Perspectives on Aging and the Elderly in the Hebrew Bible

Introduction

Judging from the pages of the Hebrew Bible, it would appear that old age is admired, that the elderly are held in high esteem, and that the wise are less likely to be young than advanced in years. Such an image may even suggest that one’s latter years rank more highly than does youth or middle age. The vast majority of the persons in the biblical stories, however, are living in the period between youth and old age, or at least the reader may well assume that most of the biblical figures are still in their prime, vigorous and active rather than withdrawn from public affairs due to the infirmities and limitations associated with the elderly.

The notion of persons being “in their prime” is itself a problematic concept in that it suggests that those who are either younger or older than this arbitrarily-set age group possess a less-than-full status or vitality. The social stereotype can also vary from culture to culture, or even within the same culture. In the modern Western world, we might, for example, consider the 20s to be the “prime” period in most athletic sports, the 30s in family-building, the 40s in business, the 50s in career satisfaction, the 60s in economic stability, and the 70s and beyond in leisure time. Many exceptions occur to all of these generalities, of course. Class, gender, race, health, and other characteristics further complicate this picture inasmuch as expectations and achievements can vary sharply for any given social grouping. The point, however, is that, as varied as they may be, our notions about the stages of life spring from our own personal experiences and cultural perceptions, and the meanings we attach to any given life-period may or may not fit the lived reality of the majority to whom these meanings are ascribed. With respect to the elderly, the topic of this essay, it makes a difference whether we ourselves are old or not, are in fact very old or just entering retirement, are infirm or healthy, are among the aged poor or the wealthy seniors, are widowed or with a partner, have supportive families or no relatives and few friends, live in an invigorating environment or in a context devoid of stimulation. All such variables render it problematic to generalize about old age—or, for that matter, about any life stage. Individual experiences can deviate substantially from the norm, if there even is such a norm.

The Hebrew Bible presents a variety of insights about growing old. To understand these texts, we should consider the actual terms of social life during the period of ancient Israel, since the biblical literature probably does not reflect the entirety of the population. These two foci—the biblical statements and the social world of the time—can be enriched with archaeological evidence as well as with evidence from surrounding cultures, from ancient Babylonia to Egypt, which also had to come to terms with old age among their populations. All such avenues lead us to a new appreciation of the meanings of this essential and inevitable period in our lives.

Social History

The society of ancient Israel forms the general context for understanding the elderly living among the populace, and a useful starting-point is the settlement patterns of the people. For decades if not centuries, scholars, clergy, and laity alike have tended to think of the ancient Israelite cities as the home of the important sectors of population. Here, it was presumed, dwelled the powerful, the determiners of Israel’s destiny, the architects of their monumental buildings and walls, the kings and priests, the scribes and archivists. Why look further for evidence of Israelite culture than in these city contexts? Do the texts that eventuated in what we know as the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament reflect anything other than these urban points of view?

Actually, there is every reason to look more broadly and deeply. For whatever magnificence they could muster, the cities were actually quite small in population and uniform in class. ¹ The capital cities during the monarchic period qualify as small towns by modern standards: roughly 12,000 in the northern capital of Samaria and 6,000 in its southern counterpart Jerusalem during the 8th century b.c.e., and later about 13,000 in Jerusalem until its fall in 586 b.c.e. The other royal cities and administrative centers throughout the land that served the interests of the state were, like the capital cities, inhabited primarily by the powerful and wealthy, together with their slaves, bureaucrats, and others in their service. These settlements thus shared much in common with the modern phenomena known as gated communities. In total, the urban population of ancient Israel amounted to less, often substantially less, than 10% of all the Israelites in the land.

In contrast, the vast majority of the people lived in tiny villages scattered across the countryside. ² With a typical size of 75–150 people or less and occupying an area of only one or two acres each, these multitudinous villages formed the backbone of Israelite society and economy. Individually, they lacked the power wielded by the urban centers, and the villagers probably cherished any separation they could manage from those who taxed and conscripted them. On the other hand, the cities could not survive without labor and food from the villages, nor could the state operate without being able to press the villagers into military service and large-scale construction projects.

