ECCLESIASTES 12:1-7

Fox rightly states, “Eccles 12:1-8 is the most difficult passage in a difficult book...The nature of 12:2-5 in particular has been debated at length.” As B.C. Davis says, “The uncertainties in these images...result in a general lack of agreement among scholars regarding how best to depict each individual image.”

And there are actually several interrelated issues to sort out here:
    (a) the general type of language being employed in this passage (literal, poetry, metaphor, allegory, or Fox's category of “phenomenon figuration”),
    (b) the physical picture being portrayed (a thunder-storm, the deterioration of a house, a funeral),       
    (c) and the reality behind the images (death, old age, Last Judgment). 

Thus, those who agree on one of these three categories may not necessarily agree on the other two. For example, these verses may be filled with figurative imagery describing old age and death, but they can also fit the events of the last days with the heavenly bodies darkened, all work ceasing, birds of prey descending, and everyone being afraid and shutting their doors. But the same could be said of the fear coming with a powerful storm. Since it is impossible to isolate each of these three aspects of the passage, it is probably best to just roughly group scholarly comments according to approximate agreement with one another.

Anatomical View
Ellul states, “Obviously, we have here a poem on old age and the end of life as it moves toward death.”
Those commentators who take this approach to the passage (and they are in the majority) generally feel that it represents the physiological changes accompanying old age and eventual death: failing eyesight (v. 2a), depression (v. 2b), arms, legs, teeth and eyes fail (v. 3), fear, insomnia, poor hearing (v. 4), difficulty walking in the road without fear of falling (v. 5a), the white blossom stands for white hair, grasshopper refers to loss of sexual desire and caper refers to appetite-stimulant (v. 5b and c), professional mourners gather outside the house looking for employment even before the person is dead (vv. 5e-6a), and various metaphors for death in vv. 6-7. 

There are even possible distinctions between different types of death pictured in these last verses: cord (or lamp stand) and bowl describe a lamp for a rich person, the pitcher denotes one who is fragile late in life (alternatively, it may refer to the Middle East funeral custom of breaking a piece of pottery and putting the shards in the grave to symbolize “dust to dust”), and the wheel and cistern denote a poor working person still active in life.

Longman feels the women looking out the window “look out of the window, perhaps at the approaching storm described in v. 2...On a symbolic level, Qohelet thus describes the deterioration of old age.”

Seow: “With poetic exaggeration, the author depicts the end of human life in terms of the end of the world...In short, nature languishes (Am 1.2; Joel 2.12; Hab 3.17), as humanity marches toward the grave, 'their eternal home,' and an imaginary funeral takes place.”

“Verses 2-5 include a series of metaphors that reveal that the signs forewarning old age are no longer mere warnings; they have become realities.” (B.C. Davis)

A Threatened House
Whybray holds to this view but says, “Those who look through the windows are probably the ladies of the house who peer through lattices to avoid being seen by men in the street. The verbs, however, do not entirely fit the imagery of the threatened house: it is not clear...what is meant by saying that the ladies of the house are dimmed or darkened [v. 3].”

The Day of Judgment
Seow calls this passage “an allusion to the day of judgment (Mal. 3:1-3). Even the strong and valiant are terrified of what is happening. The women who work the mills suddenly stop work (a motif also found in apocalyptic passages in the New Testament; Mt 24:40-41; Lk 17:34-35). Women look out the windows in despair (cf. Judg 5:28). The domestic routines are interrupted.”

Allegorical View
Although the Anatomical View may fall under this category according to some, I am instead referring to the many popular and fanciful interpretations which arose in both Jewish and Christian circles centuries ago. They are really not worth repeating, and I would have to agree with Jacques Ellul, who states, “I feel that this approach leads us down the wrong path.”

The Effect of Death on a Household
Surprisingly, there seems to be an increasing number of commentators who take the position that this whole passage has nothing to do with the signs of old age being figuratively portrayed. Instead, they feel that it is a literal description of what happened to those in a house who have just witnessed a death in their midst. My personal opinion is that this is a totally unjustified interpretation, but I will give my rebuttal after letting the proponents of this view first have their say:

    Leahy: “I believe in Ecclesiastes 12:2-5 the inspired writer uses the imagery of a thunderstorm with the object of setting forth the fear, melancholy and desolation which grip a household upon which death has cast its shadow.”

