Ecclesiastes 12:1 - Meaning and Application

Here is a call to young people to think of God and do their duty to him while they are young: “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth.” This is the preacher’s own lesson from all he has said about the emptiness of the world and everything in it. Young people may expect great things from the world, but those who have tried it know better. It gives no lasting satisfaction to the soul. So, to avoid being fooled by its emptiness, and to be less troubled by it, remember your Creator and guard yourself against the harm that comes from relying on created things.

This is also the physician’s remedy for the special temptations of youth, especially love of amusement and indulgence in bodily pleasures. Youth is naturally drawn toward vanity, so the cure is to remember your Creator. This is a great duty. We should remember God as our Creator, not only by recalling that he made us and we did not make ourselves, but by giving him the honor and obedience we owe him as the one who made us. “Creators” is plural, as in Job 35:10, “Where is God my Makers?” because God said, “Let us make man,” meaning Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The right time for this duty is the days of your youth, your choice days, your best days. Begin at the beginning. Call him to mind when you are young, keep him in mind through all your youth, and never forget him. This is how you resist youth’s temptations and make good use of its strengths.

There is also a reason for this command: do it while the evil days have not yet come, and before the years arrive when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them.” Do it quickly, before sickness and death come. Do it while you are alive, because it will be too late after death has taken you out of your time of testing and into the place of reward and judgment. The days of sickness and death are evil days, terrible to nature, and truly evil for those who have forgotten their Creator. These days will come sooner or later. For now they have not come, because God is patient with us and gives us room to repent. Life being continued is only death being delayed, and while that delay lasts, we must prepare. We should seek a change in the way death comes to us, so that we may die in peace.

Do it also before old age comes, if death does not come first. Old age brings years in which a person says, “I have no pleasure in them.” Then the delights of the senses lose their charm, as they did for Barzillai, David’s aged supporter, in 2 Samuel 19:35. Then bodily weakness comes, and a person may be old and blind, or old and lame. Then usefulness is reduced, and strength becomes only toil and sorrow. Then loved ones are taken away, or one must watch them grow tired of us. Then life feels like dying by degrees. Those years are drawing near, when all that remains feels empty. The months that are left are months of vanity, and there is no pleasure except in looking back on a good life and looking forward to a better one in heaven.

The next verses will expand on these two reasons, though they do it in the reverse order. They show how many troubles come with old age, and how little pleasure those years often bring. That is a strong reason to return to God and make peace with him while we are young, not waiting until we are old. It is no credit to leave sins when they have already left us, or to come back to God only when we are forced to. It is a great shame and foolishness to give the best and sweetest part of our days to the devil, and give God only the leftovers, the scraps, and the refuse. That is like offering torn, lame, and sick animals as sacrifices. It is also foolish to put off a necessary work until old age, when it demands our best strength and our powers are at their highest. Worse still, long years of sin make the work harder, because guilt piles up in the conscience and adds weight to the burdens of age.

If old age brings the troubles described here, then we will need support and comfort when we get there. Nothing will help more than a clear conscience that can say we began early to remember our Creator and never stopped doing so. How can we expect God to help us in old age if we will not serve him in youth? See Psalm 71:17, 18.

The weakenings and troubles of old age are described here in vivid figures, some of which are hard for us now because we do not use the same sayings and images that Solomon’s time used. But the main point is clear: old age is usually uncomfortable. First, “the sun and the light, the moon and the stars” are darkened. To older people, things seem dim because their sight fades. Their face loses its brightness and beauty. Their thinking powers also weaken, for understanding and memory fail, and quickness of mind and imagination are not what they once were. Their days of joy are over, since light often stands for happiness and prosperity. They no longer fully enjoy either the activity of the day or the rest of the night, for both sun and moon seem dark to them.

Then “the clouds return after the rain.” When the weather is wet, one cloud follows another; one shower is followed by the next. So it is with older people. When one pain or illness passes, another comes soon after. Their troubles are like a steady drip on a very rainy day. In this world, the end of one trouble is often only the start of another. Old people are often troubled by constant flowing illness, like soaking rain, and more clouds keep returning. Their bodies, as it were, slowly waste away.

