There are also many older people who often experience a weakened singing voice. In Ecclesiastes 12: 4c, “…when men rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songsgrow faint…” A better translation, more word for word, is found in the New KingJames where it says, “…all the daughters of music are brought low…” The daughtersof music are our vocal chords. And like everything else in the body, even our vocal chords are subject to the aging process. We just cannot belt out tunes in old age the way we once could in our youth. That is all Solomon is saying here: namely, older people often experience a weakened singing voice.
In Ecclesiastes 12: 5, Solomon moves on to the picture of a fear of heights. I am already afraid of heights. But Solomon talks about a time in old age “…when men are afraid of heights…” People are less steady on their legs and climbing would be more fearful.
There is also a fear of traffic. Solomon talks about not only the time when men are afraid of heights but also afraid “…of dangers in the streets…” Now, in Solomon’s day, the traffic was different. But certainly, people riding on horses on narrow roads in the city or shepherds and farmers bringing their flocks through the same roads would make walking along the road a dangerous thing. Certainly, in our day and age, older people are much more timid in traffic. Not much has changed since Solomon’s day.
In the middle of verse 5, Solomon moves on to another picture. He talks about a time “…when the almond tree blossoms…” Do you know what this is? The almond tree, when it blossoms, blooms with basically whitish leaves. So what is the almond tree? It’s a picture of white hair! The Bible actually looks at this as a wonderful thing, though. In Proverbs 20: 29, Solomon wrote that “The glory of young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old.”
Then Solomon talks about the fact that “…the grasshopper drags himself along…” When it gets cold, the grasshopper, who energetically leaps all over the place in the summer, drags himself along in the winter with very little energy. So, the picture Solomon gives here is a picture of no energy in the winter of old age.
The last picture is seen at the end of Ecclesiastes 12: 5 where there is a lack of sexual drive. Solomon simply says that, in old age, “…desire no longer is stirred.” Enough said. Solomon was definitely speaking of that which he was experiencing as he wrote this section of Ecclesiastes. And isn’t it amazing that the pictures of old age are not at all different from what is experienced today.
(end part 2)
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