Verified answer

The mind of a person. The surrounding scriptures are talking about aging. (Ecclesiastes 12:1) . . .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”;

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I have an article that goes through those scriptures. Would like to email it to you but the email feature in Yahoo Answers only let me send a short part of it.. only allowed 1000 characters. My email address is at the end, email me if you want the rest of the article.

In the context I think he's talking about the human body, and a man nearing death, and so commenting on the situation for every man/woman.

Solomon was very well-off, but has come to realise all that seeking after worldly things is vanity.

Whether he is talking about quality of persons, or just plain wealth and high estimation by men, those containers of the spirit that are beautiful and greatly esteemed (gold, silver) or those that are just plain earthenware and not regarded much except for their practical function, all end up malfunctioning, snapping, breaking.

I think their ideas about life after death were rather hazy then. Sometimes David's psalms seem to indicate hope for a life after death, but then Solomon in Ecclesiastes at times believes this life is all we have, although I think he did have some hope, but was unsure. So he thought a lot of our earthly endeavors were vanity (he does in this passage expect the spirit to return to its Creator, the vessel of the spirit being broken).

To me, one of the most interesting - and mysterious - passages in the Bible.

He is certainly speaking of the loss of life - but either in symbolic or religious/superstitious terms.

For example (the one that I understand) - "the silver cord" is believed to be the "thing" that ties the soul (or perhaps the "spirit" or "consciousness") to the mortal body. When "the silver cord" is "severed" or "unraveled", then one's soul or spirit or consciousness is no longer tied to one's body and is free to depart the material body.

For the other symbols or religious terms - unfortunately - I have been unable to find reliable information. I only know what the terms are physically (for example: "the wheel broken at the well" referring to the wheel & crank used to raise and lower the bucket by means of the rope coiled around it) and that they are all referring to the transition from life to death - that is, to the event of death itself..

- Jim, http://www.bible-reviews.com/

A bowl. Made of gold.