Then “the keepers of the house tremble.” The head, which is like the watchtower, shakes. The arms and hands, which should protect the body, also tremble and grow weak whenever danger comes near. The strength of the body’s powers, which once worked firmly for self-defense, fails. Older people are easily discouraged and quickly lose heart.

Fourthly, then the strong men bow themselves. The legs and thighs, which once carried the body and bore its weight, grow weak and bend with age. Old people who were once strong become stooped and unable to travel as they once did, and they quickly tire, as in Zechariah 8:4. God does not delight in a man’s legs, Psalm 147:10, because their strength soon fails. But the Lord Jehovah has everlasting strength, and his arms never grow weak.

Fifthly, the grinders cease because they are few. The teeth, which grind our food and prepare it for digestion, stop doing their work because there are too few left. They are worn out and broken, and sometimes they have been pulled because they hurt. Some older people lose all their teeth, and others keep only a few. This is serious, because food that is not chewed well is not digested well, and that affects many other weaknesses of old age.

Sixthly, those who look out of the windows grow dim. The eyes become weak, like Isaac’s, Genesis 27:1, and Ahijah’s, 1 Kings 14:4. Moses was unusual, because at 120 years old he still had good eyesight, but in most old people sight fails very early. It is a kindness when tools help nature with spectacles. We should use our sight well while we still have it, because the light in the eyes may go out before life itself ends.

Seventhly, the doors are shut in the streets. Older people stay indoors and care less about going out to public places. The lips, the doors of the mouth, are shut in eating, because the teeth are gone and the sound of grinding is low. They no longer have the same control over food in the mouth that they once had, and they cannot chew or digest as before. So little grain is brought to the mill.

Eighthly, they rise up at the sound of a bird. They do not sleep soundly like young people, but a small noise wakes them, even a bird’s chirping. They may cough through the night and rise at cockcrow, as soon as anyone is stirring. Or they may be anxious and suspicious, full of care, and that keeps them from sleeping. Some may even be superstitious and start in fear at bird calls, such as ravens or screech owls, which fortune-tellers call bad signs.

Ninthly, all the daughters of music are brought low. They have neither voice nor ear. They can no longer sing, nor can they enjoy music as Solomon did in his youth, when he had singers, women singers, and musical instruments, Ecclesiastes 2:8. Older people often grow hard of hearing and are less able to tell one sound from another.

Tenthly, they are afraid of what is high. They are afraid to go up to high places, either because they are out of breath, or because their heads swim, or their legs fail them. They may even fear that something high will fall on them. Fear is in the road. They cannot ride or walk with their old boldness, but they fear almost everything in their way, lest they fall.

Eleventhly, the almond tree blossoms. The old person’s hair turns white, so that the head looks like an almond tree in bloom. The almond tree blossoms before any other tree, and so it fittingly shows how quickly old age comes upon people. It comes before they expect it and faster than they thought. Gray hairs are spread here and there, and they hardly notice them.

Twelfthly, the grasshopper becomes a burden, and desire fails. Old people can bear very little. The lightest thing feels heavy to them, in body and in mind, and a small matter can sink and break them. Perhaps the grasshopper was a food thought to be very light to digest, as John the Baptist ate locusts, but even that lies heavily on an old man’s stomach. So desire fails, he has no appetite, and he no longer cares for the desire of a woman, as the king in Daniel 11:37. Old people become dull and tired, and the pleasures of the senses lose their flavor.

It is likely that Solomon wrote this when he was himself old, and could speak from experience about the troubles of age. Perhaps those troubles came on faster because he had given himself to sensual pleasures. Some older people bear age better than others, but in greater or lesser measure, the days of old age are evil days and days with little pleasure. So great care should be taken to honor old people, to give them something that helps balance these burdens and to avoid adding to them.

