A good name is better than fine perfume; and the day of death better than the day of one’s birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting; for that is the end of all men, and the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the face the heart is made good. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. Surely extortion makes the wise man foolish; and a bribe destroys the understanding. Better is the end of a thing than its beginning. The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
Don’t be hasty in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For you do not ask wisely about this.
Wisdom is as good as an inheritance. Yes, it is more excellent for those who see the sun. For wisdom is a defense, even as money is a defense; but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.
Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight, which he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; yes, God has made the one side by side with the other, to the end that man should not find out anything after him.
All this I have seen in my days of vanity: there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who lives long in his evildoing. Don’t be overly righteous, neither make yourself overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Don’t be too wicked, neither be foolish. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this. Yes, also don’t withdraw your hand from that; for he who fears God will come out of them all. Wisdom is a strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city. Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and doesn’t sin. Also don’t take heed to all words that are spoken, lest you hear your servant curse you; for often your own heart knows that you yourself have likewise cursed others. All this I have proved in wisdom. I said, “I will be wise;” but it was far from me. That which is, is far off and exceedingly deep. Who can find it out? I turned around, and my heart sought to know and to search out, and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity, and that foolishness is madness.
I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and traps, whose hands are chains. Whoever pleases God shall escape from her; but the sinner will be ensnared by her.
“Behold, I have found this,” says the Preacher, “to one another, to find out the scheme which my soul still seeks, but I have not found. I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all those. Behold, I have only found this: that God made man upright; but they search for many schemes.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 29 There is no state wherein man can live to…
There is no state wherein man can live to have perfect quietness in this life.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–29 Ecc 7:1 A good name [is] better than precious…
Ecc 7:1 A good name [is] better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
Ver. 1. A good name is better than precious ointment.] Yea, than great riches. {See Trapp on "Pro 22:1"} The initial letter {a} of the Hebrew word for "good" here is larger than ordinary, to show the more than ordinary excellence of a good name and fame among men. {Hebrew Text Note} If whatsoever David doeth doth please the people, if Mary Magdalen’s cost upon Christ be well spoken of in all the churches, if the Romans’ faith be famous throughout the whole world, {Rom 1:8} if Demetrius have a good report of all good men, and St John set his seal to it, this must needs be better than precious ointments; the one being but a perfume of the nostrils, the other of the heart. Sweet ointment, olfactum afficit, spiritum reficit, cerebrum iuvat, affects the smell, refresheth the spirit, comforts the brain: a good name doth all this and more. For,
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First, As a fragrant scent, it affects the soul, amidst the stench of evil courses and companies. It is as a fresh gale of sweet air to him that lives, as Noah did, among such as are no better than walking dunghills, and living sepulchres of themselves, stinking much more worse than Lazarus did, after he had lain four days in the grave. A good name preserveth the soul as a pomander; and refresheth it more than musk or civit doth the body.
Secondly, It comforts the conscience, and exhilarates the heart; cheers up the mind amidst all discouragements, and fatteth the bones, {Pro 15:30} doing a man good, like a medicine. And whereas sweet ointments may be corrupted by dead flies, a good name, proceeding from a good conscience, cannot be so. Fly blown it may be for a season, and somewhat obscured; but as the moon wades out of a cloud, so shall the saints’ innocence break forth as the light, and their righteousness as the noonday. {Psa 37:6} Buried it may be in the open sepulchres of evil throats, but it shall surely rise again: a resurrection there shall be of names, as well as of bodies, at the last day, at utmost. But usually a good name comforts a Christian at his death, and continues after it. For though the name of the wicked shall rot, his lamp shall be put out in obscurity, and leave a vile snuff behind it, yet "the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance"; they shall leave their names for a blessing. {Isa 65:15}
And the day of death, than the day of one’s birth.] The Greeks call a man’s birthday, γενεθλιον quasi γενεσιν αθλων; the beginning of his nativity, they call the begetting of his misery. "Man that is born of a woman, is born to trouble," saith Job. {Job 14:1} The word there rendered born, signifieth also generated or concieved; to note that man is miserable, even as soon as he is "warm in the womb," as David hath it. {Psa 51:5} If he lives to see the light, he comes crying into the world, a fletu vitam auspicatur, saith Seneca. {b} Insomuch as the lawyers define life by crying, and a stillborn child is all one as dead in law. Only Zoroaster is said to have been born laughing, but that laughter was both monstrous and ominous. {c} For he first found out the black art which yet profited him not so far as to the vain felicity of this present life. For being king of the Bactrians, he was overcome and slain in battle by Ninus, king of the Assyrians. Augustine, who relates this story, saith of man’s first entrance into the world, Nondum loquitur, et tamen prophetat, ere ever a child speaks, be prophesies, by his tears, of his ensuing sorrows. Nec prius natus, quam damnatus, no sooner is he born, but he is condemned to the mines or galleys, as it were, of sin and suffering. Hence Solomon here prefers his coffin before his cradle. And there was some truth in that saying of the heathen, Optimum est non nasci, proximum quam celerrime mori: For wicked men it had been best not to have been born, or being born, to die quickly; since by living long they heap up first sin, and then wrath against the day of wrath. As for good men, there is no doubt but the day of death is best to them, because it is the daybreak of eternal righteousness; and after a short brightness, as that martyr said, gives them, Malorum ademptionem, bonorum adeptionem, freedom from all evil, fruition of all good. Hence the ancient fathers called those days wherein the martyrs suffered their birthdays, because then they began to live indeed: since here to live is but to lie dying. Eternal life is the only true life, saith Augustine.