Social life in the villages was based on kinship structures. Marriage occurred preferably within a clan or at least within the tribe, and connections among nearby villages resulted from this practice of marrying relatives who were close at hand. A household could include other relatives beyond the nuclear family, with the eldest male serving as the paterfamilias if he was still competent to do so. The clans and households presumably cared for the elderly as well as the very young.

The villagers survived, if they managed, in a subsistence economy. As farmers and herders of small livestock in an often harsh natural environment, they struggled to work the land and care for their animals and survive from harvest to harvest. Taxation by the state meant payment in kind to the tax collectors, a severe demand on them when they already had no surplus on which to draw. If they fell into debt, they faced possible slavery or loss of ancestral land to large landowners, who likely lived with other elites in the cities, removed comfortably from the hard life on the land.

The situation facing the elderly must be understood against this background. Those among the ca. 90% of the population living in the villages had to endure a labor-intensive existence all their years, experiencing hardships, exploitations, demands from the powerful, diseases and accidents, little food, and no leisure. They could take comfort in their neighbors and relatives, who were likely to be in the same circumstance as they. But on the whole it was a hard life that became no easier as they grew older. Only the elderly who belonged among the elite had it better since they did not have to work as long as they could physically manage it, and they also could enjoy the best food and the best medical attention available at the time. These two groups—the aged poor and the aged wealthy—differed also in one other significant respect: those who were worn down by hard labor, insufficient nutrition, inadequate medical care, and austere living conditions probably did not live as long as their elite counterparts.

Material Evidence of the Elderly

Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of residences, urban structures, and everyday artifacts from ancient Israel, and they have also discovered numerous human skeletons in the process. While occasional remains turn up in other contexts, the findings from cemeteries are especially useful since they may provide a glimpse of the makeup of a larger group or community—assuming all of the group’s members were interred in the burial grounds and certain types, such as infants, slaves, immigrants, or criminals, were not excluded from the community’s cemetery. The ravages of time, combined with the anomalies of burial patterns and the preconceptions of modern interpreters, should caution us not to generalize too indiscriminately about social structures and individual lives on the basis of these data, yet this material information is available and can contribute to our understanding of history. An additional problem for ongoing research, however, is that pressures by religious groups in Israel today have kept investigation of skeletal remains from ancient times to a minimum, resulting in the effective stoppage of the gathering of new knowledge about the conditions of human life in the biblical period, in fact in all times.

One burial cave now thoroughly excavated is located at Meiron, dating from the Roman period (1st century b.c.e. to 4th century c.e.) in the Upper Galilee region and most likely belonging to one endogamous family lineage. ³ The ages of those buried there reveal much about the tenuousness of life in ancient times. Of the total of about 197 skeletons (the age at death of six of them could not be determined), almost 50% (95 in all) were of persons who had died prior to the age of 18, and of those 95 a total of 70 succumbed before reaching their fifth year. The excavators and analysts conclude that “the figures are high, but probably represent normal morbidity statistics in this period.” ⁴ Among the 96 who lived beyond the age of 18, nine died at the age of 19–25, another 63 lived until 26–39, and 24 survived beyond the age of 40. According to this sample, then, an infant born in this group stood a 12% chance of reaching the age of 40. And if one reached adulthood (considered for our purposes above the age of 18), that person had a 25% likelihood of attaining the age of 40. Of those 40-year-olds, there was roughly an even division between males and females. No determination is available from the archaeological report about the age of death in the group that reached 40.

Another site with a cemetery was the Qumran settlement, the sectarian group responsible for the production of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Located off the northwestern coast of the Dead Sea and dated roughly to the period stretching from at least the 1st century b.c.e. to the 1st century c.e., ⁵ the Qumran community had withdrawn from the larger society in order to pursue their religious goals of learning, interpreting, and copying the sacred texts from the past. In all likelihood they practiced celibacy as the analysis of skeletons so far indicates primarily an adult male population, with only a few female skeletons discovered. The community was thus not typical of the average village or town in the land. Moreover, life at Qumran may not have been as physically arduous as the life of a farmer or herder, although the residents must have been involved in producing much of their own food, a difficult task in this arid desert region.