All of this gives a strong reason why we should remember our Creator in our youth, so that he may remember us with favor when those evil days come. Then his comforts can delight our souls when the pleasures of the senses have mostly worn away. He also shows how much death changes us, and that death will either prevent or end the troubles of old age. Nothing else will keep those troubles away, and nothing else will cure them. Therefore remember your Creator in your youth, because death is surely ahead of you, and perhaps very near. It is a serious thing to die, and you should feel moved with great care and urgency to prepare for it.

Death will fix us in a state that cannot be changed. Man then goes to his long home, and all the sicknesses and losses of age are only signs that this final move is coming. At death, a person leaves this world and all its work and pleasures. He goes away for good, as far as his present life is concerned. He goes home, because here he was only a stranger and pilgrim. Both soul and body go to the place from which they came, Ecclesiastes 12:7. He goes to rest, to the place where he will settle. He goes to his home, to the house that truly belongs to his world, because this world is not his own. He goes to his long home, because the days in the grave will be many. He goes to his house of eternity, not only a house he will never leave for this world again, but the house where he must remain forever. This should make us willing to die, because at death we go home. Why should we not long for our Father’s house? It should also push us to get ready, because we must then go to our long home, to an everlasting dwelling.

Death will also bring sorrow to the friends who loved us. When a person goes to his long home, the mourners go about the streets, both the real mourners and those hired for ceremony, who were dressed to show public grief and stir up true grief in others. When we die, we do not only move to a sad place ahead of us, we also leave sadness behind us. Tears are owed to the dead, and this is one more reason why death is a serious thing.

But it is useless to go to the house of mourning and watch mourners in the streets if it does not make us serious and lead us to private godliness, that is, sincere devotion in secret.

Death will tear apart the whole structure of our earthly life and bring down this “earthly house” of the body, which Ecclesiastes 12:6 describes so well. Then the “silver cord” that wonderfully joined soul and body will be loosed, that holy bond will be broken, and those old companions will be forced to part. Then the “golden bowl” that held the waters of life for us will be broken. Then the pitcher we used to draw water for the constant support of life and the repair of its wear will be broken even at the spring, so it can bring no more. And the wheel, meaning all the organs that gather and pass on nourishment, will be broken and unable to do its work anymore.

The body will be like a clock with a broken spring, where all the gears stop and the whole machine stands still. It is taken apart. The heart beats no more, and the blood no longer moves. Some apply this picture to the ornaments and tools of life. Rich people must leave behind their silver and gold clothing and furniture when they die, and poor people must leave behind their clay pitchers. Even the water drawers will find their wheel broken.

Death will also bring us back to our original parts, as Ecclesiastes 12:7 says. Man is a strange creature, a ray from heaven joined to a lump of earth. At death, these two are separated, and each goes to where it came from. First, the body, that lump of clay, returns to the earth that belongs to it. It was made from the earth, and Adam’s body was made that way too. We are formed from the same material. It is a house of clay. At death it is laid in the ground, and in a little while it becomes earth again, no different from common dirt, just as God said, “Dust you are, and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19).

Because of that, we should not feed the body’s desires or pamper it. It will soon be food for worms. We should not let sin rule in our mortal bodies, because they are mortal (Romans 6:12). Second, the soul, that beam of light, returns to God who formed it. When God made man from the dust of the ground, he breathed into him the breath of life to make him a living soul (Genesis 2:7), and he forms the spirit of every person within him.

When fire burns wood, the flame rises and the ashes go back to the earth where the wood came from. The soul does not die with the body. It is rescued from the power of the grave (Psalm 49:15). It can exist without the body, and it will continue in that separated state. Like a candle that burns brighter when taken out of a dark lantern, the soul goes to the world of spirits, to which it belongs.

It goes to God as a Judge, to answer for itself, and to be placed either with the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:19) or with the spirits in paradise (Luke 23:43), according to what it did while in the body. This makes death terrifying for the wicked, because their souls go to God as one who will avenge sin. But it brings comfort to the godly, whose souls go to God as a Father. Through a Mediator, meaning one who brings sinners to God, they gladly place their souls into his hands. Without such a Mediator, sinners have every reason to dread going to God.