Ecclesiastes 12:1 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Bible Comments

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

As Ecclesiastes 11:9-10, showed what youths are to shun, so this, verse shows what they are to follow.

Creator. "Remember" that thou art not thine own, but God's property; because He has created thee. Therefore serve Him with thy 'all' (Mark 12:30), and with thy best days, not with the dregs of them. The Hebrew is Creators, plural, implying the plurality of persons, as in Genesis 1:26; so Hebrew, Makers (Isaiah 54:5); or else the fullness of majesty and glory that is in the divine nature. If the young man wishes truly to "rejoice," he must continually "remember" God. "Thy Creator" implies the reason why we should "remember." Not to remember Him to whom we owe our first being and continued preservation would be monstrous and unnatural.

Evil days come not - i:e., before that (Proverbs 8:26) the evil days come-namely, calamity and old age-when one can no longer have bodily enjoyments as in youth, and when he who hath not remembered God in youth will not have God as his never-failing source of enjoyment in the absence of all other joys.

No pleasure - of a sensual kind (2 Samuel 19:35). Pleasure in God continues to the godly old.

Ecclesiastes 12:1

1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;