Some 1,200 tombs have been identified at Qumran, but not many more than 50 skeletons have so far been scientifically analyzed. Focusing on a collection of bones exhumed from 18 tombs in the early 1950s by archaeologist Roland de Vaux, OP, a recent study meticulously analyzes the skeletal, dental, and cranial remains and reaches several pertinent conclusions. ⁶ Only one of this sample set is clearly female, and perhaps a second. Most important for our purposes is the age distribution, which runs from 15 or 16 to over 60 years of age, although three skeletons could not be dated. Aside from the one who died at age 15 or 16, the others lived at least to 30. The most frequent years of death, though, were 30–45; a total of 13 out of the 15 dateable individuals died within that span of life. Especially important for our discussion, only two persons lived until they were 45–50, none lasted into the 50s, and only one reached 60 years of age. ⁷

Recent excavations at Megiddo have also revealed skeletal remains, but as is the case at so many other digs, they tend to be isolated finds from varying time periods rather than a cemetery of a cohesive community. Their utility for demographic descriptions is thus questionable. For example, of the 20 remains uncovered from the Iron Age, the period of ancient Israel, the gender of only one (female) could be determined. However, their ages at death are pertinent, at least for comparison with other finds. Aside from the one of these 20 whose age could not be determined, the others died at these ages: 8 before the age of 15; 5 at age 15 or above (their actual age is indeterminate); and 6 between age 20 and 40. In other words, not a single one of these individuals survived beyond their 40th birthday. Of the 33 skeletal remains found from earlier periods (Early Bronze through Late Bronze), one was a fetus, six died by age five, another four by age 15, then fifteen in their years 15–30, two in their 30s, three in their 40s, one in the 50s, and one in the 60s. ⁸ Again there is a pattern of everyone, except for two, dying before age 50, the vast majority before age 40.

Analysis of the skeletons indicates a number of bone disorders that afflicted adults, especially those who were older. Arthritis occurred much more frequently than other conditions, affecting especially the vertebrae but also the shoulders and other joints. Individuals who had experienced bone fractures during their lives were especially prone to arthritic changes in those bones. Incidents of atrophy, paralysis, osteoporosis, and other disorders, some linked to genetic and others to nutritional etiologies, are also evident. Tooth loss occurred especially frequently by the time persons were older, the cause likely being periodontal disease as well as diet. The health of other bodily organs cannot be determined since they have long since decomposed, but most indications of deteriorating bones and teeth point to a worsening physical condition for those who lived into their 30s or 40s. ⁹

Such material evidence, which could be amplified from other archaeological sites, points to several relevant, though tentative generalizations. Life was indeed fragile during the period of ancient Israel due to hard labor in their subsistence economy, illnesses, injuries, malnutrition, warfare, and of course the absence of modern medicine. The infant mortality rate approximated 50%, and the chances of surviving until adulthood were also extremely low. ¹⁰ Death for the mother in childbirth was also not uncommon. In the study of the population buried at Meiron, ten of the eleven adolescents who died between ages 13–18 were female, ¹¹ quite plausibly because of pregnancy or childbirth soon after marriage, which typically occurred at age 12–15. After reaching 25, males and females died at roughly the same rate. Death for most of the adults came in their 30s or 40s. Few made it past 45, and the average age at death seems to have been 40 or below. ¹²

Assuming this material evidence is largely representative, we can venture that “old age” in ancient Israel meant someone over 45 at the most, and perhaps even over 40. In other words, the period considered “middle aged” in the modern world was “elderly” in theirs. Anyone in ancient Israel who lived into the 50s or, as in the case of one male among the Qumran set analyzed, into the 60s, must for us today parallel someone who is 95–100 and above.

Old Age in Neighboring Cultures

The experiences of old age and the views about the elderly among ancient Israel’s neighbors provide us with comparative information for understanding the situation among the Israelites and in the Hebrew Bible. Ancient Babylonia knew the quest for immortality, famously and vainly pursued by the hero Gilgamesh, and numerous other texts treat the subject of the elderly directly. ¹³ Here, though, we will focus on a number of revealing texts stemming from ancient Egypt.

