Question concerning Ecclesiastes 12:6?

Question

I would prefer Christians only on this please....

Here is the verse:

Ecclesiastes 12:6
6 Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the well.

Obviously this is a metaphor for the importance knowing God before you die. But do you think the "silver cord" mentioned has more significance?

Is this "silver cord" maybe what keeps us attached to this life....and then gets severed when we give up the ghost and go home to be with the Lord?

Just curious........

Anna:

I read a book by Dr Rebecca Brown who spoke about astral travel. She is a former devil worshipper now born again Christian and has done that.....really spooky stuff.

I think Shirley McClain dabbled in that stuff as well.....purely demonic.

Answer 1

This is one of those verses where you can't just pick out one little piece...You need the whole thing for context...The things you need to do before you die. Checking through a concordance it says that the verse describes total collapse....Possibly the Silver cord being the spine, the golden bowl the head, the pitcher the heart, and the wheel the organs of digestion. But it also said another possibility is the silver cord being the soul which after death no longer supports the body. The pitcher as the heart drawing in and sending out blood and the wheel as the lungs and throat.

Answer 2

There seems to be here a twofold thought. The golden bowl, holding the lighted oil to give light in the house, and held by a silver chord, breaks when the cord snaps with age. And the pitcher at the fountain is broken when the wheel which draws it up from the water is broken, again with age. (Although some see both as portraying the one event). Thus when a man dies his aged silver cord breaks and his golden light-containing bowl, the bowl of life, is broken. When a man dies it is because the wheel which drew up the pitcher full of water, the pitcher of the water of life, has broken with age, crashing down into the cistern and causing the pitcher also to break.

The gold and silver reflect the value of a man’s life. The earthenware pitcher its fragility.

Answer 3

The opening passage of Ecclesiastes chapter 12 is an allegory for the decaying body of an aging person. The "silver cord" is the spinal cord, and the "golden bowl" is the brain.

Here is a more thorough analysis, according to Jehovah's Witnesses:

(Ecclesiastes 12:1-6) Remember, now, your Grand Creator in the days of your young manhood, before the calamitous days proceed to come, or the years have arrived when you will say: “I have no delight in them”; 2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds have returned, afterward the downpour; 3 in the day when the keepers [the arms and hands] of the house [the body] tremble, and the men of vital energy [the legs] have bent themselves, and the grinding women [the teeth] have quit working because they have become few, and the ladies seeing at the windows [the eyes] have found it dark; 4 and the doors onto the street [the lips and mouth for speech] have been closed, when the sound of the grinding mill [toothless gums] becomes low, and one gets up at the sound of a bird [sleeplessness], and all the daughters of song sound low [loss of hearing]. 5 Also, they have become afraid merely at what is high [fear of heights, or of falling], and there are terrors in the way [fear of crowds]. And the almond tree carries blossoms [graying, then whitening hair], and the grasshopper [with weary crooked posture] drags itself along [slow walking], and the caper berry bursts [loss of appetite], because man is walking to his long-lasting house [the grave] and the wailers [the complaints of the elderly one] have marched around in the street; 6 before the silver cord [the spinal cord, perhaps] is removed, and the golden bowl [the brain] gets crushed, and the jar at the spring [the heart] is broken, and the waterwheel [the circulatory system] for the cistern has been crushed

Answer 4

Then shall the silver cord, by which soul and body were wonderfully fastened together, be loosed, that sacred knot untied, and those old friends be forced to part; then shall the golden bowl, which held the waters of life for us, be broken; then shall the pitcher with which we used to fetch up water, for the constant support of life and the repair of its decays, be broken, even at the fountain, so that it can fetch up no more; and the wheel (all those organs that serve for the collecting and distributing of nourishment) shall be broken, and disabled to do their office any more. The body shall become like a watch when the spring is broken, the motion of all the wheels is stopped and they all stand still; the machine is taken to pieces; the heart beats no more, nor does the blood circulate. Some apply this to the ornaments and utensils of life; rich people must, at death, leave behind them their clothing and furniture of silver and gold, and poor people their earthen pitchers, and the drawers of water will have their wheel broken.

Answer 5

I think it could well mean your "life line." I know it's a totally different culture, but the ancient Nordic people believed in the Three Norns, three women who sat at the foot of Yggdrasil, the world tree, and spun threads, one for each person's (and god's) life. Gold for gods and nobles, red for artisans and wealty commoners, grey for plebes. And when that person's life was over, the thread was cut. At Ragnarokk (the end of the Nordic god's time), the Norns stopped spinning and covered their faces. Curious that the Norse people knew their gods were "almost" immortal--but not quite.

As to the "silver cord", yes. Silver is shiny...light, life...and it was certainly precious in those days. I would say that the silver cord is also a symbol of something valuable. Know God before you get so cynical and world-worn that you can't think straight. Silver tarnishes...know God before you get tarnished by the world and you won't get damaged.

Gold is a metal...I never stopped to think how a golden (metal) bowl could be broken, unless it were dented out of shape. However gold is soft...maybe that is what is meant.

Answer 6

ooooh you just reminded me of the silver cord people see when they astral travel. I haven't done this... but I read about it. That would really make sense actually.

I just found this site:
http://www.paralumun.com/astral.htm

I agree primo - demonic! This is not a recommendation of something I would suggest anyone try on purpose. But, I know some people have experienced it during a Near Death Experience... interesting how the silver cord is present.

I made an immediate connection between the two. Weird!

Answer 7

I think foxfire has it right.
I read about a person who used to have out of body experiences before salvation. She said when would leave her body but she was attached with a silver cord and once while out something was like plucking it, it was a demon. Not sure how true this is but now it makes sense after reading that passage.
She said that experience woke her up and she got right with God.
†

Answer 8

I had someone explain this to me many years ago. The problem, though, is that I was drunk at the time. I do, however, remember that the silver cord had something to do with the soul of a man, and its connection to God. Somewhere in Ecclesiates it says that God has put a sense of eternity in each of us, and this is what the silver cord represents; our soul and its connection to eternity and knowledge of God. Something like that. Damn alcohol. I'm glad I quit that habit.

Answer 9

There is a book written by a doctor that interviewed people that had died on the table and came back. There were several things most had experienced in common. One man happened to die on two different occasions, and he said he was aware of a cord connecting him to his old body from about the center of his shoulders on his back. So, it looks as though this is literally interpreted.
I cannot recall the name of the book. Charles Swindoll names it in one of his sermons, I would get through to his ministry to track it down.

Answer 10

The cord breaks, the bowl is shattered, the light goes out. Death occurs.

I think it is Solomon's way of saying that we can go through this entire life looking for so much more only to never find it and upon death we see that it could have been so much more if we had only recognized our Creator for who He is was and is.