Old Age

Ecclesiastes 12:1–7

Persian–Hellenistic Period, 6th–3rd Century BCE

1So appreciate your vigora in the days of your youth, before those days of sorrow come and those years arrive of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; 2before sun and light and moon and stars grow dark, and the clouds come back again after the rain:

3When the guards of the houseb become shaky,
And the men of valorc are bent,
And the maids that grind,d grown few, are idle,
And the ladies that peer through the windowse grow dim,
4And the doors to the streetf are shut—
With the noise of the hand mill growing fainter,
And the song of the bird growing feebler,
And all the strains of music dying down;
5When one is afraid of heights
And there is terror on the road.—
For the almond tree may blossom,
The grasshopper be burdened,
And the caper bush may bud again;g
But man sets out for his eternal abode,
With mourners all around in the street.—
6Before the silver cord snaps
And the golden bowl crashes,
The jar is shattered at the spring,
And the jugh is smashed at the cistern.i
7And the dust returns to the ground
As it was,
And the lifebreath returns to God
Who bestowed it.

Notes

Others “Remember thy Creator.”

I.e., the arms.

I.e., the legs.

I.e., the teeth.

I.e., the eyes.

I.e., the ears.

These plants, after seeming dead for part of the year, revive, unlike man; cf. Job 14:7–10.

Others “wheel.”

Poetic figure for the end of life.

Credits

Reprinted from Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 1.

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