One of the earliest descriptions of old age is found in the prologue of “The Instruction of Ptahhotep,” a long set of maxims given by the vizier Ptahhotep to his son as pragmatic advice for ruling in his place, the highest in the land under the pharaoh. The text is probably to be dated during the Sixth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, ca. 2300–2150 b.c.e., and begins with this self-description by Ptahhotep:

Age is here, old age arrived,

Feebleness came, weakness grows,

Childlike one sleeps all day.

Eyes are dim, ears deaf,

Strength is waning through weariness,

The mouth, silenced, speaks not,

The heart, void, recalls not the past,

The bones ache throughout.

Good has become evil, all taste is gone,

What age does to people is evil in everything.

The nose, clogged, breathes not,

Painful are standing and sitting. ¹⁴

This poignant, almost pathetic depiction of the deterioration of one’s senses and bodily parts is among the most striking of its type. The elements constituting this topos include the five senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch—as well as memory loss, sleep during the day, exhaustion, weakness, bitterness, aches and pains. The description is so effective that it seems to spring from someone who is undergoing these agonies and losses. However, even if the author was old enough to have experienced personally some of these changes, someone else with literary skills and empathic sensitivity may just as well have composed these lines after observing older individuals and hearing their complaints. Nothing points to the hard life of the peasants; the author most likely belongs to the guild of professional scribes or is dictating to one of them since literacy in ancient Egypt was limited to 1% or less of the total population. ¹⁵ The description is nonetheless tender for its insights into the realities of so many in old age.

Another revealing text is “The Story of Sinuhe,” called by one of its translators “the crown jewel of Middle Kingdom literature” for its literary artistry and vivid portrayal of sentiments. ¹⁶ Attributed to the time of the Twelfth Dynasty and the reign of Pharaoh Senwosret I (ca. 1919–1875 b.c.e.), “The Story of Sinuhe” follows its hero, the courtier Sinuhe, as he flees Egypt following the death of the previous pharaoh and takes refuge in the Levant, the land of Canaan. There he flourishes, becoming wealthy and powerful beyond all expectation. But as he grows older, he longs to return to his homeland of Egypt, and his utterance touches on many of the same elements in the topos noted earlier, only this time in a straightforward manner: “Would that my body were young again! For old age has come; feebleness has overtaken me. My eyes are heavy, my arms weak; my legs fail to follow. The heart is weary; death is near.” When the pharaoh hears of it, he sends a message to Sinuhe, imploring him to return: “Come back to Egypt! See the residence in which you lived! Kiss the ground at the great portals, mingle with the courtiers! For today you have begun to age. You have lost a man’s strength. Think of the day of burial, the passing into reveredness.” The pharaoh promises him all comforts and honor, and Sinuhe returns with relief but also trepidation. On receiving him at court, the pharaoh acknowledges the obvious: “Flight has taken its toll of you. You have aged, have reached old age.” But then after he has been pampered and freshly attired, Sinuhe comments: “Years were removed from my body. I was shaved; my hair was combed… I was clothed in fine linen; I was anointed with fine oil. I slept on a bed.” ¹⁷ It is a condition also evident in the Hebrew Bible: old age, despite the sufferings, and finally death are fitting when one is in relative comfort and is surrounded by family and friends.

Other ancient Egyptian texts contain similar descriptions of old age or admonitions to respect the elderly. ¹⁸ Of special note is “The Instruction of Papyrus Insinger,” dating from the 1st century c.e. and probably drawing on earlier material. It contains an intriguing periodization of life:

The life that approaches the peak, two-thirds of it are lost.

He (man) spends ten (years) as a child before he understands death and life.

He spends another ten (years) acquiring the work of instruction by which he will be able to live.

He spends another ten years gaining and earning possessions by which to live.

He spends another ten years up to old age before his heart takes counsel.

There remain sixty years of the whole life which Thoth has assigned to the man of god.

