this plant, when overripe, bursts open and falls off a fit image of the dissolution of the aged frame, now ripe for the tomb, and showing evident tokens of decay. By this interpretation the symbolism is maintained, which perhaps is further illustrated by the fact that the fruit hangs down and droops from the end of long stalks, as the man bows his head and stoops his back to meet the coming death. Because (ki) man goeth to his long home. This and the following clause are parenthetical, ver. 6 resuming the allegory. It is as though Koheleth said Such is the way, such are the symptoms, when decay and death are approaching; all these things happen, all these signs meet the eye, at such & period. "His long home;" eijv oi+kon aijwnov aujtou (Septuagint), "to the house of his eternity," "his everlasting habitation," i.e. the grave, or Hades. There is a similar expression in RAPC Tob 3:6, eijv tonion topon, which in the Hebrew editions of that book is given as, "Gather me to my father, to the house appointed for all living," with which Canon Churton ( in lot.) compares Job_10:21 Job_30:23. So, Psa_49:11 (according to many versions) "Their graves are their houses for ever." The skhnainioidioi Luk_16:9 are a periphrasis for life in heaven. Diodorus Siculus notes that the Egyptians used the terms aji oikoi, and hJ aijwniov oiksiv of Hades (2. 51; 1. 93). The expression, "domus eterna," appears at Rome on tombs, as Plumptre observes, both in Christian and non-Christian inscriptions; and the Assyrians name the world or state beyond the grave "the house of eternity" ("Records of the Past," 1:143). From the expression in the text nothing can be deduced concerning Koheleth"s eschatological views. He is speaking here merely phenomenally. Men live their little span upon the earth, and then go to what in comparison of this is an eternity. Much of the difficulty about aijwniov, etc., would be obviated if critics would remember that the meaning of such words is conditioned by the context, that e.g. "everlasting" applied to a mountain and to God cannot be understood in the same, sense. And the mourners go about the streets. This can hardly mean that the usual funeral rites have begun; for the death is not conceived as having already taken place; this is reserved for ver. 7. Nor can it, therefore, refer to the relations and friends who are sorrowing for the departed. The persons spoken of must be the mourners who are hired to play and sing at funerals. (see 2Sa_3:31; Jer_9:17 Jer_34:5; Mat_9:23) These were getting ready to ply their trade, expecting hourly the old man"s death. So the Romans had their praeficae, and persons "qui conducti plorant in funere" (Horace, "Ars Poet.," 431).
Vers. 5-7.
Death, its meaning and its moral.
Whatever be the true interpretation of the three preceding verses, there is no doubt at all as to the Preacher"s meaning in the text; he has death in his view, and he suggests to us
I ITS CERTAINTY. Childhood must pass into youth, and youth into prime, and prime into old age into the days which are bereaved of pleasure (ver. 1); and old age must end in death. Of all the tableaux which human life presents to us, the last one is that of "the mourners going about the streets." Other evils may be shunned by sedulous care and unusual sagacity, but death is the evil which no man may avoid.
II ITS MEANING. What does death mean when it comes?
1. It means a shock to those that are left behind. The mourners in the street express in their way the sadness which is afflicting the hearts of those who weep within the walls. Here and there a death occurs which disturbs no peace and troubles no heart. But almost always it comes with a shock and an inward inexpressible pain to those who are bereaved. Even in old age the hearts of near kindred and dear friends are troubled with a keen and real distress.
2. It means separation. Man "goes to his long home." They who are left go to their darkened home, and he who is taken goes to his long home, to dwell apart and alone, to revisit no more the familiar places, and look no more into the faces of his friends. They and he henceforth must dwell apart; the grave is always a very long distance from the old home.
3. It means loss. The loss of the beautiful or the useful, or of both together. "Our life may have been like a golden lamp suspended by silver chains, fit for the palace of a king, and- may have shed a welcome and a cheerful light on every side; but even the durable costly chain will be snapped at last, and the beautiful "bowl be broken." Our life may have been like "the bucket" dropped by village maidens into the village fountain, or like the " wheel" by which water is drawn from the village well, it may have conveyed a vital refreshment to many lips; but the day must come when the bucket will be shattered on the marble edge of the fountain, and the timeworn wheel drop into the well" (Cox). The most beautiful life vanishes from our sight; the most useful life is taken away.
4. It means dissolution. "The dust shall return to the earth as it was." Our body, however fair and strong it may be, however trained, clothed, adorned, admired, must return to "dust and ashes," must be resolved into the elements from which it was constructed.
5. It means departure. "The spirit shall return unto God who gave it." This is by far the most solemn view of death. At death we "return to God". (see Psa_90:3) Not, indeed, that we are ever far from him. (see Psa_139:3-5) We stand and live in his very near presence. Yet does there come an hour the hour of death when we shall consciously stand before our Divine Judge, and when we shall learn from him "our high estate" or our lasting doom. (2Co_5:10) Death means departure from the sphere of the visible and tangible into the close and conscious presence of the eternal God.
III ITS MORAL. The one great lesson which stands out from this eloquent description is this: Be the servant of God always; take care to know him and to serve him at the end, by learning of him at the beginning, and serving him throughout your life. Remember your Creater in youth, and he will acknowledge you when old age is lost in death, and death has introduced you to the judgment-scene. Happy is that human soul that has drawn into itself Divine truth with its earliest intelligence, and that has ordered its life by the Divine will from first to last; for then shall the end of earth be full of peace and hope, and the beginning of eternity be full of joy and of glory. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The almond-tree shall flourish.
Ecc_12:5
The almond-tree shall flourish.
Read full note →
The almond-tree in blossom
In January, Palestine is adorned with the blossoming of the almond-tree. It breathes its life into that winter month as a promise of God sometimes lightens up and sweetens the coldness and desolation of a sorrowing spirit. When the almond-tree was in full bloom, it must have looked like some tree before our window on a winters morning, after a nightfall of snow, when its brightness is almost insufferable, every stem a white and feathery plume. Now you are ready to see the meaning of the text. Solomon was giving a full-length portrait of an aged man. By striking figures of speech, he sets forth his trembling and decrepitude, and then comes to describe the whiteness of his locks by the blossoming of the almond tree. It is the master-touch of the picture, for I see in that one sentence not only the appearance of the hair, but an announcement of the beauty of old age. The white locks of a bad man are but the gathered frosts of the second death, but a hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness. There may be no colour in the cheek, no lustre in the eye, no spring in the step, no firmness in the voice, and yet around the head of every old man whose life has been upright and Christian there hovers a glory brighter than ever shook in the white tops of the almond-tree. If the voice quiver, it is because God is changing it into a tone fit for the celestial choral. If the hand tremble, it is because God is unloosing it from worldly disappointments to clasp it on ringing harp and waving palm. If the hair has turned, it is only the grey light of heavens dawn streaming through the scant locks. The falling of this aged Christians staff will be the signal for the heavenly gate to swing open. The scattering of the almond blossoms will only discover the setting of the fruit. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Because man goeth to his long home.--
Mans long home
Man is on his way to a long home: his lot in his long home will be determined by the manner in which he walks that homeward way; therefore, in his homeward walk he ought to remember his Creator in the days of his youth, and to fear God all his life long. It might be made to run thus: Live wisely that you may die happily. Live obediently unto God in this world that you may live joyfully with God in the next world.
