Ecclesiastes 12:4

And the doors shall be shut in the streets,.... The Midrash and Jarchi interpret these of the holes of the body; in which they are followed by our learned and ingenuous countryman, Dr.

And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; Doors - the

The doors be shut in the streets; or, towards the streets; which lead into the streets. This is understood either, 1. Literally; because men, when they are very old, keep much at home, and have neither strength nor inclination to go abroad. Or rather, 2. Allegorically, as all the other clauses are understood. And so the doors are either, 1. The outward senses, which, as doors, let in outward objects to the soul. Or rather, 2. The mouth, or the two lips, here expressed by a word of the dual number, which are oft called a door, both in Scripture, as , and in other authors, which, like a door, open or shut the way which leads into the streets or common passages of the body, such as the gullet, and stomach, and all the bowels, as also the windpipe and lungs; which also are principal instruments both of speaking and eating. And these are said to be shut, not simply and absolutely, as if they did never eat, or drink, or speak; but comparatively, because men in extreme old age grow dull and listless, having little or no appetite to eat, and are very much indisposed for discourse, and speak but seldom. When the sound of the grinding is low; or, because the sound, &c. So this may be added, not as a new symptom of old age, but only as the reason of the foregoing symptom. The sense is, When or because the teeth, called the grinders, , are loose and few, whereby both his speech is low, and the noise which he makes in eating is but small. And this is one great cause of his indisposedness both to eating and to speaking. Some understand this of concoction, which after a sort doth grind the meat in the stomach, and in the other parts appointed by God for that work. But that is transacted inwardly, and without all noise or sound. He shall rise up, to wit, from his bed, being weary with lying, and unable to get sleep, at the voice of the bird; either, 1. Upon the smallest noise; which doth not consist with that deafness incident to old men, and described in the next words. Or rather, 2. As soon as the birds begin to chirp, which is early in the morning, whereas children and young men can lie and sleep long in the morning. The daughters of music; all those senses or parts of the body which are employed in music and song, as well those which make it, as the parts of and within the mouth, as those which receive it, to wit, the ears. Shall be brought low; shall be cast down from their former excellency; they are become incapable either of making music, or of delighting in it.

Ecclesiastes 12:4 And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;Ver. 4. And the doors shall be shut in the streets.] The ears shall grow deaf, the hearing weak, which hearing is caused by two bones within the inside of the ear, whereof one stands still and the other moves, like the two stones of a mill. And he shall rise up at the voice of the bird.] Being awakened by every small noise; and this proceeds not from the quickness of the hearing, but from the badness of sleeping. For as Jerome speaketh, Frigescente iam sanguine, &c. : The blood now growing cold, and the moisture being dried up, by which matters sleep should be nourished. The old man awakeneth with a little sound, and at midnight, when the cock croweth, he riseth speedily, being not able often to turn his members in his bed. Thus he. Cocks crowing, saith another, unto old men is the scholar’ s bell, that calls them to think of the things that are in God’ s book every morning. And all the daughters of music shall be brought low.] Old men, as they cannot sing tunably, but creak or scream (whence Homer compares them to grasshoppers, propter raucam vocem, for their unpleasant voice), so they can take no delight in the melodious notes of others, as old Barzillai confesseth; they discern not the harmony or distinction of sounds, neither are affected with music. They must therefore labour to become temples of the Holy Ghost (in whose temple there never wants music), and sing psalms "with grace in their hearts," for, Non vex, sed votum; non musica chordula, nen cor; non clamans, non amans, psallit in aure Dei. Jerome, on this verse. Aλεκτωρ dicitur, quia nos a lecto exsuscitat. Nam quae cantante voluptas? - Juvenal.

(4) The first two clauses continue the description of the afflicted house; all communication with the outer world broken off: the double doors towards the street shut, the cheerful noise of grinding not heard without (Jeremiah 25:10-11; Revelation 18:22). If a more minute explanation of the double doors is to be given, we may understand the verse as speaking of the closing of the lips on the falling away of the teeth. (See Job 41:14; Psalms 141:3; Micah 5:7.) He shall rise up.—No satisfactory explanation of this clause has been given. The following are three of the best interpretations that have been proposed: (1) The old man, whose state has been figuratively described before, is said to sleep so badly that the chirping of a bird will awake him. (2) His voice becomes feeble like the chirping of a bird (Isaiah 29:4). (3) The bird of ill omen raises its voice (Psalms 102:6-7; Zephaniah 2:14). Each of these interpretations is open to serious objections, which I do not state at length, having myself nothing better to propose.

