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Read the Bible
THE MESSAGE
Ecclesiastes 12:2
Bible Study Resources
Concordances:
- Nave'sDictionaries:
- BakerEncyclopedias:
- InternationalDevotionals:
- EveryParallel Translations
before the sun and the light are darkened,and the moon and the stars,and the clouds return after the rain;
Before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened, And the clouds return after the rain;
While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain,
before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain;
When you get old, the light from the sun, moon, and stars will grow dark; the rain clouds will never seem to go away.
before the sun and the light, and the moon and the stars are darkened [by impaired vision], and the clouds [of depression] return after the rain [of tears];
Before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened, And the clouds return after the rain;
Whiles the sunne is not darke, nor ye light, nor the moone, nor the starres, nor the cloudes returne after the raine:
before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain;
before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is darkened, and the clouds return after the rain,
Someday the light of the sun and the moon and the stars will all seem dim to you. Rain clouds will remain over your head.
before the sun and the light grow dim, also the moon and the stars; before the clouds return after the rain;
before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;
Remember your Creator while you are young, before the time comes when the sun and the moon and the stars become dark to you—before problems come again and again like one storm after another.
Before life ebbs, beauty fades, fortune fails, and poverty returns after prosperity;
That is when the light of the sun, the moon, and the stars will grow dim for you, and the rain clouds will never pass away.
Before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars darken and the clouds return after the rain.
while not yet the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, are darkened, or the clouds return after rain;
before the Sonne, ye light, ye Moone and the starres be darckened, and or the cloudes turne agayne after the rayne:
before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;
While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, are not dark, and the clouds come not back after the rain;
Before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;
While the Sunne, or the light, or the moone, or the starres be not darkened, nor the cloudes returne after the raine:
Before the sunne, the light, the moone, and starres be darkened, and or the cloudes turne agayne after the rayne:
While the sun and light are not darkened, nor the moon and the stars; nor the clouds return after the rain:
or ever the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain:
`Haue thou mynde on thi creatour, bifor that the sunne be derk, and the liyt, and sterrys, and the mone; and cloude turne ayen after reyn.
before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;
While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, are not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:
before the sun and the light of the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds disappear after the rain;
While the sun and the light, The moon and the stars, Are not darkened, And the clouds do not return after the rain;
Remember him before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is dim to your old eyes, and rain clouds continually darken your sky.
before the sun, the light, the moon and the stars are made dark, and clouds return after the rain.
before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain;
Or ever be darkened - the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, - and the clouds return after a downpour of rain;
Before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain:
before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain;
While that the sun is not darkened, and the light, And the moon, and the stars, And the thick clouds returned after the rain.
before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain;
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
the sun: Ecclesiastes 11:7, Ecclesiastes 11:8, Genesis 27:1, Genesis 48:10, 1 Samuel 3:2, 1 Samuel 4:15, 1 Samuel 4:18
nor: Psalms 42:7, Psalms 71:20, Psalms 77:16
Reciprocal: Psalms 90:10 - yet Ecclesiastes 12:3 - and those Jeremiah 13:16 - before Jeremiah 25:10 - the sound
Cross-References
So Abram left just as God said, and Lot left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot with him, along with all the possessions and people they had gotten in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan and arrived safe and sound. Abram passed through the country as far as Shechem and the Oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites occupied the land.
He moved on from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent between Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. He built an altar there and prayed to God .
Abram kept moving, steadily making his way south, to the Negev.
Then a famine came to the land. Abram went down to Egypt to live; it was a hard famine. As he drew near to Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, "Look. We both know that you're a beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you they're going to say, ‘Aha! That's his wife!' and kill me. But they'll let you live. Do me a favor: tell them you're my sister. Because of you, they'll welcome me and let me live."
When Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians took one look and saw that his wife was stunningly beautiful. Pharaoh's princes raved over her to Pharaoh. She was taken to live with Pharaoh.
Because of her, Abram got along very well: he accumulated sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, men and women servants, and camels. But God hit Pharaoh hard because of Abram's wife Sarai; everybody in the palace got seriously sick.
Pharaoh called for Abram, "What's this that you've done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she's your wife? Why did you say, ‘She's my sister' so that I'd take her as my wife? Here's your wife back—take her and get out!"
Then he took him outside and said, "Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You're going to have a big family, Abram!"
And that's the story: When God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham and first got Lot out of there before he blasted those cities off the face of the Earth.
God continued, I am The Strong God. Have children! Flourish! A nation—a whole company of nations!— will come from you. Kings will come from your loins; the land I gave Abraham and Isaac I now give to you, and pass it on to your descendants.
Gill's Notes on the Bible
While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened,.... The wise man proceeds to describe the infirmities of old age, and the troubles that attend it; in order to engage young men to regard God and religion, before these come upon them, which greatly unfit for his service. This the Targum and Midrash, and, after them, Jarchi, interpret of the splendour of the countenance of man, of the light of his eyes, and the beauty of his cheeks, and other parts of his face; which decrease and go off at old age, and paleness and wrinkles succeed: and others of the adversities and calamities which attend persons at such years; which are sometimes in Scripture signified by the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, Isaiah 13:10; but some choose to understand this, more literally, of the dimness of sight in old men; by whom the light of the sun, moon, and stars, is scarcely discerned: but as this infirmity is afterwards described, I rather think with others, that by the "sun", "light", and "moon", are meant the superior and inferior faculties of the soul, the understanding, mind, judgment, will, and affections; and, by the "stars", those bright notions and ideas raised in the fancy and imagination, and fixed in the memory; all which are greatly impaired or lost in old age: so Alshech interprets the sun and moon of the soul and spirit, and the stars of the senses; "light" is not in the Syriac version;
nor the clouds return after the rain; which some understand of catarrhs, defluxions, and rheums, flowing at the eyes, nose, and mouth, one after another, which frequently attend, and are very troublesome to persons in years; but may be more generally applied to the perpetual succession of evils, afflictions, and disorders, in old age; as soon as one is got over, another follows, billow after billow; or, like showers in April, as soon as one is gone, another comes. The Targum paraphrases it of the eyebrows distilling tears, like clouds after rain.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
While ... not - Or, Before. The darkening of the lights of heaven denotes a time of affliction and sadness. Compare Ezekiel 32:7-8; Job 3:9; Isaiah 5:30. Contrast this representation of old age with 2 Samuel 23:4-5.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Ecclesiastes 12:2. While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened — i.e., in the SPRING, prime, and prosperity of life.
Nor the clouds return — The infirmities of old age of which WINTER is a proper emblem, as spring is of youth, in the former clause of this verse.