I. The home-going. Man goeth home. He does not enter it by a sudden leap or bound, but he is, as on a journey, continuously progressing nearer and nearer to it. This is life--a constant home-going. There are what we may call years of preparation for the conscious start. When the infant first breathes these mortal airs; when the child is growing in stature and developing in mind and soul, scarcely thinking, or even knowing that, right on before, there lies an eternal destiny; and when the youth is just catching the faint glimmerings of consciousness as to duty and responsibility, and the need for heroic spiritual efforts--then is the time of a silent equipment, physically and morally, for entering on the hard, rough way of the homeward journey. And only at its close is the thought borne in on the soul that life is not to be considered as an automatic, purposeless thing, but is a well-marked and controllable progression which ends somewhere in a long home. When that thought is first clearly and earnestly realized by a boy or girl, then the real conscious start in the home-going is made. It usually happens, if not earlier, when the young people are in their teens. They can, at the very outset, if only they will, bound forward and gain splendid spiritual lengths. They have ardent affections, they have burning enthusiasms, which can go out untrammelled to what is highest and best. They have not yet entangled themselves with evil habits which have to be sternly battled with before they can be flung off. They have not yet come under the burden of lifes many cares, which sometimes make the feet heavy and slow in the heavenward way. Are your eyes dimmer, or your ears duller, or your limbs feebler, or your appetites blunter, or your hair whiter and scantier, or your soul less enthusiastic than in other days? Then, these are the Divine monitors telling that you are not to be always here--that, in your progressive home-going, you are fast ripening for the final exit.
II. The long home. Man goeth to his long home, or, as the Hebrew has it, to his house of eternity. Used by other and earlier writers, this may have been only a synonym for the grave; but more than this was meant by the writer of our text, for in Ecc_12:7 he speaks of the dust returning to the dust as it was, and the spirit returning to God who gave it. So the long home in his mind was, for the body the grave, and for the spirit an existence within the veil. May we not, therefore, think of mans long home as having an outer and an inner court? The outer court is the grave. That is the long home to which our bodies are daily, hourly, going--our poor bodies, which we deck and pamper, and on which we bestow such thought and care. The inner court is within the veil. And back from it, when the spirit enters, there is no returning to these earthly scenes. It is our house of eternity--an eternal home. About that unseen world we know so little that it is not wise to say much.
III. The mourners left behind. When a man enters the long bright home, he receives the Welcome home! of the Saviour and of all the blessed. But his home-going throws a shadow on the earth: it causes an aching void, a bitter lamentation. The mourners go about the street. Rather since they have gone to join in the song of them that feast, ought we not to strive to catch the blessed infection of their celestial joy, and put on festal robes, and sing hymns of triumph over their departure? This is what we would do were the Christian hope and faith sure and strong within us. This is what we are asked to do. Listen, my mourning friends, listen! Your Saviour speaks to you, and says, Your loved ones have but come to their bright long home with Me. Then why make ye this ado, and weep? (T. Young, B. D.)
The eternal house
By some scholars long home is translated enduring house, or perpetual house. It seems to them that the writer looked upon earth as the embodiment of the perishable, and that beyond the earth man passes into the unchangeable. This world is the place where silver cords are loosed; and golden bowls broken, and where the mourners go about the streets; beyond this all these dissolving views cease, and the spirit dwells amid the eternal. Its house is for ever, its love is for ever, its life is like that of God. I shall ask you to think upon this idea of an eternal house for man. Now that science is indirectly assailing this future house--assailing it by placing man among the mere productions of Nature, among the plants and the fishes and the birds--it becomes us all to place as against such a form of science the longings of the mind, and to find in the souls yearnings an antidote to the coldness of materialism. We must array spirit against dust. All that materialism rests upon is an analogy: the tree dies, the insect dies, the bird and the fish die, and therefore man dies and becomes nothing. But spiritualism can summon as good an analogy. It can say God lives. He passes on from age to age, and hence man passes onward parallel with this Maker. This argument assumes only the existence of a God. With that datum all becomes easy, for man sustains a closer resemblance to Deity than to the tree, the bird, the fish. He is an image of God, and hence analogy places man in the Divine class rather than in the mundane class, and makes man a partaker of the long being of Deity rather than of the short career of the vegetable or brute world. The