Ecclesiastes (26); Men get old and die

The book of Ecclesiastes tends to be neglected.
I must admit that I’ve been neglecting it myself.
So I come to this book with no preconceptions, except that a book found in the Old Testament must be intended to have a spiritual meaning. The people who compiled the canon were not in the business of collecting an anthology of “Hebrew literature.

The main theme of the early chapters has been that natural life and human life in the natural world do not go beyond a series of cycles of alternating events. Any apparent changes are discovered to be stages within these cycles, while the overall system itself does not change.

It is “vanity” for humans to look for anything beyond these things in the natural world, trying to transcend the system on their own. It is better, and the gift of God, for them to find their enjoyment in the world as it is, maintaining themselves in the way which God has provided.

Nevertheless, God has “put eternity into man’s mind”, in such a way that eternity cannot be known completely. Thus man is made aware of something greater than himself. “God has made it so, in order that men should fear before him.”

It seems that this nearly completes the central message of the book. Much of what follows looks like an assortment of “footnotes” under the general heading “other flaws noticeable in human life when God is disregarded”.

Ch12 vv1-8

At the end of the book, the original argument is supplemented and completed by three reminders, drawn from the deeper investigations
in the intervening chapters. The writer re-iterates that men should enjoy their lives, under God, while they are young. But at the same time, they should;
Remember that death is coming.
Remember that judgement is coming.
Remember their Creator.
This consciousness, in all three aspects, should be governing their lives and moderating their conduct.

They should be doing this before they get old and die.
What is left of the book is a series of different ways of saying “men get old and die”.

Men get old

V1 “Before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh when you will say ‘I have no pleasure in them’”.
I think we may take “them” to mean the years themselves. This describes the general sense of old age, that there is no pleasure in life any more.

At one point, I was obliged to lodge in a room shared with an old pensioner, who seemed to lie awake in his bed for ages, murmuring “I’m fed up.. I am… I’ m fed up… I am… I’m fed up… I am…” I got the picture.

V2 “Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain.”
A metaphorical “darkening” of the world which matches the psychological darkening of life.

V3 The keepers of the house [the legs] tremble, the strong men [the arms] are bent, the grinders [the teeth] cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows [the eyes] are dimmed.

V4 “The doors on the street are shut, the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low.”
In other words, everything has gone quiet. Deafness.

V5 [“Old men] are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way”.

The almond tree blossoms [hair grows white].

“The grasshopper drags along and desire fails.”
That is, they completely run out of energy.

Shakespeare summed up the whole of this condition as “second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

Men die

V5 “Because man goes to his eternal home.”
For the Christian, this means “with God”.
The writer is thinking primarily “in Sheol”, because that was the only knowledge available at the time. Hence the solemnity of the warning to remember death. Yet the uncertain possibility of “with God” may be at the back of his mind.

The mourners go about the streets; not just at the funeral, perhaps, but even beginning to mourn when the approach of death is becoming obvious. There was a king of Israel weeping at the death-bed of Elisha- “My father, my father! The chariot of Israel and its horsemen!” (2 Kings ch13 v14)

V6 “Before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the ;pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.”
In other words, everything breaks down. Human life ends.

Bunyan wrote a sequel to Pilgrim’s Progress, in which Christian’s wife and some of their fellow-townsfolk follow in his footsteps, along a path which is much tamer because most of the dangers were overcome in the original story. When the party reaches the heavenly city, they wait on the banks of the river, and are called across one by one by messengers who quote from this chapter as a token of their authority. For example, Mr Standfast is summoned by one who gives as his token “The wheel is broken at the cistern”.

V7 “The dust returns to the earth as it was.”
This is what happens to the body, anyway. Genesis (ch2 v7) says that God made Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him, so we see that process reversed at the end.

“The spirit returns to God who gave it.”
This can be taken in two different ways.

On the one hand, following through the reversal of the quickening of Adam, the meaning would be that God takes back to himself the life he originally gave, leaving behind the body on the ground and leaving the person in Sheol. That is implied in this book when we are told that no man has the power to retain the spirit (ch8 v7).

On the other hand, the writer also said earlier “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward?” (ch3 v21). In other words, the human spirit is there identified with the human person, which creates the uncertainty.

Now if those two thoughts were combined- that is, the confidence in this verse that the spirit returns to God and the ch3 association of the spirit and the person- the writer could almost attain a Christian understanding of the event.

V8 “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, all is vanity.”
This verse repeats the opening of the book (to be exact, it repeats the second verse).
The rest of the book has been explaining what he means; the word “vanity” applies to everything we think or do that disregards the central place of God, how he knows and controls everything that happens.

So the central message of this book is “Remember your Creator, because otherwise your life is vanity.”

Evidently this book is following the common literary pattern, that the end of a work returns to the starting-point and winds it all up. Thus the tree of life returns in Revelation, and the epistle of James begins and ends by talking about the importance of faith. This verse must be the intended end of the book.

Why, then, are there six more verses? That point will have to be considered another time.

I admit I've not paid a proper amount of attention to the Book of Ecclesiastes. Thanks to your fine treatise, I am inspired to look further, and for that I thank you!

“The spirit returns to God who gave it.”
This can be taken I two different ways.

Or, perhaps a third way. I believe I will be recycled, even though that dogma is not overtly revered within the walls of either the Pentateuch, nor Scripture. I believe it is probable that my essence has been recycled before, and will continue until a presently unmeasurable point is achieved.

I believe we are being encouraged to 'remember our place', to strive for our dreams, but never consider ourselves even close to being Christlike, however that is the goal. Thus pride is not a bad thing, unless it leads to arrogance. To prosper is not a bad thing, unless it leads to exploitation and greed and degradation of other humans.

We will all grow old and die, and perhaps we are cautioned to always remember that, so we will "die well", without fear and without regret.

I plan to not go gently into that dark night. I plan to rage. ;o)

a reply to: DISRAELI

Vanity Vanity all is Vanity .

Ecclesiastes is by far my favorite book in the Bible , Solomon in all his Wisdom came to one inevitable conclusion " A life with out the Light of God is Meaningless" .

The book of Ecclesiastes tends to be neglected.
I must admit that I’ve been neglecting it myself.

Not on ATS it isn't there are several post on the subject of Ecclesiastes , I suppose the book itself attracts inquisitive minds though I notice most people do not stumble accross the Book of Ecclesiastes untill they are much older .

Nice post A star for you.

a reply to: argentus
Thank you. My previous twenty-five threads are all on this book, so tracing them back would be one way to pursue the study. (I'd better do an Index Thread after Easter).

But why rage if you are dying without regret?

a reply to: DISRAELI

I will look into your threads; I find I enjoy your prose style.

I would rage because I am an elderly animal who was once mostly tamed, however it is my nature to fight for life. It's not an angry thing -- quite the opposite. It will be a celebration.

a reply to: DISRAELI

It is “vanity” for humans to look for anything beyond these things in the natural world, trying to transcend the system on their own. It is better, and the gift of God, for them to find their enjoyment in the world as it is, maintaining themselves in the way which God has provided. 

While I agree with your sentiment, this paragraph troubles me.

Transcendence can be extremely humbling and the view that we should just blindly accept everything as "the way God intended" is oppressive.

If God didn't want us to explore then why the he'll did he make us so curious?

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

Exactly right! What's the worth of free will if you don't exercise it now and then?

I wish we could read the excised books of the Bible which (probably) described fairly-normal-unholy Jesus as a child, playing games and being a normal kid. The contemporary Bible goes from the birth, right to Jesus the Savior as an unconventional bachelor at 30+ years of age.

They didn't believe we could understand and assimilate the knowledge of a Messiah doing normal human things? Nope. Cut that stuff out. Smite it with fire.

But Jesus had free will and used it. That would suggest a pattern for gentle and pure living. Of course, none of us have any desire to be martyred. So there is that.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Valar Morghulis! All men must die. Women to, and children, and the young and old, rich and poor, skiny and fat, trump supporter or bidden supporter, if your on the Justing Beeber fanclub or not. If you collected all the worlds cars in you garage in your mansion. Or if you collected all the towns old beer bottles.

Both and all will die, and leve behind a lot of garbage probably.

None of that # and anything anybody does matters in the end.

Steve Jobs with all his billions couldn't cure pancreatic cancer using new age medicine or hippy new age wisdom special herbs. Meanwhile some dude living on the streets in idea beat pancreatic cancer and a few other cancers and is still selling his wares on the street corner somewhere.

All the money in the world couldn't help one man, and the other thought he ate a bad roast rat the other day and was feeling down for a few days.



All will one day be dead. Ain't the world great? Can you imagine what the world would be like if all of that lived forever or even for a brief second longer?

It would be an even #tier place, then it is now and the mask wearing would be even more stupider of a fad. I think if there were just a few more billion people, we would be a bit more stupider as a species having to appeal to the most common denominator.

And wearing diapers on your face? My just become more then a fad used by the Pharma corporation in conglomerate with there media and politician partners which while despite there greed are blind that they are puppets used by "others" to push a depopulation and control agenda some 20 to 40 years in completion.

But it would be a religion worldwide were you would have to wear a diaper on your face. Or the boogieman in the sky will get you. All while there wondering why the crops of the world are dying and the Gatorade isnt working in hydrating them. After all Gatorade has what plants crave. It has electrolytes.

So ya. Valar Morghulis! One thing the bible, and the game of thrones books, agree upon.

a reply to: argentus

They didn't believe we could understand and assimilate the knowledge of a Messiah doing normal human things? Nope. Cut that stuff out. Smite it with fire. 

He got cancelled for a few years.

#CancelCulture

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
While I agree with your sentiment, this paragraph troubles me.

What I was doing in the early paragraphs was summarising the message of the first three chapters.
Can I refer you to the first few threads in this seires, which show him coming to those conclusions (or similar ones, if I have misrepresented him), and the arguments he was using in getting there? (I shall have to do an Index Thread within a few weeks)
It's in the same territory as the message of Job, viz. that you can't argue with God about whether he's being just or not.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The work LONG in Eccl 12 is never and has never been translated Eternal. Things that are not the same are not equal.

Men and their wanting to make God's word in their own imagination mistranslated the word in Hebrew for long into eternal because they want to help God out and take credit for preserving God's words to every generation. But no where does God say man will help preserve his words.

Psalm12:6-7 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

Notice it is the Lord who preserves them and keeps them. And he also warns against man changing them, adding tot hem and taking away from them with a curse attached to it. And that goes for good godly men too.

Changing it to eternal might give the indication that hell is eternal but many deny that. Though it may fit our theology it still does not give us the right to change God's words.

originally posted by: ChesterJohn
Changing it to eternal might give the indication that hell is eternal but many deny that. Though it may fit our theology it still does not give us the right to change God's words.

There speaks a man who is willing to change God's word into "A man found a treasure in a field and went to hide HIMSELF", because it fits into his own theology. Double standards, eh?

a reply to: DISRAELI

I didn't change a thing. You just deny what it clearly indicates. Just like you deny God preserved his words without the help of men.

a reply to: ChesterJohn
I have suggested, many times, that you consult a qualified English teacher who will explain to you exactly how that sentence works.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Spiritual insight is for those who trust God and not man. it is a clear spiritual teaching of Jesus and yet you don't see it. Amazing for someone claiming to be called to teach God's word.