{a} è Maiusculam.
{b} Ad Mare., cap. 11.
{c} Justin, lib. i.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–29 A good name; a good and well-grounded report from…
A good name; a good and well-grounded report from wise and worthy persons. Heb. a name, which is put for a good name by a synecdoche, that only being worthy to be called a name, because evil and worthless men quickly lose their name and memory. Thus a wife is put for a good wife, Pro 18:22, and a day for a good day, Luk 19:42,44.
Precious ointment; which was very fragrant, and acceptable, and useful, and of great price, especially in those countries. See Deu 33:24; Psa 92:10; 133:2; Isa 39:2.
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The day of death, to wit, of a good man, or one who hath left a good name behind him, which is easily understood both from the former clause, and from the nature of the thing; for to a wicked man this day is far worse, and most terrible. Yet if this passage be delivered with respect only to this life, and abstracting from the future life, as many other passages in this book are to be understood, then this may be true in general of all men, and is the consequent of all the former discourse. Seeing this life is so full of vanity, and vexation, and misery, it is a more desirable thing for a man to go out of it, than to come into it; which is the more considerable note, because it is contrary to the opinion and practice of almost all mankind, to celebrate their own or children’s birth-days with solemn feasts and rejoicings, and their deaths with all expressions of sorrow.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 11, 23 In these verses Solomon lays down some great truths…
In these verses Solomon lays down some great truths which seem paradoxes to the unthinking part, that is, the far greatest part, of mankind.
I. That the honour of virtue is really more valuable and desirable than all the wealth and pleasure in this world (Ecc 7:1): A good name is before good ointment (so it may be read); it is preferable to it, and will be rather chosen by all that are wise. Good ointment is here put for all the profits of the earth (among the products of which oil was reckoned one of the most valuable), for all the delights of sense (for ointment and perfume which rejoice the heart, and it is called the oil of gladness), nay, and for the highest titles of honour with which men are dignified, for kings are anointed. A good name is better than all riches (Pro 21:1), that is, a name for wisdom and goodness with those that are wise and good - the memory of the just; this is a good that will bring a more grateful pleasure to the mind, will give a man a larger opportunity of usefulness, and will go further, and last longer, than the most precious box of ointment; for Christ paid Mary for her ointment with a good name, a name in the gospels (Mat 26:13), and we are sure he always pays with advantage.
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II. That, all things considered, our going out of the world is a great kindness to us than our coming into the world was: The day of death is preferable to the birthday; though, as to others, there was joy when a child was born into the world, and where there is death there is lamentation, yet, as to ourselves, if we have lived so as to merit a good name, the day of our death, which will put a period to our cares, and toils, and sorrows, and remove us to rest, and joy, and eternal satisfaction, is better than the day of our birth, which ushered us into a world of so much sin and trouble, vanity and vexation. We were born to uncertainty, but a good man does not die at uncertainty. The day of our birth clogged our souls with the burden of the flesh, but the day of our death will set them at liberty from that burden.
III. That it will do us more good to go to a funeral than to go to a festival (Ecc 7:2): It is better to go to the house of mourning, and there weep with those that weep, than to go to the house of feasting, to a wedding, or a wake, there to rejoice with those that do rejoice. It will do us more good, and make better impressions upon us. We may lawfully go to both, as there is occasion. Our Saviour both feasted at the wedding of his friend in Cana and wept at the grave of his friend in Bethany; and we may possibly glorify God, and do good, and get good, in the house of feasting; but, considering how apt we are to be vain and frothy, proud and secure, and indulgent of the flesh, it is better for us to go to the house of mourning, not to see the pomp of the funeral, but to share in the sorrow of it, and to learn good lessons, both from the dead, who is going thence to his long home, and from the mourners, who go about the streets.
1. The uses to be gathered from the house of mourning are, (1.) By way of information: That is the end of all men. It is the end of man as to this world, a final period to his state here; he shall return no more to his house. It is the end of all men; all have sinned and therefore death passes upon all. We must thus be left by our friends, as the mourners are, and thus leave, as the dead do. What is the lot of others will be ours; the cup is going round, and it will come to our turn to pledge it shortly. (2.) By way of admonition: The living will lay it to his heart. Will they? It were well if they would. Those that are spiritually alive will lay it to heart, and, as for all the survivors, one would think they should; it is their own fault if they do not, for nothing is more easy and natural than by the death of others to be put in mind of our own. Some perhaps will lay that to heart, and consider their latter end, who would not lay a good sermon to heart.
2. For the further proof of this (Ecc 7:4) he makes it the character, (1.) Of a wise man that his heart is in the house of mourning; he is much conversant with mournful subjects, and this is both an evidence and a furtherance of his wisdom. The house of mourning is the wise man's school, where he has learned many a good lesson, and there, where he is serious, he is in his element. When he is in the house of mourning his heart is there to improve the spectacles of mortality that are presented to him; nay, when he is in the house of feasting, his heart is in the house of mourning, by way of sympathy with those that are in sorrow. (2.) It is the character of a fool that his heart is in the house of mirth; his heart is all upon it to be merry and jovial; his whole delight is in sport and gaiety, in merry stories, merry songs, and merry company, merry days and merry nights. If he be at any time in the house of mourning, he is under a restraint; his heart at the same time is in the house of mirth; this is his folly, and helps to make him more and more foolish.
IV. That gravity and seriousness better become us, and are better for us, than mirth and jollity, Ecc 7:3. The common proverb says, "An ounce of mirth is worth a pound of sorrow;" but the preacher teaches us a contrary lesson: Sorrow is better than laughter, more agreeable to our present state, where we are daily sinning and suffering ourselves, more or less, and daily seeing the sins and sufferings of others. While we are in a vale of tears, we should conform to the temper of the climate. It is also more for our advantage; for, by the sadness that appears in the countenance, the heart is often made better. Note, 1. That is best for us which is best for our souls, by which the heart is made better, though it be unpleasing to sense. 2. Sadness is often a happy means of seriousness, and that affliction which is impairing to the health, estate, and family, may be improving to the mind, and make such impressions upon that as may alter its temper very much for the better, may make it humble and meek, loose from the world, penitent for sin, and careful of duty. Vexatio dat intellectum - Vexation sharpens the intellect. Periissem nisi periissem - I should have perished if I had not been made wretched. It will follow, on the contrary, that by the mirth and frolicsomeness of the countenance the heart is made worse, more vain, carnal, sensual, and secure, more in love with the world and more estranged from God and spiritual things (Job 21:12, Job 21:14), till it become utterly unconcerned in the afflictions of Joseph, as those Amo 6:5, Amo 6:6, and the king and Haman, Est 3:15.
V. That it is much better for us to have our corruptions mortified by the rebuke of the wise than to have them gratified by the song of fools, Ecc 7:5. Many that would be very well pleased to hear the information of the wise, and much more to have their commendations and consolations, yet do not care for hearing their rebukes, that is, care not for being told of their faults, though ever so wisely; but therein they are no friends to themselves, for reproofs of instruction are the way of life (Pro 6:23), and, though they be not so pleasant as the song of fools, they are more wholesome. To hear, not only with patience, but with pleasure, the rebuke of the wise, is a sign and means of wisdom; but to be fond of the song of fools is a sign that the mind is vain and is the way to make it more so. And what an absurd thing is it for a man to dote so much upon such a transient pleasure as the laughter of a fool is, which may fitly be compared to the burning of thorns under a pot, which makes a great noise and a great blaze, for a little while, but is gone presently, scatters its ashes, and contributes scarcely any thing to the production of a boiling heat, for that requires a constant fire! The laughter of a fool is noisy and flashy, and is not an instance of true joy. This is also vanity; it deceives men to their destruction, for the end of that mirth is heaviness. Our blessed Saviour has read us our doom: Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh; woe to you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep, Luk 6:21, Luk 6:25.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–29 A good name is better than precious ointment,.... The…
A good name is better than precious ointment,.... The word "good" is not in the text, but is rightly supplied, as it is by Jarchi; for of no other name can this be said; that which is not good cannot be better. Some understand this of the name of God, which is God himself, who is the "summum bonum", and chief happiness of men, and take it to be an answer to the question Ecc 6:12; this and this only is what is a man's good, and is preferable to all outward enjoyments whatever; interest in him as a covenant God; knowledge of him in Christ, which has eternal life annexed to it; communion with him; the discoveries of his lovingkindness, which is better than little; and the enjoyment of him to all eternity. This is true of the name of Christ, whose name Messiah which signifies anointed, is as ointment poured forth, and is preferable to it, Sol 1:3; so his other names, Jesus a Saviour; Jehovah, our righteousness; Immanuel, God with us; are exceeding precious to those who know the worth of him, and see their need of righteousness and salvation by him; his person, and the knowledge of him; his Gospel, and the fame and report it gives of him; infinitely exceed the most precious and fragrant ointment; see Co2 2:14. So the name or names given to the people of God, the new names of Hephzibah and Beulah, the name of sons of God, better than that of sons and daughters; and of Christians, or anointed ones, having received that anointing from Christ which teacheth all things, and so preferable to the choicest ointment, Isa 56:5. Likewise to have a name written in heaven, in the Lamb's book of life, and to have one's name confessed by Christ hereafter before his Father and his holy angels; or even a good name among men, a name for a truly godly gracious person; for love to Christ, zeal for his cause, and faithfulness to his truths and ordinances; such as the woman got, better than the box of ointment poured on Christ's head; and which the brother had, whose praise in the Gospel was throughout the churches; and as Demetrius, who had good report of all then, and of the truth itself, Mat 26:13, Jo3 1:12. Such a good name is better than precious ointment for the value of it, being better than all riches, for which this may be put; see Isa 39:2; and for the fragrancy of it, emitting a greater; and for the continuance of it, being more lasting, Psa 112:6. The Targum is,
"better is a good name the righteous get in this world, thin the anointing oil which was poured upon the heads of kings and priests.''
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So Alshech,
"a good name is better than the greatness of a king, though anointed with oil;''
and the day of death than the day of one's birth; some render it, in connection with the preceding clause, "as a good name is better, &c. so the day of death than the day of one's birth" (f); that is, the day of a man's death than the day of his birth. This is to be understood not of death simply considered; for that in itself, abstracted from its connections and consequences, is not better than to be born into the world, or come into life, or than life itself; it is not preferable to it, nor desirable; for it is contrary to nature, being a dissolution of it; a real evil, as life, and long life, are blessings; an enemy to mankind, and a terrible one: nor of ether persons, with whom men have a connection, their friends and relations; for with them the day of birth is a time of rejoicing, and the day of death is a time of mourning, as appears from Scripture and all experience; see Joh 16:21. It is indeed reported (g) of some Heathenish and barbarous people in Thrace, and who inhabited Mount Caucasus, that they mourned at the birth of their children, reckoning up the calamities they are entering into, and rejoiced at the death of their friends, being delivered from their troubles: but this is to be understood of the persons themselves that are born and die; not of all mankind, unless as abstracted from the consideration of a future state, and so it is more happy to be freed from trouble than to enter into it; nor of wicked men, it would have been better indeed if they had never been born, or had died as soon as born, that their damnation might not have been aggravated by the multitude of their sins; but after all, to die cannot be best for them, since at death they are cast into hell, into everlasting fire, and endless punishment: this is only true of good men, that have a good name living and dying; have a good work of grace upon them, and so are meet for heaven; the righteousness of Christ on them, and so have a title to it; they are such who have hope in their death, and die in faith and in the Lord: their death is better than their birth; at their birth they come into the world under the imputation and guilt of sin, with a corrupt nature; are defiled with sin, and under the power of it, liable in themselves to condemnation and death for it: at the time of their death they go out justified from sin through the righteousness of Christ, all being expiated by his sacrifice, and pardoned for his sake; they are washed from the faith of sin by the blood of Christ, and are delivered from the power and being of it by the Spirit and grace of God; and are secured from condemnation and the second death: at their coming into the world they are liable to sin yet more and more; at their going out they are wholly freed from it; at the time of their birth they are born to trouble, and are all their days exercised with it, incident to various diseases of the body, have many troubles in the world, and from the men of it; many conflicts with a body of sin and death, and harassed with the temptations of Satan; but at death they are delivered from all these, enter into perfect peace and unspeakable joy; rest from all their labours and toils, and enjoy uninterrupted communion with God, Father, Son, and Spirit, angels, and glorified saints. The Targum is,
"the day in which a man dies and departs to the house of the grave, with a good name and with righteousness, is better than the day in which a wicked man is born into the world.''
So the Midrash interprets it of one that goes out of the world with a good name, considering this clause in connection with the preceding, as many do.
(f) So Schmidt, and some in Vatablus. (g) Herodot. Terpsichore, sive l. 5. c. 4. Valer. Maxim. l. 2. c. 6. s. 12. Alexander ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 2. c. 25.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 Solomon here recommends seriousness, ver. 1-6 Calmness of spirit,…
Solomon here recommends seriousness, ver. 1-6 Calmness of spirit, ver. 7-10. Wisdom, ver. 11, 12. Suiting ourselves to every condition, ver. 13, 14. The advice of an infidel answered, ver. 15-18. The praise of wisdom, ver. 19. All men are sinners, ver. 20. Mind not the censures of others, ver. 21, 22. Solomon's experience of men and women, ver. 23-29.
Of death - Seeing this life is so full of vanity, and vexation, and misery, it is more desirable for a man to go out of it, than to come into it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29 The value of a good name, 1.
CHAPTER VII
The value of a good name, 1.
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Advantages of sorrow and correction, 2-5.
The emptiness of a fool's joy, 6.
Of oppression, 7.
The end better than the beginning, 8.
Against hastiness of spirit, 9.
Comparison of former and present times, 10.
Excellence of wisdom, 11, 12.
Of the dispensations of Providence, 13-15.
Against extremes, 16-18.
The strength of wisdom, 19.
Man is ever liable to sin and mistake, 20.
We should guard our words, 21, 22.
Difficulty of obtaining wisdom, 23-25,
A bad woman dangerous, 26.
There are few who are really upright, 27-29.
NOTES ON CHAP. VII
Verse 1. A good name] Unsatisfactory as all sublunary things are, yet still there are some which are of great consequence, and among them a good name. The place is well paraphrased in the following verses:
"A spotless name,
By virtuous deeds acquired, is sweeter far
Than fragrant balms, whose odours round diffused
Regale the invited guests. Well may such men
Rejoice at death's approach, and bless the hours
That end their toilsome pilgrimage; assured
That till the race of life is finish'd none
Can be completely blest."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29 Ecc 7:1. A good name — A good and…
Ecc 7:1. A good name — A good and well grounded report from wise and worthy persons; a name for wisdom and goodness with those that are wise and good; is better than precious ointment — Which was very fragrant, acceptable, and useful, and of great price in those countries. And the day of death, than the day of one’s birth — Namely, the death of a good man, or of one who hath left a good name behind him; for to a wicked man, the day of death is far worse, and most terrible. Or, if this clause be considered as spoken of this life only, abstracted from the future life, as many passages in this book are to be understood, then it may be true of all men, and is a consequence of all the former discourse. As if he had said, Seeing this life is so full of vanity and misery, it is a more desirable thing for a man to go out of it than to come into it: an observation that is the more worthy of regard, because it is contrary to the opinion and practice of almost all man kind, who celebrate their own, and their children’s birth-days, with solemn feasts and rejoicings, and their deaths with all expressions of sorrow.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29 Name ... ointment - The likeness between reputation and…
Name ... ointment - The likeness between reputation and odor supplies a common metaphor: the contrast is between reputation, as an honorable attainment which only wise people win, and fragrant odor, as a gratification of the senses which all people enjoy.
The connection of this verse with the preceding verses is this: the man, who wants to know what is profitable for man and good in this life, is here told to act in such a way as ordinarily secures a good reputation (i. e., to act like a wise man), and to teach himself this hard lesson - to regard the day of death as preferable to the day of birth. Though Solomon seems in some places to feel strongly (Ecc 2:16; Ecc 3:19-20 ff) that natural fear of death which is, in a great measure, mistrust founded on the ignorance which Christ dispelled; yet he states the advantage of death over life in respect of its freedom from toil, oppression, restlessness Ecc 2:17; Ecc 4:2; Ecc 6:5, and in respect of its implying an immediate and a nearer approach to God Ecc 3:21; Ecc 12:7. While Solomon preferred the day of death, he might still (with Luther here) have regarded birth as a good thing, and as having its place in the creation of God.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29 Above him. We are intent on things which regard…
Above him. We are intent on things which regard us not, while we neglect the important concerns of heaven. Hebrew may be joined with the preceding. (Calmet) --- Protestants, (11.) "seeing there are many thing which increase vanity, what is man the better? (12.) for who knoweth?" &c. (Haydock) --- Some strive to obtain riches or honours, which will prove fatal to them. (Calmet) --- None can perfectly know the nature of things either present or future. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 B. The true Wisdom of Life consists in Contempt…
B. The true Wisdom of Life consists in Contempt of the World, Patience, and Fear of God
Ecc_7:1-22
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1. In contempt of the world and its foolish lusts
(Ecc_7:1-7.)
1A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the 2day of one’s birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting; for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his 3heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. 4The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the 5 heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools: 6For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity. 7Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.
2. In a patient, calm, and resigned spirit
(Ecc_7:8-14.)
8Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. 9Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. 10Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days 11were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. Wisdom is good with an inheritance: and by it there is profit to them that see the sun. 12For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it. 13Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which He hath made crooked? 14In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.
3. In earnest fear of God, and penitential acknowledgment of sin
(Ecc_7:15-22.)
15All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. 16Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? 17Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: 18why shouldest thou die before thy time? It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this; yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand: for he that feareth God shall come forth of them all. 19Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten 20mighty men which are in the city. For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. 21Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee: 22For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.
[Ecc_7:3. כַּעַס. The primary sense is excitement of mind, or feeling, of any kind, or from any cause. Fuerst, commotum, concitatum esse. It is like the Greek θυμὸς, or ὀργὴ, in this respect. It may he grief (sorrow), or anger. The context determines. Here, in Ecc_7:3, it evidently means the opposite of שְׁחוֹק laughter, mirth, joy. In Ecc_7:9 th, on the other hand, it must have the sense of anger, though both ideas are probably combined.—T. L.]
[Ecc_7:7. עשֶׁק means the disposition or state of mind from which oppression comes (ὔβρις, insolence, pride) rather than the act. It is also to be determined from the context whether it is violence, insolence, etc., exercised upon the wise man, or by him, that is, whether it is objective, or subjective. The latter sense, here, best suits the context. Such a spirit in the wise man may make mad even him, or make him decide wrong, if we regard חָכָם here, as meaning a judge—T.L.]
[Ecc_7:12. בְּצֵל is regarded by some of the best critics as a case of beth essential, or as having an assertive force, as the Arabic, but there is no good reason for this.—T. L.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. This section, which describes the nature of genuine, practical wisdom, just as the preceding one presents the contrary, is clearly divided into three divisions or strophes. The first of these (Ecc_7:1-7) treats of the contempt of worldly pleasure, and the sacred earnestness of life,—the second, (Ecc_7:8-14) of a forbearing, patient, and resigned disposition,—the third, (Ecc_7:15-22) of godly demeanor, and humble self-appreciation, as conditions and essential characteristics of that wisdom. A division of characteristics of these that strophes into half strophes is superfluous (Vaihinger); there is only observable a sharper and deeper incision in the train of thought, in the middle of the last strophe, or in the transition from the fear of God to self-appreciation, after verse 18.
