Eclesiastes 12:3

In this verse we have a description of an afflicted and affrighted house: the servants below (keepers of the house; comp. 2 Samuel 20:3) in consternation [the word for “tremble” occurs twice more in Biblical Hebrew (Ester 5:9; Habacuque 2:7), but is common in Aramæan]; the masters (men of might, translated “able men “Êxodo 18:21; Êxodo 18:25; comp. “mighty in power,” Jó 21:7) in equal distress; so also the grinding maids below, discontinuing their work (Êxodo 11:5; Isaías 47:1); the ladies, who look out at the lattices (Juízes 5:8; 2 Samuel 5:16; Provérbios 7:6; 2 Reis 9:30), forced to withdraw. (For the four classes, comp. Isaías 24:2; Salmos 132:2.)

Expositors have generally understood the house here described as denoting the decaying body of the old man. To the English reader the “grinders” of our version suggest “teeth” in a way that the “grinding maidens” of the Hebrew does not; and the ladies looking out of the lattices can easily be understood of “the eyes.” But when it is attempted to carry out the figure, and to find anatomical explanations of all the other images employed, the interpretation becomes so forced that some have preferred to understand Eclesiastes 12:3 as only a general description of the consternation produced by such a tempest as is spoken of in Eclesiastes 12:2. I cannot but think that the “house” does denote the bodily frame; but I regard as unsuccessful the attempts which have been made to carry out this idea into its details.