And terrors shall be in the way;
And the almond-tree shall blossom,
And the grasshopper shall drag itself along, And the caper berry shall fail;
Because man goes to his long home,
And the mourners go about the streets; Before the silver cord is snapped asunder, And the golden bowl is shattered,
And the pitcher is broken at the fountain, And the wheel falleth shattered into the pit; And the dust returns to the earth as it was, And the spirit returns unto God who gave it.’
These lines have been seen as references to the disabilities of old age. They show a dark picture of old age that differs totally from the view of the rest of the Bible .
DOES THE BIBLE HAVE A TERMINOLOGY FOR THE AGED?
Are there special terms for the aged? Do they imply endearment or disenchantment and rejection? The most general term is zaken, also the word for beard. We can take it that the aged looked old; and, of course, this was a male-dominated society. Sevah is also used, but sparingly(nineteen times and twice with zaken, Gen. 25:8; Ps. 81:18). When we review zaken in the Bible we quickly understand that its use will not help us toward a definition of age, and often the word implies something totally different—an“elder” as a counselor, considered mature but not necessarily aged.