One in a million, the god giving his blessing, is he who spends them with fate consenting. ¹⁹

Here, the ideal life-span is 100 years, although no material evidence exists that anyone in that culture ever reached it, as admitted in the last line. “Old age” then commences at 40, but it is unclear whether the “peak” of life is at 40 or at 67, with two-thirds past or two-thirds remaining. Or possibly the two-thirds number should be rounded to 60 or perhaps even to 70, corresponding to the biblical ideal given in Ps 90:10. Whichever it may be, the text reflects an upper-class perspective since no one in a subsistence economy, trying to survive in the labor-intensive context of agriculture, could live the life of leisure implied in this text; some form of contribution to the peasant family’s well-being would be necessary if at all possible.

Old Age in the Hebrew Bible

The texts in the Hebrew Bible dealing with old age and the elderly should be understood in light of the multiple contexts already described—the socioeconomic settings of real life in ancient Israel, especially the harsh demands for survival among the poor who constituted the vast majority of the people; the material indications that, due to the mortal dangers accompanying infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, life expectancy must have hovered around age 40, if not 35, and that persons in their 40s were probably considered elderly and suffered the ailments of old age; and the literature from surrounding cultures that also depicts the afflictions of old age. The biblical texts also contain their own indications of who is elderly and what old age means.

Several texts in the Hebrew Bible address directly the question of limits and ideal life-spans. In the primeval story, just before the flood, God specifically sets the limit for a person’s life at 120 years of age (Gen 6:3); several of the later ancestors and others do, however, exceed this maximum. ²⁰ Psalm 90:10 specifies what may be considered the ideal, although with a twist:

The days of our life are seventy years,

or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;

even then their span is only toil and trouble;

they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Those who survive so long will not necessarily have an easy life—not as that enjoyed by the great king David, who died at 70, “a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor” (1 Chr 29:28). Only in apocalyptic times can there be hope for a return of the longevity depicted in the idylls of primeval and ancestral times. Isaiah 65:20 envisions the new Jerusalem:

No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days,

or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;

for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,

and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

The prophet continues with a description of this future as a time when people will live in comfort and free of conflict.

This apocalyptic vision contrasts with the stories in the book of Genesis, which begins with the suggestion that long life, if not even immortality, belongs to the human condition. However, Adam and Eve are driven from the garden of Eden after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and a flaming sword guards them from gaining access to the fruit of the tree of life. Adam nonetheless lives until the age of 930. From that point onward in the primeval and ancestral history, there is a pattern to the shortening of life-spans. From Adam through Noah, those named in the genealogies live between 969 (Methuselah) and 777 years, except for Enoch who “walked with God” at the age of 365. Then from Noah’s sons to Terah, the father of Abram, the range extends between 600 and 148. The great ancestors described in the remainder of Genesis also live long, but less impressively: Abraham, 175; Sarah, 127; Isaac, 180; Jacob, 147; Joseph, 110. This downward trend occurs at the same time as evil and conflict increase, first with the eating of the forbidden fruit, then fratricide; next, the intermingling of heavenly and earthly beings (Gen 6:1–4), and the widespread evil that triggers the flood; after which comes the scene between Noah and his sons; the tower of Babel; and finally, the many stress-points within the family of Abraham and his immediate descendants. The biblical text does not explicitly draw a causal relationship, but it is implied: as evil and wrong-doing increase, human longevity gradually decreases, until by the end of the book of Genesis the world has become close to what we know it to be. These unbelievably high numbers are thus symbolic, much as the astronomically high ages from 18,600 to 43,200 years each attributed by the Sumerians to eight legendary antediluvian kings ruling Mesopotamia during the third millennium b.c.e. ²¹

Aside from these stories of the ancient ancestors, the elderly do not figure often as characters in the biblical narratives. Certain leaders associated with early periods in Israel’s history are described as having lived long: Moses died at the age of 120 (Deut 34:7); his older brother Aaron at 123 (Num 33:39); their sister Miriam predeceasing them but with no age given (Num 20:1); and Joshua at 110 (Josh 24:29). Throughout the historical books, only a few specific persons are described as elderly: Eli, who is blind, old, and heavy, died at 98 (1 Sam 4:15–18); Barzillai, who gave provisions to David while he was fleeing from Absalom, at 80 or above; David at 70 (2 Sam 5:4); the priest Jehoiada at 130 (2 Chr 24:15); and isolated others who are considered old. Probably this absence of the elderly in the narratives should not be surprising if, as noted above, individuals seldom lived into old age. Those who survive the longest are those considered notable leaders or others exemplary in their faithfulness to God. According to Job 42:16, Job died at the age of 140, double the ideal age of 70, just as the number of his livestock was double the size of the herds prior to his woes.