2. First Strophe; Ecc_7:1-7. Of the advantage of stern contempt of the world over foolish worldly pleasure.—A good name is better than precious ointment. Comp. Pro_22:1, where שֵׁם signifies, just as in this passage, a good name, a good reputation or fame; see also Job_30:8, and for the paronomasia in שֵׁם and שמן see Son_1:3. [In this place Zöckler gives us specimens of play upon words in German, such, as arise from Gerücht and Wohlgeruch, etc., which are not translatable, except by a general reference to the metaphors to be found in English and other languages, wherein character, reputation, etc., is said to hare its good or evil odor. It might be compared with the opposite Hebrew word הִבְאִישׁ he stank, odiosus fuit, 1Sa_27:12.—T. L.—And the day of death than the day of one’s birth. For the suffix in הִוָּלְדֹו comp. Ecc_5:18; Ecc_8:16; Isa_7:5; Jer_11:5 and similar cases of relation of a definite suffix to an indefinite subject. The sentence is the same as Ecc_4:3; Ecc_6:3-5. It here serves as a preparation for the following sentences, whose aim is to heighten the duty of a sacred earnestness of life, just as the commendation, in the first clause, of a good name as something better than precious ointment, is to pave the way for this recommendation of a serious disposition despising the pleasures of the world. In this common relation of the two clauses to the fundamental thought of the necessity of a serious purpose, lies the inward connection, which we may no more deny [with Hengstenberg and many others] than erroneously assert on the basis of the false assumption that the second clause refers specially to the fool, or through any other similar subtilties. Elster is correct in saying: “Because a good and reputable name, which secures an ideal existence with posterity, is more valuable than all sensual pleasure, such as is obtained through precious ointments, therefore the day of death must seem to bring more happiness than the day of birth; for this ideal existence of posthumous fame does not attain its full power and purity until after death: but external pleasures and enjoyments, which we are accustomed to desire for a man on the day of his birth, pleasures which are dependent on his sensual life, prove to be more empty and vain than the joy afforded by the thought of a spiritual existence in the memory of posterity.”
Ver 2. It is better to go to a house of mourning. That is, a house wherein there is mourning for one deceased, “a house of lamentation” (Luther). The connection of the expression favors this sense of the significant בֵּית אֵבֶל‚ taken backwards as well as forwards; and also with Ecc_7:3 f. For the expression for בֵּית מִשְׁתֵּה “house of carousal,” of drinking (not specially a drinking resort) compare the similar expression in Est_7:8. For the entire sentence comp. the Arabic proverb (Schulten’s Anthology, p. 48, 73): “If thou nearest lamentation for the dead enter into the place; but if thou art bidden to a banquet pass not the threshold.” For that is the end of all men. “That,” (הוּא) i.e., not the mourning, but the fact that a house becomes a house of mourning. It is therefore הוּא for היא on account of the attraction of סוף as Hitzig rightly regards it.—And the living will lay it to his heart. Ecc_7:3. Sorrow is better than laughter. כַּעַס here, does not, of course, mean that passionate sorrow or anger against which we are warned as a folly in Ecc_7:9, but is essentially the same as אֵבֶל in Ecc_7:2, consequently a grief salutary, and nearest allied to that godly sorrow spoken of 2Co_7:10. For שְׂחוֹק, “laughter,” boisterous, worldly merriment, comp. Ecc_2:2, and also Ecc_7:6.—For by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.—רעַ פָנִים like פָנִים רָעִים, Gen_11:7; Neh_2:2, signifies not an evil countenance, but a sad, sorrowful one, and יִיטַב לֵב is not to be understood of the moral amendment, but of the cheering up and gladdening of the heart;[1] comp. the Latin, cor bene se habet, as also the parallels Ecc_9:9; Jdg_19:6; Jdg_19:9; Rth_3:7; 1Ki_16:7. But cheerfulness and contentment of the heart, with a sad countenance, can only be imagined where its thoughts have begun to take the normal direction in a religious and moral aspect; moral amendment is therefore in any case the presupposition of הֵיטִיב לֵב, and there is, therefore, no contradiction but the clearest harmony with Pro_16:13; Pro_15:13; Pro_27:22; Pro_28:14.
Ecc_7:4. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. Drawing his conclusion from Ecc_7:2-3, the author returns to the expression of the second sentence. Because a serious disposition is everywhere more salutary than boisterous worldly merriment, it is plain that the former will be peculiar to the wise man, as the latter to the fool. Vaihinger observes very correctly, “that one perceives from this passage that the preacher, however often he recommends enjoyment of life, never means thereby boisterous pleasures and blind sensual enjoyment, but rather worthy and grateful enjoyment of the good and the beautiful offered by God. Such an enjoyment is not only possible with a serious course of life, but is indeed only thereby attainable.”
Ecc_7:5. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise. For גְּעָרָה, “rebuke,” censure, reproof on account of foolish or criminal behaviour, comp. Pro_18:1. Intercourse with wise men, i.e., strictly moral and religious individuals, who can easily impart those censures, belongs to those expressions of a serious, world-contemning spirit, of which a few other examples have been cited, such as to “go into the house of mourning,” to “be of a sad countenance.”—Than for a man to hear the song of fools. Literal: “Than a man hearing the song of fools.” Flattering speeches are not specially meant here (Vulg. adulatio), but the extravagant, boisterous and immoral songs that are heard in the riotous carousals of foolish men, in the בֵּית מִשְֹׁתֶּה or “house of feasting.” Comp. Job_21:12; Amo_6:5; Isa_5:11-12.