Verse 4. And the doors shall be shut in the streets] 5. The doors - the lips, which are the doors by which the mouth is closed. 6. Be shut in the streets] The cavities of the cheeks and jaws, through which the food may be said to travel before it is fitted by mastication or chewing to go down the aesophagus into the stomach. The doors or lips are shut to hinder the food in chewing from dropping out; as the teeth, which prevented that before, are now lost. 7. The sound of the grinding is low] Little noise is now made in eating, because the teeth are either lost, or become so infirm as not to suffer their being pressed close together; and the mouth being kept shut to hinder the food from dropping out, the sound in eating is scarcely heard. The teeth are divided into three kinds: - 1) The dentes incisores, or cutting teeth, in the front of the jaw. 2) The dentes canini, or dog teeth, those in the sides of the jaws, for gnawing, or tearing and separating hard or tough substances. And, 3) Dentes molares, or grinding teeth, the posterior or double teeth, in both jaws, generally termed the grinders; because their office is to grind down the substances that have been cut by the fore teeth, separated into their parts or fibres by the dog teeth, and thus prepare it for digestion in the stomach. 8. He shall rise up at the voice of the bird] His sleep is not sound as it used to be; he slumbers rather than sleeps; and the crowing of the cock awakes him. And so much difficulty does he find to respire while in bed, that he is glad of the dawn to rise up and get some relief. The chirping ot the sparrow is sufficient to awake him. 9. All the daughters of music shall be brought low] The VOICE, that wonderful instrument, almost endless in the strength and variety of its tones, becomes feeble and squeaking, and merriment and pleasure are no more. The tones emitted are all of the querulous or mournful kind.

4. and the doors shall be shut in the streets] The picture of the city under the terror of the storm is continued. The gates of all houses are closed. None leave their houses; the noise of the mill ceases. The bird (probably the crane or the swallow) rises in the air with sharp cries (literally, for a cry). Even the “daughters of song” (the birds that sing most sweetly, the nightingale or thrush, or possibly the “singing women” of ch. Ecclesiastes 2:8, whose occupation is gone in a time of terror and dismay) crouch silently, or perhaps, chirp in a low tone. Few will dispute the vividness of the picture. The interpretation of the symbols becomes, however, more difficult than ever. The key is probably to be found in the thought that as we had the decay of bodily organs in the previous verse, so here we have that of bodily functions. The “doors” (the Hebrew is dual as representing what we call “folding doors”) are the apertures by which the life of processes of sensation and nutrition from its beginning to its end is carried on, and the failure of those processes in extreme age, or in the prostration of paralysis, is indicated by the “shutting” of the doors. What we may call the dual organs of the body, lips, eyes, ears, alike lose their old energies. The mill (a better rendering than “grinding”) is that which contains the “grinders” of Ecclesiastes 12:3, i.e. the mouth, by which that process begins, can no longer do its work of vocal utterance rightly. The words “he shall rise up at the voice of the bird” have for the most part been taken as describing the sleeplessness of age, the old man waking at a sparrow’s chirp, but this interpretation is open to the objections (1) that it abruptly introduces the old man as a personal subject in the sentence, while up to this point all has been figurative; and (2) that it makes the clause unmeaning in its relation to the picture of the terror-stricken city, below which we see that of the decay of man’s physical framework. Adopting the construction given above, we get that which answers to the “childish treble” of the old man’s voice, and find a distinct parallel to it in the elegy of Hezekiah “Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter” (Isaiah 38:14); the querulous moaning which in his case was the accompaniment of disease becoming, with the old or the paralysed, normal and continuous. The “daughters of song” are, according to the common Hebrew idiom, those that sing, birds or women, as the case may be. Here, their being “brought low,” i.e. their withdrawal from the stage of life, may symbolise the failure either of the power to sing, or of the power to enjoy the song of others. The words of Barzillai in 2 Samuel 19:35 paint the infirmities of age in nearly the same form, though in less figurative language. “Can thy servant taste what I eat or drink?

And the doors ... is low - The house is viewed from without. The way of entry and exit is stopped: little or no sound issues forth to tell of life stirring within.

4. The doors — The mouth. See Job 41:14. In or on the streets, as being the front door, with valves like the lips of a man. Shut — By loss of teeth. No dental art was known to Koheleth.