12
📚Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; 2 📚Before the sun or the light or the moon or the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain; 3 📚In the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look out of the windows grow dim,
4 📚And the doors are shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of the bird, and all the daughters of music are brought low;
5 📚And when they are afraid of high places, and fears are in the way, and the almond tree blossoms, and the grasshopper is burdensome, and desire fails; because man goes to his everlasting home and the mourners go around in the streets.
6 📚Remember him before the silver cord is loosened, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
7 📚Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.
12:1-7 A moving appeal to the young in beautiful poetic language to turn to God the Creator before inevitable deterioration, old age, and death bring them down to the dust. Eyesight, nerves, strength, hearing, courage and vitality will all fail (vs 2-5). The cord that binds soul to body will snap, the bowl of our earthly existence will shatter, the vessel of our life will spill its water on the ground, and there will be no chance of drawing more from the well (v 6). Observe that he believed the spirit of man returns to God (v 7). He had stated his ignorance of this in Eccl 3:18-21.⚜
The conclusion of the whole matter
8 📚“Vanity of vanities”, says the teacher, “all is vanity”.
12:8 He ends as he began (Eccl 1:2). All his study, all his learning, all his wisdom, all his deep research into the meaning of life has come to this. He thinks there is no meaning in life that the fact of inevitable death does not destroy.⚜
9 📚And moreover, because the teacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. Yes, he pondered, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
10 📚The teacher searched to find acceptable words; and what was written down was upright, and words of truth.
12:10 Solomon is sure that he has written with complete sincerity. He has bared his soul. He has hidden nothing. He declared things as he thought they are.⚜
11 📚The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails hammered in by the masters of collected proverbs, which are given by one Shepherd.
12:11 By “Shepherd” here he probably means God Himself. God-inspired words of the wise are to give stability to thought (firmly embedded nails) and also to prod us on to truths which lie ahead (goads). This is one main purpose of Ecclesiastes. It gives us the fixed truth of the utter emptiness of life and all its activities “under the sun”, apart from God. And it is meant by God to prod us forward to find the meaning of life, and a higher kind of life, somewhere else (in the Lord Jesus Christ). In this way this book (like the whole law and the whole Old Testament) is meant to lead us to Christ (Gal 3:24). Just as Old Testament hopes of salvation lead to Christ, so the quest for life’s meaning finds its fulfillment only in Christ. Christ alone redeems His people from a vain and meaningless life (1 Pet 1:18).⚜
12 📚And further, my son, be warned by these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the body.
13 📚Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear 📖 God, and keep 📖 his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.
14 📚For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good or evil.
12:13-14 Solomon’s conclusion is as far as he could go as a man under the law, without further revelation from God. If there is to be meaning in life it must be found in reverence and obedience to God. These two things are everywhere emphasized in the Old Testament:⚜