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Ecc_12:2 While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
Ver. 2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, &c., ] i.e., While greater and lesser comforts fail not; or before the sight of thine eyes grow dim, and as unfit to let in light as an old dusty window. The air to aged eyes seemeth dusty and misty, and the sun wadeth as the moon in a foggy evening, and the stars are out of sight; they "see through a glass darkly," as the apostle speaks in another case, {1Co_13:12} they can know no kin without spectacles; the defluxion of rheum, {a} which trickleth down the nose and cheeks, being as it were the rain, the gathering of new matter, which continually distilleth, being as it were the returning of the clouds after the rain in a moist season, and waters into an emptied fountain. Some, with relation to the former verse, interpret the words thus: Let thy Creator be remembered while the "sun is not darkened" - that is, while youth continueth; or if not so, while "the light of the sun" is not gone - that is, while thy manhood lasteth; or if not so, while the "moon is not darkened," - that is, while thine elder years are not spent; or if not so, while the "stars are not shut up," while the worst of old age hath not seized upon thee; for then "the clouds will return after the rain," - that is, one grief comes upon the neck of another, "as deep calleth upon deep at the noise of the waterspouts." {Psa_42:7} One affliction followeth and occasioneth another, without intermission of trouble, as one billow comes wallowing and tumbling upon another, or, as in April weather, one shower is unburdened, another is brewed. Hence some of the ancient patriarchs are said to have died old men, and full of years, - they had enough of this world, and desired to depart, as Abraham, Simeon, others. Hence the poets feign that Tithonus, when he might have had immortality here, he would not. And Cato protested, that if when old he might be made young again, he would seriously refuse it. {b}
{a} Watery matter secreted by the mucous glands or membranes, such as collects in or drops from the nose, eyes, and mouth, etc., and which, when abnormal, was supposed to cause disease; hence, an excessive or morbid ‘defluxion’ of any kind.
{b} Cic. de Senectute.