06 Jun Whispering Eternity #96
Day 96.
“…follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgement for all these things.” Ecclesiastes 11:9b
Being a scholar and a poet, one would expect Solomon to use literary devices in his work. Ecclesiastes contains 17 chiasms. Chiasms are inverted parallelisms that follow the structure as e.g. C, B, A, A’, B’, C’. Ecclesiastes 11:9b is the centre (apex) of the last chiasm that begins in 11:3 and runs to 12:7 following the structure (Mirror thoughts) of A,B,C,D,E,F, E’,D’,C’,B’,A’. C.f. e.g. 11:8 and 12:1 which mirror the letter C and C’.
Eccl 12:1-7 is actually a humorous piece of poetry. Let me walk you through it. 11:3 and 12:2b are mirror thoughts “clouds return after rain.” The following verses are an image of old age (in contrast to remembering your creator in your youth v1)The ‘keepers of the house’ v3 are the hands, ‘the strong men bent’ are legs, ‘the grinders ceasing because they are few’ are the teeth, ‘those that look through the window are dimmed’ are the eyes. ‘The doors of the street are shut’ are the ears. The ‘sound of grinding being low’ is chewing. Rising early v4b is a characteristic of old age, as is the fear of heights (v5). The almond trees blossoming is the white hair, the grasshopper dragging itself along is walking slow, and desire failing is the ultimate tragedy! ‘Man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the street’ – we die! ‘The silver chord is snapped, or the golden bowel is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain…’ our heart stops beating The NLT provides a dynamic paraphrase translation of this passage.
V7” For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” The Hebrew word ‘ruach’ is interchangeably translated into English as spirit, or breath. Remember the formula: dust of ground + breath of life (ruach) = a living person (soul). (Genesis 2:4) The Bible nowhere teaches that either of these can exist on their own.
Only here does the author get above the sun! “That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.” Eccl 12:13-14 ‘Fear’ is reverential respect and awe. Live above the sun, spend your days with God, and light and peace you shall have now and forever.
One last story: John Mehoka immigrated from Austria to America in the late 1800’s. When he was leaving home, his father gave him a family keep sake – a stone that had been in the family for centuries. It was to be a reminder of his roots. John (Johannes) settled down, got married and had a family. The ‘gem’ went into a bowl of other ‘trinkets’ in the kitchen.
One day a friend noticed the stone and asked about it and John explained its history. His friend urged him to get it valued, and so one day he took it to a jeweller. The jeweller inspected it with his monocle and then asked John if he minded if he asked a friend to come and look at it. The other jeweller lived across town.
Both gem experts agreed that this was a very rare pigeon blood ruby, which in the early 1900’s was worth about $100,000. This was a huge sum for those days. John was flabbergasted. He thought how he had treated the gem on the boat, fiddling with it in his pocket. How it had been scorned in the house as the children had played with it. How it had been kept in a bowl with other non-essential items and coins. It could easily have been lost. Now he was unimaginably wealthy.
You, my reader, have the immensity and all the riches of eternity within your grasp. Don’t treat it lightly.
Evelyn Ebens
Posted at 11:03h, 14 JuneI enjoyed this..thankyou!