Biblical Hebrew Forum

[<pporta AT oham.net>]

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)