Charles Ellicott Commentary Ecclesiastes 12:3

"in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows shall be darkened," — Ecclesiastes 12:3 (ASV)

In this verse, we have a description of an afflicted and frightened house: the servants below (keepers of the house; compare to 2 Samuel 20:3) in consternation (the word for tremble occurs twice more in Biblical Hebrew (Esther 5:9; Habakkuk 2:7), but is common in Aramaic); the masters (men of might, translated able men (Exodus 18:21, 25); compare to mighty in power (Job 21:7)) in equal distress; so also the grinding maids below, discontinuing their work (Exodus 11:5; Isaiah 47:1–2); the ladies, who look out at the lattices (Judges 5:8; 2 Samuel 5:16; Proverbs 7:6; 2 Kings 9:30), forced to withdraw. (For the four classes, compare to Isaiah 24:2; Psalms 132:2.)

Expositors have generally understood the house described here as denoting the decaying body of the old man. To the English reader, the grinders of our version suggest teeth in a way that the grinding maidens of the Hebrew does not; and the ladies looking out of the lattices can easily be understood as the eyes. But when it is attempted to carry out the figure and to find anatomical explanations of all the other images employed, the interpretation becomes so forced that some have preferred to understand Ecclesiastes 12:3 as only a general description of the consternation produced by such a tempest as is spoken of in Ecclesiastes 12:2. I cannot help but think that the house does denote the bodily frame, but I regard as unsuccessful the attempts that have been made to carry out this idea into its details.