Ecclesiastes 12:3

The keepers of the house, i.e. of the body, which is oft and fitly compared to a house, as Job 4:19; Psalms 119:54; 2 Corinthians 5:1; whose keepers here are either,

1. The ribs and bones into which they are fastened, which are the guardians of the inward and vital parts, which also are much weakened and shaken by old age. Or rather,

2. The hands and arms, which are man’s best instruments to defend his body from the assaults of men or beasts, and which in a special manner are subject to this trembling, by paralytical or other like distempers, that are most incident to old men.

The strong men; either the back, or the thighs and legs, in which the main strength of the body doth consist, which in old men are very feeble, and unable both for the support of the body and for motion.

The grinders; the teeth, those especially which are commonly so called, because they grind the meat which we eat.

Cease, to wit, to perform their office,

because they are few, Heb. because they are diminished, either,

1. In strength. Or,

2. In number; being here one, and there another, and not united together, and one directly against another, and consequently unfit for their work.

Those that look out of the windows; the eyes. By windows he understands either,

1. The holes in which the eyes are fixed, Zechariah 14:12. Or,

2. The eye-lids, which, like windows, are either opened or shut. Or,

3. Those humours and coats of the eyes noted by anatomists, which are the chief instruments by which the eye sees.