Respect & honor - Elderly People

12 dues to elderly people, according to Scripture in Ecc. 12:
First, Then the sun and the light of it, the moon and the stars, and the light which they borrow from it, will be darkened. They look dim to elderly people, in consequence of the decay of their sight; their countenance is clouded, and the beauty and luster of it are eclipsed; their brain powers and faculties, which are as lights in the soul, are weakened; their understanding and memory fail them, and their apprehension is not so quick nor their fancy so lively as it has been; the days of their amusement are over (light is often put for joy and prosperity) and they have not the pleasure either of the chat of the day or the rest of the night, for both the sun and the moon are darkened to them.
Secondly, Then the clouds return after the rain; as, when the weather is disposed to wet, no sooner has one cloud blown over than another succeeds it, so it is with elderly people, when they have got free from one pain or ailment, they are seized with another, so that their distempers are like a continual dropping in a very rainy day. The end of one trouble is, in this world, but the beginning of another, and deep calls unto deep. Elderly people are often afflicted with defluxions of rheum, like soaking rain, after which still more clouds return, feeding the humor, so that it is continually grievous, and therein the body, as it were, melts away.
Thirdly, Then the keepers of the house tremble. The head, which is as the watch-tower, shakes, and the arms and hands, which are ready for the preservation of the body, shake too, and grow feeble, upon every sudden approach and attack of danger. That energy of the animal spirits which used to be applied for self-defense fails and cannot do its office; elderly people are easily dispirited and discouraged.
Fourthly, Then the strong men shall bow themselves; the legs and thighs, which used to support the body, and bear its weight, bend, and cannot serve for traveling as they have done, but are soon tired. Elderly men that have been in their time strong men become weak and stoop for age, Zec. 8:4. G-d takes no pleasure in the legs of a man (Ps. 147:10), for their strength will soon fail; but in the Father there is everlasting strength; He has everlasting arms.
Fifthly, Then the grinders cease because they are few; the teeth, with which we grind our meat and prepare it for mixture, cease to do their part, because they are few. They are rotted and broken, and perhaps have been drawn because they ached. Some elderly people have lost all their teeth, and others have but few left; and this infirmity is the more considerable because the meat, not being well chewed, for want of teeth, is not well digested, which has as much influence as any thing upon the other decays of age.
Sixthly, Those that look out of the windows are darkened; the eyes wax dim, as Isaac’s (Gen. 27:1), and Ahijah’s, 1 Ki. 14:4. Moses was a rare instance of one who, when 120 years elderly, had good eye-sight, but ordinarily the sight decays in elderly people as soon as any thing, and it is a mercy to them that art helps nature with spectacles. We have need to improve our sight well while we have it, because the light of the eyes may be gone before the light of life.
Seventhly, The doors are shut in the streets. Elderly people keep within doors, and care not for going abroad to entertainments. The lips, the doors of the mouth, are shut in eating, because the teeth are gone and the sound of the grinding with them is low, so that they have not that command of their meat in their mouths which they used to have; they cannot digest their meat, and therefore little grist is brought to the mill.
Eighthly, Elderly people rise up at the voice of the bird. They have no sound sleep as young people have, but a little thing disturbs them, even the chirping of a bird; they cannot rest for coughing, and therefore rise up at cock-crowing, as soon as any body is stirring; or they are apt to be jealous, and nervous, and full of care, which breaks their sleep and makes them rise early; or they are apt to be superstitious, and rise up as in a fright, at those voices of birds, as of ravens, or screech-owls, which soothsayers call threatening.
Ninthly, With them all the daughters of music are brought low. They have neither voice nor ear, can neither sing themselves nor take any pleasure, as Solomon had done in the days of his youth, in singing men, and singing women, and musical instruments, ch. 2:8. Elderly people grow hard of hearing, and unapt to distinguish sounds and voices.
Tenthly, They are afraid of that which is high, afraid to go to the top of any high place, either because, for want of breath, they cannot reach it, or, their heads being scatterbrained or their legs failing them, they dare not venture to it, or they frighten themselves with fancying that which is high will fall upon them. Fear is in the way; they can neither ride nor walk with their former gate, but are afraid of every thing that lies in their way, lest it throws them down.
Eleventh, The almond-tree flourishes. The elderly man’s hair has grown white, so that his head looks like an almond-tree in the blossom. The almond-tree blossoms before any other tree, and therefore fitly shows what haste elderly age makes in seizing upon men; it prevents their expectations and comes faster upon them than they thought of. Gray hairs are here and there upon them (hoary head, Prov. 16:31), and they perceive it not.
Twelfth, The grasshopper is a burden and desire fails. Elderly men can bear nothing; the lightest thing sits heavily upon them, both on their bodies and on their minds, a little thing sinks and breaks them. Perhaps the grasshopper was some food that was looked upon to be very light of digestion (John Baptist’s meat was locusts), but even that lies heavily upon an elderly man’s stomach, and therefore desire fails, he has no appetite to his meat, neither shall he regard the desire of woman, as that king, Dan. 11:37. Elderly men become mindless and listless, and the pleasures of sense are to them tasteless and sapless.
Some elderly people bear up better than others under the decays of age, but, more or less, the days of elderly age are and will be evil days and of little pleasure. Great care therefore should be taken to pay respect and honour to elderly people; tears are a tribute due to the dead. Then shall the silver cord, by which soul and body were wonderfully fastened together, be loosed, that sacred knot untied, and those elderly friends be forced to part; the body, that clod of clay, returns to its own earth. In consideration of the judgment to come, and the strictness of that judgment, it highly concerns us now to be very strict in our walking with G-d that we may give up our account with joy.