Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw near, when you shall say, I have no pleasure in them;
Read Chapter 12
Bede
AD 735
“The wheel of our life”: The ceaseless advance of our earthly life by which we are continuously moved from the day of our birth right up to death as if by the always turning wheel of a carriage. [Thus] Solomon, when he said well, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth before the time of affliction comes,” a little further on added, “And the wheel above the cistern is broken, and the dust returns to the earth it came from.”
Ecclesiastes knew of the Lord’s coming at the end of the world when he said, “Rejoice, O young man, while you are young.” Subsequently [he said], “Ward off grief from your heart, and put away trouble from your presence. Remember your Creator, before the evil days come, before the sun is darkened, and the light, and the moon, and the stars; and they who look through the windows go blind” (this signifies the power of sight). [Remember] “before the silver cord is snapped” (he means the cluster of the stars, silvery in appearance). [Remember before] “the golden fillet shrinks back” (here is indicated the sun with its golden aspect, for the filletlike flower is a wellknown plant, with raylike shoots of foliage circling it), “and they shall rise up at the voice of the sparrow, and they shall see from the height, and terrors shall be in the way.” What shall they see? “Then they will see the Son of man coming upon clouds of heaven,” and they will mourn, tribe by tribe. What happens when the Lo...
When the punishing evil comes, the years arrive in which you have no pleasure. Nobody has pleasure in being punished. When the years of promise arrive, the good have pleasure in them. They have pleasure in enjoying the promises, since they have acted exactly in accordance with the promises. In a similar way, those who are prone to amusement and only recognize what can be experienced with the senses have not pleasure in the time of hunger, but only in the time of excess. The righteous have pleasure even in the times of retribution.
Not. Prevent old age, to procure a stock of virtues. (Haydock)
Solomon refutes the former sentiments of the wicked, which he had perhaps once entertained. (Calmet)
Moreover, it is fight that you should fear God while you are yet young, before you give yourself over to evil things, and before the great and terrible day of God comes, when the sun shall no longer shine, neither the moon, nor the rest of the stars, but when in that storm and commotion of all things, the powers above shall be moved, that is, the angels who guard the world; so that the mighty men shall fail, and the women shall cease their labours, and shall flee into the dark places of their dwellings, and shall have all the doors shut. And a woman shall be restrained from grinding by fear, and shall speak with the weakest voice, like the tiniest bird; and all the impure women shall sink into the earth; and cities and their blood-stained governments shall wait for the vengeance that comes from above, while the most bitter and bloody of all times hangs over them like a blossoming almond, and continuous punishments impend like a multitude of flying locusts, and the transgressors are cas...
