Eccl 12:1-7

Back to Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible

A description of the infirmities of age. (1-7) All is vanity: also a warning of the judgment to come. (8-14)

1-7 We should remember our sins against our Creator, repent, and seek forgiveness. We should remember our duties, and set about them, looking to him for grace and strength. This should be done early, while the body is strong, and the spirits active. When a man has the pain of reviewing a misspent life, his not having given up sin and worldly vanities till he is forced to say, I have no pleasure in them, renders his sincerity very questionable.

Then follows a figurative description of old age and its infirmities, which has some difficulties; but the meaning is plain, to show how uncomfortable, generally, the days of old age are. As the four verses, Eccl 12:2-5, are a figurative description of the infirmities that usually accompany old age, ver. Eccl 12:6 notices the circumstances which take place in the hour of death. If sin had not entered into the world, these infirmities would not have been known. Surely then the aged should reflect on the evil of sin.