In addition to the ancestors, the only other group about whom the age at death is normally given in the Hebrew Bible is the kings of Judah; the dates for the rulers of the northern kingdom of Israel are usually not provided, consistent with the biblical denunciation of these kings. The fourteen southern kings for whom ages are provided and who were not taken into exile (all according to information given in the books of 1–2 Kings) lived on average only 46 years. ²² They were presumably better nourished and medically treated than others in the country, much more so than the vast majority, so one would expect them to survive longer than most of the population. Considering that a few had their lives cut short by coup, the average is only a few years higher that the age of death of much less privileged adults, according to evidence uncovered by archaeologists.

One other tradition further reinforces the conclusion that the authors of the Hebrew Bible expected 40 as a likely age at death. In Num 14:21–23, YHWH’s punishment of the wilderness generation for their complaints and rebellions specifies that they are to continue wandering in the wilderness until the last of those born in Egypt has died, and the period stipulated is 40 years. Thus, someone born in Egypt just prior to the exodus would be expected to die within that 40-year period and be denied the chance to enter the land of Canaan. While the number 40 serves often as a symbol meaning a long time, in this case, it also coincides with the expected life-span of the people.

The frequent biblical mentions of the “elders” of Israel, first attested in Exod 3:16, do not refer to a gathering of elderly persons or of wizened old men. The elders represent a social institution in the villages and towns, a group that is convened, largely on an ad hoc basis, to adjudicate legal disputes and decide on matters of community import. They are the household heads, the patres familias, who in the traditional domestic hierarchical system hold the highest authority within a household or a clan, encompassing two or more closely related households. The oldest male usually holds this position, but in cases where the oldest male is no longer able to function effectively, the next oldest male assumes that position. Thus, this gathering is likely to include a number of adult males in their 30s, if not even younger. The point is not their age but their traditional authority, as a group, to represent the households in deciding community affairs. Assemblies of elders are also described at the tribal and even national levels, in both of which cases these bodies likely contain not all possible household heads but only a representative selection of them in the region. The biblical stories describe elders as consulting often with Moses, for example in preparing to receive the laws at Sinai (Exod 19:7; 24:1); in adjudicating legal cases (e.g., Deut 19:12); in accompanying Joshua at the head of the troops (Josh 8:10); in urging Samuel to found the monarchy (1 Sam 8:4); in hearing the reading of the book of the covenant with Josiah and in entering into the covenant with him before God (2 Kgs 23:1–3).

The Hebrew word usually translated as “old” is zāqēn, which stems from the word zāqān, meaning “beard.” Related words occur in many other Semitic languages. To be bearded is to be an adult male, and in this more general sense, the adult male household heads comprise the group of elders (zĕqēnîm). But a full third of the many occurrences of zāqēn have the narrower meaning of old, as in “old and gray” (ziqnâ wĕśêbâ, in Ps 71:18—“even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me,” NIV), referring especially to gray hair. With this sense of gray hair, the various forms of zāqēn apply also to women, but only five times in the whole Hebrew Bible. ²³

