Youth and Old Age: Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:8

The Preacher has been holding up the mirror to our faces, urging us to see the reality we so want to ignore. As we have aged we have seen the mirror clearly revealing the disintegration of our youth. I distinctly remember at age 37 realizing I had peaked physically and athletically and was on a downhill slope in terms of abilities. This is the ultimate futility, the reality of impending death.

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low—they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets—before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 11:9–12:8, ESV)

The Preacher’s advice to youth in light of the futility of life and the coming of old age is fourfold:

1. Take genuine joy in life and follow your youthful heart and desires.
2. Live within the requirements of God’s law.
3. Don’t let internal frustration or external pains keep you from getting the most from life, the life that is fleeting.
4. Pay attention to your Creator before old age comes upon you and all ceases with death.

As the Preacher talks about aging he may either be speaking metaphorically (with age comes the undoing of our creation that causes normal life activities to cease with the impending grief of death). Or he may be speaking allegorically (with age comes various failures of the body:  teeth [grinders], eyes [those who look through the windows], legs [grasshopper dragging itself along], hearing [daughters of song brought low], courage [rising at the sound of a bird] and sexual vigor [desire fails], ending in the extinguishing or our “light” and “water,” or necessities of life.

This, finally, is the vanity or futility of life on fallen earth. We were not made for aging or death. We were made for eternity and God has put eternity in our hearts, yet so that we cannot determine what God has done from the beginning to the end. We don’t despise youth but rather capitalize on it. And we live within God’s law and with an expectation that death is coming.