Context at a Glance
Author:Traditional Attribution
Topic:ecclesiastes Chapter 12 Study
This chapter provides a foundational look at the theological themes of ecclesiastes, analyzed across multiple historic translations for maximum scholarly depth.
Ecclesiastes 12
New Revised Standard Version
1Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no pleasure in them";
2before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain;
3in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly;
4when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low;
5when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets;
6before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern,
7and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.
8Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity. Epilogue
9Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs.
10The Teacher sought to find pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly.
11The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings that are given by one shepherd.
12Of anything beyond these, my child, beware. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone.
14For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. SONG OF SOLOMON
1308SONG OF SOLOMON Introduction The Song of Solomon, also known as "Song of Songs" and "Canticles," is a sequence of lyric poems celebrating human love. The poetry is graceful, sensuous, and replete with erotic imagery and allusions. It is unclear whether the composition should be read as a single, unified poem or as a collection of several shorter pieces written in a common style and idiom. Nevertheless, the sequence is coherent and exhibits a lyrical structure that derives its unity from repetitions and juxtapositions rather than from narrative devices such as plot or character development. The poem features the voices of two lovers, one male and one female, and their professions of love for one another. At times the two voices join in dialogue (e.g., 1.9-2.7; 4.1-5.1), but at others they speak separately, addressing each other or the woman's companions, the "daughters of Jerusalem" (3.1-5, 6-11; 7.1-9). Given its style and theme, it is not surprising that there are no specific allusions that would tie it to a specific historical setting. Although the superscription in 1.1 associates the poem with Solomon, king of Israel (968-928 BCE), he is not the author. The nature of the Hebrew used in the songs, with its Aramaisms and possibly even Persian and Greek loan words, suggests a postexilic date (perhaps sometime in the fourth or third centuries BCE). The connection with Solomon may stem from his reputation as a composer of songs (1 Kings 4.32). Despite its late date, the Song of Songs is part of an ancient tradition of Near Eastern love poetry. Some of the images and motifs echo those of Mesopotamian sacred marriage poems from the late third and early second millennium BCE. A closer parallel, however, is to be found in Egyptian love songs from the thirteenth and twelfth centuries BCE. These highly erotic compositions use many of the same genres found in the Song of Solomon: poems describing the lover's physical attractions, SONG OF SOLOMON
1309poems of yearning, poems of of admiration and boasting. Also common to both is the use of sensuous imagery, which invokes not only sight but also touch, hearing, and the smell of aromatic fragrances. The Egyptian poems were likely sung at banquets by professional male and female entertainers, and it is possible that the same holds true for the Song of Songs. Although he disapproved of the practice, Rabbi Aqiba (d.
135CE) attests that the Song of Songs was sun in banquet halls (Tos. Sanh. 12.10). By Aqiba's time the Song had already come to be interpreted as a sacred text; hence its continuing profane use was disturbing. At roughly the same time Rabbi Simeon be Gamaliel associated the Song of Songs with harvest festivals in which the young women of Jerusalem would go out to dance and sing in the vineyards, appealing to the young men to notice them as potential brides (m. Ta'anit 4.8). From a relatively early date (perhaps before the turn of the era) the Song of Songs began to be interpreted symbolically as an account of the love between God and Israel. This interpretation is reflected both in the Targum (Aramaic translation) and in Midrash Rabbah, an early commentary. In the Jewish liturgy Song of Songs is read during the celebration of Passover. The traditional symbolic understanding remained dominant in Jewish interpretation until the modern period. A return to a literal understanding is perhaps first reflected in the translation of the Song by Moses Mendelssohn in 1788. Christian tradition also developed a symbolic or allegorical interpretation, reading the Song as an account of Christ's love for the church and later as an expression of the soul's spiritual union with God. Over the centuries many commentators and homilists, from Origen (third century CE) to Bernard of Clairvaux (twelfth century) to St. John of the Cross (sixteenth century CE) have developed this allegorical interpretation. Even among the Protestant reformers some form of allegorical interpretation remained prevalent until the rise of historical criticism in the eighteenth century. SONG OF SOLOMON 1310