Just as characteristic, or more so, of old age are the infirmities and losses that accompany this period of life. Sarah laughs at the prediction that she will become pregnant at the age of 90 (Gen 17:17; 18:9–15). Isaac (Gen 27:1), Jacob (Gen 48:10), and Eli (1 Sam 3:2) suffer blindness or failing vision. King David is so chilled in his latter years that he is provided with a young virgin to keep him warm, although the text is quick to state that he does not have sexual relations with her (1 Kgs 1:1–4). King Asa is “diseased in his feet” in his old age (1 Kgs 15:23). King Hezekiah becomes deathly sick at the age of 39 and after beseeching God, receives a bonus of 15 more years of life (2 Kgs 20:1–11; 18:2). In Psalm 71, an elderly person prays for strength, relief from sufferings, and defense against those scorning him. All of these details belong to the topos of old age described above in the literature of ancient Egypt. But nowhere in the Hebrew Bible is there a more poignant, metaphor-rich litany of the miseries of the elderly than in the text found in the final chapter of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet), 12:1–8. ²⁴ It is a figurative rendering of the topos about old age, provided in non-metaphorical language in the above text, “The Instruction of Ptahhotep,” and elsewhere. The passage is reproduced here in full, with the probable referent for each metaphor inserted in brackets at the end of the line:

¹ Remember your creator in the days of your youth,

before the days of trouble come,

and the years draw near when you will say,

“I have no pleasure in them”;

² before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened [parts of the face]

and the clouds return with the rain; [weeping]

³ in the day when the guards of the house tremble, [arms]

and the strong men are bent, [legs or back]

and the women who grind cease working because they are few, [teeth]

and those who look through the windows see dimly; [eyes]

⁴ when the doors on the street are shut, [hearing or constipation]

and the sound of the grinding is low, [voice]

and one rises up at the sound of a bird,

and all the daughters of song are brought low; [the singing voice]

⁵ when one is afraid of heights, [fear of heights]

and terrors are in the road; [fear while walking]

the almond tree blossoms, [gray hair]

the grasshopper drags itself along [mobility]

and desire fails; [libido]

because all must go to their eternal home,

and the mourners will go about the streets;

⁶ before the silver cord is snapped,

and the golden bowl is broken,

and the pitcher is broken at the fountain,

and the wheel broken at the cistern,

⁷ and the dust returns to the earth as it was,

and the breath returns to God who gave it.

⁸ Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher;

all is vanity.

The directness and colorful imagery lend this passage a force that is both moving and sad. The finality of the body’s deterioration is inescapable and must be faced. To this point in the book, Ecclesiastes has repeatedly urged readers to enjoy their youth while they have it, and here we see the reason: with time, one loses one’s physical capacity to overcome fear and to revel in life. Death is more imminent and certain than ever before: the silver cord will snap, the golden bowl will break, the pitcher will shatter.

A genuine appreciation for the vulnerability and afflictions of old age shows through in such passages. Living beyond the age of 40 occurred seldom enough in ancient Israel that those who survived so long would have stood out in the communities of the poor masses. They could scarcely care for themselves if that required working in the fields or in other strenuous ways to obtain their food and necessities. They were dependent on their children or their clan. The commandment “Honor your father and your mother” (Exod 20:12) is not directed so much at young children as it is at adults who are obligated to care for their elderly parents. Similarly, the harsh law in Deut 21:18–21 does not prescribe capital punishment for a minor who disobeys his or her parents, for drunkenness and gluttony are most offensive when they result in an adult’s shirking the responsibility of providing for the needs of one’s parents. The biblical text makes it a moral and social duty, the violation of which is punishable by the community. ²⁵

The elderly deserve more than simple sustenance and shelter. They should be respected, honored, and venerated in a manner befitting their years of effort on behalf of their family and community. Because they draw on accumulated lessons from experience and knowledge about the world, they are expected to possess wisdom, more so than does the younger generation. In the Book of Job, the three friends are Job’s peers, and the fourth interlocutor, Elihu, acknowledges that he waited to confront Job until the other three, who were older, had ceased to speak (Job 32:1–7). Those who are old deserve deference. The elderly experience physical diminishment and limitations, but their minds are likely to be as nimble as before, especially if they are only in their forties, as seems to be the most common age of the elderly in ancient Israel. The biblical lists of the ailments of old age do not include memory loss. The elderly are the repository of the community’s memory and the family’s lore. Even in spite of the socioeconomic terms under which they have lived, they deserve the chance to grow old in as much comfort as possible, surrounded by their relatives and friends and content with their lives.