Ecclesiastes 12:4

The doors be shut in the streets; or, towards the streets; which lead into the streets. This is understood either,

1. Literally; because men, when they are very old, keep much at home, and have neither strength nor inclination to go abroad. Or rather,

2. Allegorically, as all the other clauses are understood. And so the doors are either,

1. The outward senses, which, as doors, let in outward objects to the soul. Or rather,

2. The mouth, or the two lips, here expressed by a word of the dual number, which are oft called a door, both in Scripture, as Psalms 141:3 Micah 7:5, and in other authors, which, like a door, open or shut the way which leads into the streets or common passages of the body, such as the gullet, and stomach, and all the bowels, as also the windpipe and lungs; which also are principal instruments both of speaking and eating. And these are said to be shut, not simply and absolutely, as if they did never eat, or drink, or speak; but comparatively, because men in extreme old age grow dull and listless, having little or no appetite to eat, and are very much indisposed for discourse, and speak but seldom. When the sound of the grinding is low; or, because the sound, &c. So this may be added, not as a new symptom of old age, but only as the reason of the foregoing symptom. The sense is, When or because the teeth, called the grinders, Ecclesiastes 12:3, are loose and few, whereby both his speech is low, and the noise which he makes in eating is but small. And this is one great cause of his indisposedness both to eating and to speaking. Some understand this of concoction, which after a sort doth grind the meat in the stomach, and in the other parts appointed by God for that work. But that is transacted inwardly, and without all noise or sound. He shall rise up, to wit, from his bed, being weary with lying, and unable to get sleep, at the voice of the bird; either,

1. Upon the smallest noise; which doth not consist with that deafness incident to old men, and described in the next words. Or rather,

2. As soon as the birds begin to chirp, which is early in the morning, whereas children and young men can lie and sleep long in the morning. The daughters of music; all those senses or parts of the body which are employed in music and song, as well those which make it, as the parts of and within the mouth, as those which receive it, to wit, the ears. Shall be brought low; shall be cast down from their former excellency; they are become incapable either of making music, or of delighting in it.