The Metaphor of Aging in Ecclesiastes 12:1–6: A Jewish Traditional Exegesis for Contemporary People
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69668/juita.v3i2.221Keywords:
Ecclesiastes 12:1–6, metaphor of aging, Jewish exegesis, Qohelet Rabbah, remembrance of the CreatorAbstract
Ecclesiastes 12:1–6 is widely read in Western scholarship as a somatic allegory of decline, yet the Jewish exegetical tradition that first shaped its interpretation the Babylonian Talmud, Qohelet Rabbah, and medieval Hebrew philologists remains underused as an exegetical partner, so that the poem's syntactic architecture has rarely been read together with this tradition's metaphorical logic. This study reconstructs that architecture through Jewish traditional exegesis and articulates its theological relevance for contemporary readers confronting aging. A qualitative literary-exegetical method combines close reading of the Masoretic Text with intertextual analysis of Talmudic, midrashic, and medieval rabbinic sources. The findings show that each image darkened luminaries, a trembling house, a blossoming almond, a severed silver cord functions as a layered cosmic-somatic sign summoning the reader to zikkaron, remembrance of the Creator, rather than mere biological decay. The study concludes that Jewish traditional exegesis offers a corrective, covenantal hermeneutic of aging for contemporary theology.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Sulistiono, Jessica Elizabeth Abraham, Tony Richie
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