analogy of man and God is as rational as the analogy of man and dust. All we need do in order to escape the annihilation inferred from material philosophy is to place man in the category of spirit, and then claim for him a parallelism with Deity. We shall not, however, argue the question of immortality. We design only to ask our hearts to ponder upon the idea of the eternal house of man, and see how grand it is, and what a bracing atmosphere surrounds it. No one carrying such a mind and soul as man is endowed with has any right to move along through these formative years without enveloping himself in the best possible atmosphere of truth, or of dream at least, if positive truth refuse to come. As invalids flee from low, damp valleys to climb up into mountain air, that their blood may find pure nutriment and flow with new life, so the soul and intellect born into the valley of ignorance should fly from the miasma, and seek mountain heights of belief and hope. There is no one reflection which has so commended the eternal house to me as the thought that this house is transient--painfully, almost unjustly transient. The children of earth are so pitilessly swept away into the tomb, with all their friendships and studies and arts and happiness and longings, that we are plunged into deep wonderment whether there is a God of love and wisdom all around this earth, as close as its atmosphere, and warm as the tropic sunshine. To preserve to us the idea of God comes this idea of the perpetual house, an idea born out of the tears of earth, as a rose out of rain. Almost all that is valuable in this world lies back of its present living souls. The heroes that live are but a handful to the heroes that are gone. All the arts we now enjoy are the fruits of intellects and souls that have gone away. Our state was purchased for us by hands that have dissolved into dust. All the ministers of religion now living are not equal in power to the one Christ who died at Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago. What has become of this sublime past--this past whose temples of law and art and worship are crumbling by the Nile, and by the great sea, and by the Tiber, and are covered with old ivy in England? There is but one answer worthy of our minds or our hearts: and that is, that this impressive human race has been called not to oblivion, but to its Eternal House. These phenomena of earth, this great past display of intellect and love and learning and wisdom and morals, belong not to the realm of material, but to the realm of the Divine; and hence, as God reaches over ages, and is not subject to decay and annihilation, so He draws His children along after Him to His perpetual mansion. This is the only solution of mans being that does not make reason and morals and education and hope all unmeaning terms, and does not make the human soul a sounding brass full of noise without music. The words of the text, eternal house, not only recall to mind a lost past to be provided for, but they awaken in our mind thoughts about the future. Our earth will some time cease to be habitable by man. As its geologic forms show that it did once at least become uninhabitable, and by perhaps some sudden extinguishment of the sun did become a globe of ice such that the great mammals were frozen to death as they stood; and as at some other epoch this same little globe did all melt and become liquid as a globule of molten iron, so again in the coming centuries it will cease, suddenly or slowly, to be the home of man, and nowhere upon its whole surface will there remain even a Selkirk for its deep solitude. It must be that from a star of such vicissitudes, from a star where death comes in a few years to all, and where it came in thirty-three years to such a being as Jesus Christ, and from which one hundred and fifty times all the dear hearts upon it have been swept away, the Creator is transferring these ephemeral myriads to a more lasting home. There must be, somewhere, a perpetual house, into which we shall all fall when the earthly house of this tabernacle shall be dissolved. (D. Swing.)
On death
I. Consider the death of indifferent persons; if any can be called indifferent to whom we are so nearly allied as brethren by nature, and brethren in mortality. When we observe the funerals that pass along the streets, or when we walk along the monuments of death, the first thing that naturally strikes us is the undistinguishing blow with which that common enemy levels all. One day, we see carried along the coffin of the smiling infant; the flower just nipped as it began to blossom in the parents view; and the next day, we behold a young man, or young woman, of blooming form and promising hopes, laid in an untimely grave. While the funeral is attended by a numerous, unconcerned company, who are discoursing to one another about the news of the day, or the ordinary affairs of life, let our thoughts rather follow to the house of mourning, and represent to themselves what is going on there. There, we should see a disconsolats family, sitting in silent grief, thinking of the sad breach that is made in their little society; and, with tears in their eyes, looking to the chamber that is now left vacant, and to every memorial that presents itself of their departed friend. By such attention to the woes of others, the selfish hardness of our hearts will be gradually softened, and melted down into humanity.
