Ecclesiastes 12:3

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble,.... By the "house" is meant the human body; which is a house of clay, the earthly house of our tabernacle, in which the soul dwells, Job 4:19 2 Corinthians 5:1.

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,

The keepers of the house, i.e. of the body, which is oft and fitly compared to a house, as ; whose keepers here are either, 1. The ribs and bones into which they are fastened, which are the guardians of the inward and vital parts, which also are much weakened and shaken by old age. Or rather, 2. The hands and arms, which are man’ s best instruments to defend his body from the assaults of men or beasts, and which in a special manner are subject to this trembling, by paralytical or other like distempers, that are most incident to old men. The strong men; either the back, or the thighs and legs, in which the main strength of the body doth consist, which in old men are very feeble, and unable both for the support of the body and for motion. The grinders; the teeth, those especially which are commonly so called, because they grind the meat which we eat. Cease, to wit, to perform their office, because they are few, Heb. because they are diminished, either, 1. In strength. Or, 2. In number; being here one, and there another, and not united together, and one directly against another, and consequently unfit for their work. Those that look out of the windows; the eyes. By windows he understands either, 1. The holes in which the eyes are fixed, . Or, 2. The eye-lids, which, like windows, are either opened or shut. Or, 3. Those humours and coats of the eyes noted by anatomists, which are the chief instruments by which the eye sees.

Ecclesiastes 12:3 In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,Ver. 3. In the day when the keepers of the house, &c., ] i.e., The hands and arms, wherewith we defend the head and whole body - called a house also by St Paul - from harm and danger, and maintain our lives; which are therefore called the "lives of our hands," because upheld with the labour of our hands. These are fitly called keepers or guardians for their usefulness, and for their faithfulness too. Numa Pompilius consecrated the hands to faith; his successor, Tallus Hostilius, being a profane, perfidious person, and a condemner of all religion, as that which did but emasculate men’ s minds, and make them idle, brought in and worshipped two new gods, viz., Paver and Pallor - Fear and Paleness. Like another Cain, "Sighing and trembling he was upon the earth," so the Septuagint renders that,. Not his hands only trembled, which is thought to be Cain’ s mark, but his heart too. Not with old age either, as here, but with the terrors of an evil conscience. But to return to the text. Old men are full of the palsy for the most part, and many other infirmities, which here are most elegantly described by a continued allegory. Men draw forth as lively as they can the pictures of their young age, that in old age they may see their youth before their eyes. This is but a vanity, yet may good use be made thereof. So contrarily the Preacher here draws out to the life the picture of old age, that young men may see and consider it together with death that follows it, and "after death, judgment." And the strong men shall bow themselves.] Nutabunt: the legs and thighs shall stagger and falter, cripple and crinkle under them, as not able to bear the body’ s burden. The thigh in Latin is called femur, a ferendo, because it beareth and holdeth up the creature, and hath the longest and strongest bone in the whole body. The leg hath a shinbone and a shankbone, aptly fitted for the better moving. The foot is the base, the ground and pedestal which sustaineth the whole building. These are Solomen’ s "strong men"; but as strong as they are, yet in old age they buckle under their burden, and are ready to overthrow themselves and the whole body. Hence old men are glad to betake them to their third leg, a staff or crutch; Membra levant baculis tardique senilibus annis. Hence Hesiod calls them τριποδας.

(3) In this verse we have a description of an afflicted and affrighted house: the servants below (keepers of the house; comp. 2 Samuel 20:3) in consternation [the word for “tremble” occurs twice more in Biblical Hebrew (Esther 5:9; Habakkuk 2:7), but is common in Aramæan]; the masters (men of might, translated “able men “Exodus 18:21; Exodus 18:25; comp. “mighty in power,” Job 21:7) in equal distress; so also the grinding maids below, discontinuing their work (Exodus 11:5; Isaiah 47:1-2); the ladies, who look out at the lattices (Judges 5:8; 2 Samuel 5:16; Proverbs 7:6; 2 Kings 9:30), forced to withdraw. (For the four classes, comp. Isaiah 24:2; Psalms 132:2.) Expositors have generally understood the house here described as denoting the decaying body of the old man. To the English reader the “grinders” of our version suggest “teeth” in a way that the “grinding maidens” of the Hebrew does not; and the ladies looking out of the lattices can easily be understood of “the eyes.” But when it is attempted to carry out the figure, and to find anatomical explanations of all the other images employed, the interpretation becomes so forced that some have preferred to understand Ecclesiastes 12:3 as only a general description of the consternation produced by such a tempest as is spoken of in Ecclesiastes 12:2. I cannot but think that the “house” does denote the bodily frame; but I regard as unsuccessful the attempts which have been made to carry out this idea into its details.