    Fox says, “The scene does not represent the experience of dying and death but rather other people's response to a death...On behalf of the interpretation of 12:2-5 as depicting a funeral, we may consider that although Qohelet does urge enjoyment of life during one's youth, he does not show an obsession with physical decrepitude that would make him likely to conclude his teaching with a long threnody on the ailments of aging. He does, on the other hand, reveal an obsession with death, and his gaze most naturally returns us to that subject as he brings his teachings to a close...Nevertheless, many gaps remain, and not all details accommodate themselves to the funeral-scene interpretation.”

    Taylor feels that v. 2 “is clearly figurative” but that the remainder of the passage is clearly literal and thus has an advantage over the anatomical rendering. “It is remarkable that the latter should so long have held its ground in spite of its grotesque repulsiveness and defiance of analogy, when the mention of the mourners who go about in the street suggests with utmost plainness that the preceding verses are of the nature of a literal dirge.”

For my part, I am amazed that Taylor can so stridently and confidently assert his position when it is an extremely weak one. Here are some possible rebuttals to this final position:

    It is obvious that death has not yet taken place before verse 5b, as several renderings of this passage reveal –
        “For a man is on the way to his long-lasting home. And the mourners gather in the street (waiting) – until the silver cord be cut, etc.” (Anchor Bible)
        “Yes, you're well on your way to eternal rest, while your friends make plans for your funeral.” (The Message)
        “We are going to our final resting place, and then there will be mourning in the streets. The silver chain will snap, etc.” (TEV)
        “Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets.” (NIV)

    I have no objection to saying, as do most commentators, that the last part of verse 5 appears to describe literally a group of mourners standing around waiting for an expected death so that they can begin their assigned duties, but that is totally different from stating that the previous verses describe the reactions of those in the house who have already experienced death in their midst.     

    And to state that because that one half-verse may be taken literally dictates that the rest of verses 2-7 must also be literal is pure nonsense. One only has to consider that (1) even Taylor states that the whole passage begins with a figurative statement and (2) he doesn't even bother explaining how the dragging grasshopper in v. 5 or the images of death in verse 6 can possibly be taken literally. I will give Fox, however, partial credit for pointing out that not all the verses can be easily made to fit the literal interpretation. 

    From a literary viewpoint, note the two places in the text where the author councils the audience when to remember your creator. The first one appears in v. 1 where we are told to do this “before the days of trouble come.” Those are then described as the aging years of life in 1b-5a. But we should also do this “before the silver cord is snapped, etc.” in 6-7. And these latter images all refer to our actual death. Sandwiched between these two extended figurative passages comes the “problem” passage of 5b which is given in literal language so as to clearly separate the respective descriptions of aging and death.

    Almost all commentators label Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 as a poem or song, either biblical category always characterized by its heavy use of figurative language. Simply labeling the images in this passage as grotesque will not so easily get rid of that hard fact. Most of those verses are even more grotesque if considered to be literal. What in the world is a grasshopper doing at a wake or funeral?

    Finally, an author does not need to have “an obsession” with the aging process in order to include a few verses describing it somewhere in his composition. That is especially true when even Fox admits that death itself is a subject of utmost importance to the Teacher, and that is certainly what is being described in verses 6-7 which end the extended song. 

    In addition, consider another poem in the book, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. It deals equally with things associated with life and those with death, and how we are to occupy our time throughout the span of our existence. One could almost consider 12:1-7 as an appropriate addendum to that passage.

    There is another contextual consideration to take into account. Scott actually begins this passage at Ecclesiastes 11:7. With that approach, one can view 11:7-10 as parallel to 12:1-7. That earlier section begins and ends with the repeated reference to “vanity” (11:8, 0). Similarly, there is a closing reference to “vanity in 12:8. In both halves, we are admonished to enjoy all the years of your life and the light of the sun even if you live to old age and to put away anxiety and pain from your body while not forgetting God and his eventual judgment (11:7,8,9,10;12:1,2,5,7).