In terms of form and content, the first clause of this verse belongs with verse 3.

And the doors on the street are shut: a dual form in Hebrew, the word for doors indicates double doors. This is unusual, since most houses in Israel apparently had only a single door. The adverbial phrase on the street may describe doors opening out onto the street market. Those who advocate a figurative meaning for these verses interpret the doors as part of the body. The problem is that there is little agreement about which part—the legs, the eyes, or the ears. In the examples that follow there are three references to sounds we hear: grinding, birds calling, and women singing. Thus the most likely figurative meaning for doors is the ears. If the doors represent ears then we can add with Good News Translation “your ears will be deaf to the noise of the street.” However, if doors has another meaning, Good News Translation is too narrow a translation. And as noted earlier the meaning of the text may not be limited to old age. Some see a possible reference to death or to a subsequent funeral. During such times houses are closed up and various daily activities cease. Again the best solution is to translate literally and leave possible explanations to footnotes. We recommend a translation such as “the doors to the street are shut.”

When the sound of the grinding is low: the precise relationship of this clause to the previous clauses is that it also describes a time to come. That time is described as one when grinding sounds will be low. The verb “be low” carries a literal sense as well as portraying what is cut down or destroyed (see Isa 10.33 of trees; and Isa 26.5 of cities). We suggest that here the sound of grinding is low means there is no further sound of people grinding grain; it does not mean that they make very little sound when they work. This latter is the Good News Translation understanding. Good News Translation adds another phrase at this point: “or music as it plays.” To achieve this result it has brought the final phrase of the verse forward to this position. The problem with this is that there is no necessary connection between that phrase and the clause here.

And one rises up at the voice of a bird: we find various translations of this sentence, due to problems surrounding the Hebrew verb for “rises.” While most accept that the root is “rise,” New English Bible and Jerusalem Bible suggest “grow faint.” We reject this second suggestion, however, since it involves a change in the Hebrew text which does not seem justified. The next problem concerns who rises. Is it the chirping of the birds (New English Bible) or a person (Revised Standard Version and New American Bible one; Good News Translation “you”)? As the verb is followed by a prepositional phrase “to [or, at] the sound [or, voice] of the bird,” we think the Revised Standard Version rendering is correct: an old person gets up at the sound of the birds singing in the morning. This may be intended to suggest a contrast; while the old person has trouble hearing certain sounds, he is awakened in the morning by the shrill chirping of birds.

All the daughters of song are brought low is another extremely difficult passage because it is hard to identify who these daughters of song are. Are they dancing women? Or mourning women bent low in grief? Or is it another poetic way to refer to birds singing? New English Bible takes the latter view, with “song birds.” New International Version “and all their songs” is ambiguous, since the songs may belong either to “men who get up early” or to “birds.” One problem with translating as “song birds” is that it seems somewhat contradictory. In the previous line the bird’s song seems to be loud enough to raise people from their sleep; in this line it fades away altogether. Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, and Jerusalem Bible take a broader view, seeing this expression as referring to “music” in general or “song notes” (Jerusalem Bible). Good News Translation further links this phrase with “the sound of grinding,” drawing a contrast with the middle line. This is then moved to the end of the verse: “You will barely be able to hear the mill as it grinds or music as it plays, but even the song of a bird will wake you from sleep.”

Brought low translates a rare form of the Hebrew verb that describes something low (compare Isa 29.4). Here and elsewhere in the Old Testament it is a verb that parallels a form seen above in “the grinding is low.” A related form is used in the context of mourning (so Fox’s interpretation). Though Good News Translation and New Jerusalem Bible understand it to be saying that a sound grows fainter, it probably means it has stopped altogether (like Jerusalem Bible “stilled”).

We again recommend a translation closer to the original form, with a footnote explaining various possibilities for its meaning; for example:

• … before the time when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding has stopped; before the time when a little bird’s call can awaken you, or the sound of singing has stopped altogether.*

A model footnote may be:
*The Hebrew text allows various interpretations. The reference can be to the quietness of a place during a funeral, the ceasing of activity in death, or to a time of life when a person no longer can hear sounds very well but is strangely bothered by high, shrill ones.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Ecclesiates. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .