Ecclesiastes 12:2

"before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain;"before the sun" -note the declining order, the sun, which is the most powerful giver of light, then the moon, then the stars, which are the bearers of the faintest light. Some think this is an illusion to declining eyesight which often afflicts the aged. But it also might picture the gradual decline that precedes death. One moves from the prime of life (the light of the sun), to retirement (the light of the moon), to advanced old age (star light) and finally to death.

"and clouds return after the rain" -clouds are often symbolic of trouble. "one storm succeeds another" (P. P. Comm. p. 297). The word "return" suggests that old age brings one complication or problem after another. One health problem is followed after another.

Point To Note:"There is the chill of winter in the air of verse 2, as the rains persist and the clouds turn daylight into gloom, and then night into pitch darkness. It is the scene somber enough to bring home to us not only the fading of physical and mental powers but the more general desolation's of old age. There are many lights that are liable then to be withdrawn, besides those of the scenes and faculties, as, one by one, old friends are taken, familiar customs change, and long-held hopes now have to be abandoned. All this will come at. stage when there is no longer the resilience of youth or the prospect of recovery to offset it. In one's early years, and for the greater part of life, troubles and illnesses are chiefly set-backs, not disasters. One expects the sky to clear eventually. It is hard to adjust to the closing of that long chapter: to know that now, in the final stretch, there will be no improvement: the clouds will always gather again, and time will no longer heal, but kill. So it is youth, not age, that these inexorable facts are best confronted, when they can drive us into action---that total response to God which was the subject of verse 1---not into despair and vain regrets" (Kidner pp. 101-102).