Verse 3. In the day when the keepers of the house] The BODY of man is here compared to a HOUSE: - mark the metaphors and their propriety. 1. The keepers shall tremble - the hands become paralytic, as is constantly the case, less or more, in old age. 2. The strong men shall bow] The legs become feeble, and unable to support the weight of the body. 3. The grinders cease because they are few] The teeth decayed and mostly lost; the few that remain being incapable of properly masticating hard substances or animal food. And so they cease; for soft or pulpy substances, which are requisite then, require little or no mastication; and these aliments become their ordinary food. 4. Those that look out of the windows] The optic nerves, which receive impressions, through the medium of the different humours of the eye, from surrounding objects - they are darkened; the humours becoming thick, flat, and turbid, they are no longer capable of transmitting those images in that clear, distinct manner, as formerly. There may be an allusion here to the pupil of the eye. Look into it, and you will see your own image in extreme minature looking out upon you; and hence it has its name pupillus, a little child, from pupus, a baby, a doll; because the image in the eye resembles such. The optic nerve being seated at the bottom of the eye, has the images of surrounding objects painted upon it; it looks out through the different humors. The different membranes and humours which compose the eye, and serve for vision, are, the tunica conjunctiva, the tunica sclerotica, the cornea, the iris, the pupil, the choroides, and the retina. The iris is perforated to admit the rays of light, and is called the pupil; the retina is a diffusion of the optic nerve in the bottom of the eye, on which the images are painted or impressed that give us the sensation we term sight or vision. All these membranes, humours, and nerves, are more or less impaired, thickened, or rendered opaque, by old age, expressed by the metaphor, "Those that look out of the windows are darkened."

3. in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble] Here, as before, there is a vivid picture which is also an allegory. The words represent (1) the effect of terror, such as that produced by tempest, or by earthquake, in the population of the city; and (2) the fact which corresponds to these in the breaking up of life. As in the previous verse the phenomena of the firmament answered to those of the higher region of man’s nature, so these represent the changes that pass over the parts of his bodily structure. Here accordingly the mode of interpretation which was rejected before becomes admissible. The error of the allegorizers was that they had not the discernment to see that the decay of mental powers would naturally take precedence of that of the bodily organs and that they would as naturally be symbolized by sun, moon and stars. The “keepers” or “watchers” of the houses are in the picture those who stand at the gate as sentinels or go round about the house to see that there are none approaching with the intention to attack. In the allegory they represent the legs which support the frame at rest or give it the power of movement. The trembling is that of the unsteady gait of age, perhaps even of paralysis. Not a few features in the picture seem to indicate experience rather than observation, and this fits in with the thought, suggested in the Ideal Biography (Introduction, ch. iii)., of a form of creeping paralysis depriving one organ after another of its functional activity yet leaving the brain free to note the gradual decay of the whole organism. and the strong men shall bow themselves] As the previous clause painted the effect of terror on the slave sentinels of the house, so this represents its action on the men of might, the wealthy and the noble. They too cower in their panic before the advancing storm. Interpreting the parable, they are the symbol of the arms as man’s great instrument of action. They too, once strong to wield sword, or axe, to drive plough, or pen, become flaccid and feeble. The “hands that hang down” (Job 4:3-4; Isaiah 35:3; Hebrews 12:12) become the proverbial type of weakness as well as the “feeble knees.” It should be added that the allegorizing commentators for the most part invert the order of interpretation which has been here adopted, finding the arms in the “keepers” and the legs in the “strong man.” Something may, of course, be said for this view, but the balance of probabilities turns in favour of that here adopted. and the grinders cease because they are few] Both this noun and “they that look out” are in the feminine, and this determines their position in the picture. As we found slaves and nobles in the first half of the verse, so here we have women at the opposite extremes of social ranks.

The body in old age and death is here described under the figure of a decaying house with its inmates and furniture.

3. House — The aged body is compared to a “house,” or rather to a mill structure, in which the vital functions and operations are a grinding, and which is defended by keepers, and upheld by strong