Ecc_7:6. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot. The fire of dry thorns, quickly blazing up, and burning with loud crackling and snapping, and also quickly consumed (comp. Psa_58:9; Psa_120:4; and especially Psa_118:12) is here chosen as the emblem of the loud, boisterous, and vacant laughter of foolish men, who are at the same time destitute of all deeper moral worth. This also is vanity; namely, all this noisy, merry, vacant and unfruitful conduct of fools.
Ecc_7:7. Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart. כִּי in the beginning of this verse can neither be considered as containing a cause or a motive [this is the opinion of the most commentators, also of Hitzig, Vaihinger, Hengstenberg, Hahn, etc.), nor as an adversative equivalent to “yet,” or “but” [Ewald, Elster]. Like the אֲשֶׁר in Ecc_6:12, it here clearly expresses an intensifying sense (comp. כִּי in Isa_5:7; Job_6:21, etc.). The connection with the preceding is as follows: So great is the vanity of fools, and so powerfully and rapidly does it spread, like the blazing fire of thorns, that even the wise man is in danger of being infected by it; and deluded from the path of probity in consequence of brilliant positions of power, striving after riches, offers of presents or bribes, etc. עשֶׁק (for which Ewald in his Biblical Annual 1856, p. 150, unnecessarily proposed to read עשֶׁר—a conjecture abandoned by him afterwards) does not mean in a passive sense the oppression of the wise man by others, but rather the “pressure” which he is tempted to exercise, just as מַתָּנָה means a “present, or bribe which is offered to him. The wise man is regarded as a judge, who, in the exercise of his functions, needs true wisdom, so much the more because he may easily be deluded by bribery and be tempted to misuse his official power. For the expressions הוֹלֵל “to delude, to make a fool of,” and אַבֵּד לֵב “to corrupt the heart,” corumpere, comp. Isa_44:25; Jer_4:9.[2] For the sentence see Deu_16:19; Sir_20:27; [but not Pro_17:8; Pro_18:16; Pro_19:6, etc., where allowable giving is meant].
3. Second strophe. Ecc_7:8-14. Of the value of patience, tranquility, and resignation to the will of God. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. The sense is not the same as in Ecc_7:1, but rather, according to the second verse, as follows: it is better quietly to await the course of an affair until its issue, and not to judge and act until then, than to proceed rashly and with passionate haste, and bring upon one’s self its bad consequences. The peculiar sense of אֶרֶךְ־רוּחַ corresponds to the calm demeanor expressed by the term “long-suffering” in the sense of the New Testament μακροθυμία (Col_1:11; Heb_6:12; Heb_6:15; Jam_5:7-8); and for the violent temper described in the second place, we have the state of mind denoted by the word גְבַהּ־רוּחַ, “haughty,” or “presumptuous.” Comp. 1Ki_20:11.
Ecc_7:9. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry. The word כְּעוֹס “to be morose,” sensitive [see remarks on Ecc_7:3 above], is a peculiar species of haughtiness mentioned in the previous verse, and one very frequently and easily occurring; it is not fully expressed by גְבַהּ רוּחַ, as Hengstenberg supposes [quite as little as גְבַהּ רוּחַ is expressed by אֶרֶךְ אַפַיִם βραδύς είς ὀργήν, Jam_1:19].—For anger rests in the bosom of fools; that is, a fretful, irritable disposition is mainly found in fools, is deeply rooted in their nature and has its homo there. For נוּחַ, in this sense see Pro_16:33; Isa_11:2; Isa_25:11. For the sentence see Job_5:2; Pro_12:16.
Ecc_7:10. Say not what is the cause, etc. Finding fault with the present, and a one-sided praise of past times, is a well-known characteristic of peevish and fretful dispositions, and of those surly carpers at fate of Ecc_7:16, and those difficiles, queruli, laudatores temporis acti of the Horatian epistola ad Pisones, (line 173). For thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. That is, not so that thy question is made on the basis of wise reflection, and therefore proceeds from this source. Comp. the similar use of the preposition מִן, Ecc_2:10; Psa_28:7.
Ecc_7:11-12. The praise of wisdom, in so far as it is in harmony with a thoughtful, patient, and even soul.—Wisdom is good with an inheritance. [Zöckler: as an inheritance]. עִם נַחֲלָה does not mean “with an inheritance or fortune,” as if the sense were the same as that in Ecc_5:18 (Sept., Vulg., Luther). The connection decides against this, as well as against the view of Ewald: “in comparison with an inheritance,” and against the still more unfitting view of Hahn: “wisdom is good against destiny.” (!) עִם is undoubtedly used in the same sense as in Ecc_2:16; Gen_18:23; Psa_73:5; Job_9:26.[3]—And by it there is profit to them that see the sun; i.e., for the living (comp. Ecc_6:5; and the Homeric ὁραν φάος ἠελίο̣ιο, also the Latin, diem videre). Herzfeld, Hitzig, and Henostenberg unnecessarily take יֹתֵר in the adverbial sense of “more, better still,” in order to let the second clause appear as an intensification of the first. The adjective or rather the substantive sense, corresponds better to the poetical character of the passage, and is equivalent to יִתְרוֹן; in support of which Ecc_6:8 may be quoted, and in which the second clause becomes the exact parallel of the first.
