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  • From: <pporta AT oham.net>
  • To: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>, "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ecc 12:2
  • Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:46:37 +0100

It does answer and it does not...
What is the "w'shavu he'avim ahar gashem" alike to mean? Maybe that... after the "rainstorm"... (old age, agony, death) of a given individual... the world, things are going their way quite disregarding of the fact that that given person is no more in this world but he passed away? (People die and the world... goes on with no trouble)

By the way: are you sure what the vowels are for the first word in verse 7? Maybe tsere (under yud) and tsere again (under shin)? Or maybe qamats under yud and patah under shin?

Heartly,

Pere Porta
Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain)


----- Original Message ----- From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
To: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 4:25 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ecc 12:2


Well, Pere, the answer is "Yes".
I see the verse as describing #2 as a symbolic reference to #1.

The understanding that this section, verses 1–7, refers to old age and death
is predicated on the understanding that each of these pictures, while
describing other actions, are symbolically referring to the loss of strength
that accompanies aging to the complete stop as in death. The final picture
being in verse seven, that the dust settles back down on the earth as the
wind that was blowing it stopped as a symbolic reference to a body ceasing
to move upon death as the spirit leaves.

Does this answer your question?

Karl W. Randolph.

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 10:03 PM, <pporta AT oham.net> wrote:

As I said, I'm reading Qohelet chapter 12 (a beautiful text!) and I wish
today ask for the advice of this list members as to the meaning of verse
2.
This verse writes on the sun, the light, the moon, the stars becoming dark
and the clouds being coming back after the rain.

1. Is the author describing here the loss of faculties most old people
suffer,
mainly the loss of sight --which is so common as one gets old-- so that
the
person does not see the light anymore?

2. Or is the author rather describing a rain scenery or a rain incident (a
sort of rainstorm, not necessarily a thunderbolted one)?

It happens --and I myself saw it sometimes in this northerneast corner of
Spain where I stay -- that at a given moment the sky begins to become
darker and darker, nearly black... a lead screen covers it --so that every
natural light almost desappears-- and after a few minutes a thick rain -a
heavy shower- begins to fall down... This can last a half an hour (or a
little less or a little more) and then... slowly the sky gets blue again
and
white clouds come back...

I think myself that 2 is more logical for the inner coherence of text.

What do you think?

Pere Porta
(Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)

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