II. Consider the death of our friends. Then, indeed, is the time to weep. Let not; a false idea of fortitude, or mistaken conceptions of religious duty, be employed to restrain the bursting emotion. Let the heart seek its relief in the free effusion of just and natural sorrow. It is becoming in every one to show, on such occasions, that he feels as a man ought to feel. At the same time, let moderation temper the grief of a good man and a Christian. He must not sorrow like those who have no hope. They whom we have loved still live, though not present to us. They are only removed into a different mansion in the house of the common Father. In due time, we hope to be associated with them in these blissful habitations. Until this season of reunion arrive, no principle of religion discourages our holding correspondence of affection with them by means of faith and hope. Meanwhile, let us respect the virtues and cherish the memory of the deceased. Let their little failings be now forgotten. Let us dwell on what was amiable in their character, imitate their worth, and trace their steps. Moreover, let the remembrance of the friends whom we have lest strengthen our affection to those that remain. The narrower the circle becomes of those we love, let us draw the closer together. But they are not only our friends who die. Our enemies also must go to their long home.
III. Consider how we ought to be affected, when they from whom suspicions have alienated, or rivalry has divided us; they with whom we have long contended, or by whom we imagine ourselves to have suffered wrong, are laid, or about to be laid, in the grave. How inconsiderable then appear those broils in which we have been long involved, those contests and feuds which we thought were to last for ever! The awful moment that now terminals them makes us feel their vanity. Let the anticipation of such sentiments serve now to correct the inveteracy of prejudice, to cool the heat of anger, to allay the fierceness of resentment. When a few suns more have rolled over our heads, friends and foes shall have retreated together; and their love and their hatred be equally buried. Let our few days, then, be spent in peace. While we are all journeying onwards to death, let us rather bear one anothers burdens, than harass one another by the way. Let us smooth and cheer the road as much as we can, rather than fill the valley of our pilgrimage with the hateful monuments of our contention and strife. (H. Blair, D. D.)
Our long home
I. Examine the term applied here to describe the grave--the long home. We are not to look down into the earth, but up at the skies. Above the grave we may discern the glory.
II. What an added and intensified interest belongs to those whom we have known when they pass away from us into the long home, thus equipped.
1. There was the process of the spirit disentangling itself from the body.
2. There was the new consciousness of the spirit, freed from the limitations of the flesh, and really entering the new world.
3. As we think upon the long home we cannot but remember that we too must finish with this world and die.
4. We, toe, must be judged, our conduct and character will be examined by the Infallible Judge.
5. We, too, must prepare. We may well consider whether the preparation is really made, and whether it is continually enlarged and perfected. (Alfred Norris.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
The writer continues his metaphor. (See: Metaphor)
Read full note →
when the almond tree blossoms
The "almond tree" is a tree that blossoms in the winter with white flowers. (See: Translate Unknowns)
when grasshoppers drag themselves along
A grasshopper is a large, straight-winged insect with long, jointed back legs that give it the ability to jump a long way. Here it can only drag itself because it has gotten old and weak. (See: Translate Unknowns)
when natural desires fail
The abstract noun "desires" can be stated as a verb. AT: "when people no longer desire what they once did naturally" (See: Abstract Nouns)
Then man goes to his eternal home
This refers to death. AT: "Then man goes to the place of the dead forever" or "Then a person dies and never returns to life" (See: Euphemism)
the mourners go down the streets
Possible meanings are 1) that mourners go down the streets to attend a funeral, or 2) that mourners go down the streets to the house of the person who is about to die.
translationWords
fear
eternity
mourn
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 12:5 The caperberry was well known in the ancient…
12:5 The caperberry was well known in the ancient Near East as an aphrodisiac.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.