Глава 12

1–8. The last exhortation of Ecclesiastes. 9. Epilogue of the book. The two most important conditions for human happiness - doing good and healthy enjoyment of life - are possible only when they are combined with a religious mood, with a feeling of complete devotion to God. Outside of a religious mood, the enjoyment of life inevitably takes on a perverted form and ultimately leads to severe disappointment; in the same way, a person’s moral activity loses its rationality, its purpose, as soon as a person sees nothing in the phenomena of the world and life except the action of blind chance. That is why Ecclesiastes, in his last exhortation, calls on the reader to constantly remember God as the Creator of the world, as the First Cause of everything that exists, to remember throughout life, and not only at the time of old age, when both soul and body already feel the rapid onset of eternal night - death. Eccl.12:1. And remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before hard days come and the years come about which you will say: “I have no pleasure in them!” Until the hard days came, literally: “days of evil,” not the days of an afterlife, as in Ecclesiastes 11.8, but the days of old age, days of physical and mental decline. Eccl.12:2. until the sun and the light and the moon and the stars were darkened, and new clouds were found after the rain. The onset of darkness and clouds, i.e. winter, is not an image of death itself, but of its harbinger - old age. Eccl.12:3. On that day when those who guard the house will tremble and the men of strength will bow down; and the grinders will stop grinding, because there are few of them left; and those looking out the window will be darkened; This and subsequent verses contain a figurative description of old age. “Guarding the house” are hands that protect the human body from external dangers. “Men of strength” are legs that support the body with the strength of muscles. “Grinding” – teeth. “Looking out the window” - eyes. Eccl.12:4. and the doors to the street will be locked; when the sound of the millstone ceases, and a man rises at the crow of a rooster, and the singing of the daughters becomes silent; “Doors to the street” – according to some, the mouth, according to others – the ears. The first is more correct (cf. Job 41.6: “Who can open the doors of his face? (i.e., Leviathan) the circle of his teeth is terrible!”). “Millstone” - jaws and teeth. “He will rise at the crow of a rooster,” i.e., suffer from insomnia. “The daughters of singing will fall silent,” i.e., the voice will weaken. Eccl.12:5. and the heights will be scary to them, and there will be horrors on the road; and the almond tree will blossom, and the grasshopper will grow heavy, and the caper will crumble. For a man departs to his eternal home, and mourners are ready to surround him in the street; – “Heights will be scary for them,” that is, inaccessible. “And there are horrors on the road,” that is, difficulties and dangers, both real and imaginary. “The almond tree will bloom,” symbolizing old age with its white color on the bare branches in winter. “The grasshopper will become heavier,” that is, the torso and back will lose their flexibility and mobility. “And the caper will crumble,” that is, the cypress, whose berries and buds were used in the east as an aphrodisiac, will not have any effect. “Eternal house”, i.e. the tomb (cf. Tob 3.9). Eccl.12:6. until the silver chain was broken, and the golden band was torn, and the pitcher at the spring was broken, and the wheel over the well collapsed. Death itself is described figuratively. “The silver chain broke and the golden cup broke” (in the Russian Bible it is incorrect - bandage; the Hebrew word means a round-shaped object, a cup for oil, like Zech 4.2), i.e. the thread of life was broken, there was no source of light and heat; life has gone out. The next two images give another symbol of death, namely: the wheel above the well breaks and the tub at the source breaks. Both images probably mean the cessation of the activity of the heart, blood circulation and breathing. Eccl.12:7. And the dust will return to the earth as it was; and the spirit will return to God, who gave it. Body and spirit return to their original source: the body returns to the dust as it was (cf. Gen. 3.19; Ps. 103.29), and the spirit returns to God who gave it. This return to God cannot be understood in the sense of the destruction of the personal, independent existence of the spirit, since Ecclesiastes clearly speaks of the personal existence of man even beyond the grave. If in Eccl. 3 he poses the skeptical question whether man has an advantage over cattle, and whether his spirit ascends upward, here both questions are answered in the affirmative and, therefore, the continuation of man’s personal existence after death is recognized. But, like other sacred sages, Ecclesiastes could not imagine a more or less complete life apart from the body; he did not know the New Testament teaching about the resurrection of the dead and, therefore, could not rise above the usual idea of ​​Sheol; he was still far from consciously believing in the blissful state of souls in communion with God. Eccl.12:8. Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, everything is vanity! It is clear that Ecclesiastes could not find complete consolation in such a belief in the afterlife of man and had no reason to abandon his reasoning about the vanity of life. On the contrary, he saw here a new and strongest proof of it. Therefore, in his final word he repeats again: “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Only the joyful news of the New Testament could free a person from vanity and give him hope for eternal bliss. Eccl.12:9–14. Epilogue of the book. While until now all speeches have been conducted on behalf of Ecclesiastes, who everywhere speaks of himself in the first person, in v. 9–14 we hear another person who distinguishes himself from Ecclesiastes, speaks about him in the third person and seems to approve of his reasoning. However, this does not mean that the end of the 12th chapter constitutes a later postscript. The epilogue is written in the same language and is imbued with the same spirit as the entire book. Hence, we have no reason to look for another author for it, different from the compiler of the entire book. Eccl.12:9. In addition to the fact that Ecclesiastes was wise, he also taught the people knowledge. He tested everything, examined everything, and composed many parables. “Wise” in biblical language meant a person who, on the basis of a mind enlightened by revelation, explored issues of a religious, especially moral and practical nature, trying to apply general God-revealed concepts to real life, to resolve all the perplexities and contradictions arising on this basis. The Jews, since the time of Solomon, had a whole class of sages-hakam 4, along with prophets and priests, who had a strong influence on the people (1 Kings 4.30–31; Jer 18.18; Proverbs 1.6, 13.21, 22.17). Already in the time of Solomon, wise men were known - Eoan the Ezrahite, Heman, Chalkol and Darda, whose wisdom was placed next to the wisdom of the sons of the east and Egypt (1 Kings 4.30-31). Contemporaries of the prophet Jeremiah said: “the law does not perish from the priest, nor the counsel of the wise, nor the word from the prophet” (Jer 18.18). The usual form of expression of thought among the Jewish sages, unlike the Greek ones, was gnomic, consisting of short sayings, aphorisms and parables. Eccl.12:10. Ecclesiastes tried to find elegant sayings, and the words of truth were written by him correctly. Eccl.12:11. The words of the wise are like needles and like driven nails, and their compilers are from one shepherd. “The words of the wise are like needles and like driven nails.” The Jewish original speaks here not of simple needles, but of those points that are on sticks, used by drovers and shepherds. LXX correctly translated βούκεντρα (slav. - “oxen bones”) The idea is that the words of the wise, like a driver’s stick, awaken people from moral indifference and laziness, forcing them to fulfill their duty. "Their compilers are from one Shepherd". God is called here the One Shepherd (cf. Ps 22.1, 27.9). Having compared the words of the wise with the stick of a driver and a shepherd, the writer naturally used the image of the Shepherd God, who, while shepherding Israel, distributes rods to the wise so that they can feed the people (cf. Proverbs 10.21). Eccl.12:12. And above all this, my son, beware of this: compiling many books will never end, and reading a lot is tiring for the body. Having pointed out the high importance of the works of the wise, the writer, at the same time, warns his student against abusing books, both from compiling and from reading many books. He seems to hasten to apply this advice to himself, finishing his book in the following verses. Eccl.12:13. Let us listen to the essence of everything: fear God and keep His commandments, because this is everything for man; “Let us hear the essence of everything,” literally: “the end (conclusion) of the whole speech.” The commandment: “fear God” (taken from Eccl. 5.6) “and keep His commandments” (cf. Eccl. 4.17) constitutes the essence of the book and, at the same time, the goal of man. Only faith saves a person from the extremes of pessimism on the one hand and vulgar eudaimonism on the other. Eccl.12:14. For God will bring every deed into judgment, even every secret thing, whether it is good or evil. The thought of God's final judgment, as one commentator put it, is Ariadne's thread that led Ecclesiastes out of the labyrinth of his skepticism. There is no place for gloomy despondency or frivolous enjoyment of life where there is deep faith in Divine reward. In the period after the Captivity, the Jewish sages, hakams (from the word “chokmah” - wisdom), pointed out that human wisdom comes from the Wisdom of God... You might be interested in: