Ecclesiastes 12:5

Also when they shall be afraid, &c.— They shall be afraid even of distant objects, nay, of the scare-crow, set on the way-side; the sex shall be neglected, and the grasshopper shall become a burden, and desire shall fail; for the man is going to his everlasting home, and the mourners are walking about the court, ready for his burial. These alterations of the version are from Mr. Desvoeux; who observes, that though interpreters are divided concerning the application of several particulars in this poetical description of old age, they all agree in the meaning of the first allegory, whereby the outward form of our body is represented as a house, and our limbs either as servants to whom several employments are devised, or as parts of the building. Thus, says he, I think every one allows that the arms and hands are the keepers or guards, to ward off danger; the knees and legs, which support the weight of the whole fabric, are the strong men, and the eyes are the spies or scouts which look out of the window, Ecclesiastes 12:3. Then, to complete the picture of the outward appearance of an old man, the falling-in of his lips is represented as the shutting up of a double gate; Ecclesiastes 12:4. Thus far I agree with them, and even farther: for I have no doubt but that the teeth are signified by the grinding-maids, as I call them, after the LXX and Saint Jerome, or the grinding-stones, as some will have it; but I prefer the former, not only because it is most agreeable to the original word, but because the ancients had only hand-mills, at which none but women worked; a custom which, we learn from Dr. Shaw, still prevails among those nations which have retained the ancient manners. The next difference likewise chiefly concerns the image rather than the main sense; for several interpreters, led by the context, observe, that the mouth was represented by what is called the streets in the received version, and in mine the inner court. Now the street, being a passage open through and through, does no way resemble a hollow vessel; that resemblance might rather be found in a market-place, surrounded with high buildings, with but a few outlets, hardly perceivable in comparison of the surrounding sides. Accordingly the LXX have rendered it αγωρα; but it is plain that the original word שׁוק shuk, means more properly that part of the house which by its form mostly resembled both a market-place, and a bowl. Such was the inner court, which Varro calls cava, or cavum aedium, Pliny cavaedium, and Tully impluvium; and we learn from Dr. Shaw, that there was such a court in all the eastern houses. The shutting up of the double gate towards the inner court, is represented as either the occasion of, or being occasioned by, or a circumstance that happens at the same time with, another accident; for the original, at the lowering of the voice of the grinding-maid, may equally bear these three constructions; and there is none but may have a proper application to the subject understood by that allegory; for, since it is allowed on all hands that the teeth are meant by the last of these words, because they are the instruments wherewith we grind our victuals, there can be no difficulty in applying the former, either to the broken set of teeth which an old man has remaining in his mouth, or to the gum which must perform the office of teeth, or rather to the tongue which bears a considerable part in the act of mastication, and might on that very account be called the grinding-maid by way of eminence. Now the sinking of an old man's lips into his mouth not only happens at the time with, but is owing to, the want of his teeth; whereby the operation of chewing is rendered imperfect. On the other hand, the close compression of the lips may serve partly to drown the disagreeable noise of his chewing with his gums instead of his teeth. As for the literal sense of the image, I think the construction whereby the two facts are connected in point of time is the less subject to difficulties, because it requires no knowledge of ancient usages and customs; for any one sees that the time of shutting up the gate must be about the same hour that the necessary work is finished, or when the night is drawing near.