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ECCLESIASTES CHAPTER 12
Early piety recommended before old age come on and death be near: old age described, and death, Ecc_12:1-7. The conclusion: all is vanity, Ecc_12:8. The preacher’s end in this book, Ecc_12:9-12. The sum of all learning, experience, and happiness is to fear God, and keep his commandments, because God will bring all to judgment, Ecc_12:13,14.
Remember, to wit, practically, or so as to fear, and love, and faithfully serve and worship him, which when men do not they are said to forget God, Psa_9:17 106:21, and in many other places.
Thy Creator; the first author and continual preserver of thy life and being, and of all the perfections and enjoyments which accompany it, to whom thou hast the highest and strongest obligations to do so, and upon whom thou hast a constant and necessary dependence, and therefore to forget him is most unnatural, and inhuman, and disingenuous.
In the days of thy youth; for then thou art most able to do it, and thou owest the best of thy time and strength to God; then thou hast opportunity to do it, and thou mayst not live to old age; then it will be most acceptable to God, and most comfortable to thyself, as the best evidence of thy sincerity, and the best provision for old age and death; and then it is most necessary for the conquering those impetuous lusts and passions which drown so many thousands of young men in perdition, both in this life and in that to come.
The evil days; the time of old age, which is evil, i.e. burdensome and calamitous in itself, and far more grievous and terrible when it is loaded with the sad remembrance of a man’s youthful follies and lusts, and with the dreadful prospect of approaching death and judgment, which makes him see that he cannot live, and yet dare not die, and with the consideration and experience of the hardness of his heart, which in that age is rarely brought to true repentance, and so generally expires either in vain presumption, or in hellish desperation.
I have no pleasure in them; my life is now bitter and burdensome to me, and worse than death; which is frequently the condition of old age.