Ecclesiastes12:5

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Translation

and when they fear the heights and the terrors in the street, and when the almond tree puts out [blossoms], and

the grasshopper is a burden,

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and desire fails; when the man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about in the streets,

Paraphrase

and when a person will not go up stairs for fear of falling, and is afraid to go outside for fear of bad things happening while out there, and when one’s top (his head) is covered in white just like an almond tree in bloom, and

when even a grasshopper is too much of a burden to carry, and no desire is left for anything at all; when the man dies and goes to his eternal home, and people mourn his passing,

Footnotes

1: “the grasshopper is a burden”

The verb used here comes from the word “to carry” but its form is reflexive meaning that it has active and passive elements at the same time. The one doing the action is doing something to himself. In this case he is either “making himself a burden (think burdensome) to others, or he is a burden to himself.” It can be interpreted as “the grasshopper carries itself along,” or “the grasshopper is a burden to someone who picks it up and carries it,” i.e. “even a grasshopper is too heavy for me to carry.” The second one fits the context very well, but the first one is totally disconnected from what he is talking about.