Ecc_7:12. For wisdom is a defence, and moneys is a defence. (Lit. Ger., in the shadow of wisdom, in the shadow of money). That is, he who dwells in the shadow of wisdom is just as much protected as he who passes his life in the protection of much money; therefore an exact, parallel in sense with Ecc_7:11, first clause. Symmachus is correct: σκέπει σοφια ὡς σκέπει τὸ ἀργύριον; but the Vulgate is not wholly so: “Sicut enimprolegit sapientia, sic protegit pecunia.” Knobel and Hitzig are too artificial in saying that בְּ here is the beth essentiæ, which would be therefore translated: “Wisdom is a shadow, (that is a defence) and money is a shadow.” בְּצֵל is rather to be taken here as in Psa_91:1, where it is parallel with בְּסֵתֶר. The shadow is here used as a symbol of protection, with the subordinate idea of the agreeable, as also in Psa_121:4; Isa_32:2-3; Isa_32:2; Lam_4:20, etc.—But the excellence of knowledge is; i.e., the advantage that knowledge (דַּעַת comp. Ecc_1:16) has over money, that which makes it more valuable than money. דַּעַת here alternates with חָכְמָה simply on account of the poetical parallelism.—Wisdom giveth life to them that have it; lit., “it animates him” (תְּחַיֶה). חִיָה is not “to keep in life” (Hitzig), but “to grant life,” i.e., to bestow a genuine happy life. Comp. Job_36:6; Psa_16:11; Psa_38:9; Pro_3:18; especially the last passage, which may be quoted as most decisive for our meaning. Hengstenberg lays too much stress on תְּחַיֶה in claiming for it the sense of reanimating, of the resurrection of that which was spiritually dead (according to Hos_6:2; Luk_15:32, etc.); and Knobel too little, when he declares: “wisdom affords a calm and contented spirit.”[4]
Ecc_7:13. Consider the work of God; for who can make that straight which He hath made crooked? A return to the exhortations to a calm, patient spirit (Ecc_7:9-10), with reference to God’s wise and unchangeable counsel and will, to which we must yield in order to learn true patience and tranquility. The connection between the first and second clauses is as follows: In observing the works of God thou wilt find that His influence is eternal and immutable; for who can make that straight which He hath made crooked, i.e., harmonize the defects and imperfections of human life decreed by Him; comp. Ecc_1:15; Ecc_6:10; Job_12:14; Rom_9:9. As this connection of thought is evident enough, one need not, with Hitzig and others, take כִי in the sense of “that,” to which indeed the interrogative form of the second clause would be unfitting.
Ecc_7:14. In the day of prosperity be joyful.—בְּטוֹב is equivalent to בְּלֶב־טוֹב. Comp. Ecc_9:7; 1Ki_8:66; Sir_14:14.—But in the day of adversity consider. “Behold, look at, observe” [namely the following truth]; comp. רָאָה in Ecc_7:13. Ewald is harsh and artificial in his rendering: “and bear the day of misfortune,” taking רָאָה בְּ in a sense that he claims is sustained by Gen_21:16.—God also hath set the one over against the other. This is the substance of that which one must consider in adversity, fully corresponding with what Job says in Ecc_2:10.—To the end that man should find nothing after him; i.e., in order that he may fathom nothing that lies beyond his present condition (אַחֲרָיו as in Ecc_3:22; Ecc_6:12), or in order that the future that lies behind him, or, according to our more usual expression, that lies before him, remain hidden and concealed from him, and that he may, in no wise, count on it, but rather remain in all things unconditionally dependent on God, and His grace (Elster, Vaihinger and Hengstenberg are correct on this point). עַל דִֹּבְרַת שֶׁלֹּא lit.: “on account of that, that not” (comp. עַל דִּבְרַת, “on account of,” Ecc_3:18; Ecc_8:2) is not equivalent to “so that not,” [Luther in his Commentary], or, “therefore, because not” [Hitzig and Hahn], but clearly introduces the divine dispensation in assigning sometimes good and sometimes evil days; therefore it should be rendered “to the end that.”
4. Third strophe. Ecc_7:15-22. Of the value of the fear of God and humble self-appreciation. All things have I seen, etc. “All,” i.e., not all kinds [Luther, Vaihinger, Hengstenberg], but everything possible, everything that can come into consideration, everything to whose consideration I could be directed (according to Ecc_7:13-14). In the days of my vanity. i.e., since I belong to this vain, empty life of earth. There is no indication that these vain days passed completely by during the life of the speaker,[5] and this passage cannot, therefore, be used as a proof that Solomon, who became repentant in his old age, is the speaker.—There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness.—יֵשׁ, “there is,” does not belong to אבֵֹד, but to צַדִּיק, therefore the meaning is not “the just man perisheth.” בְּצִדְקוֹ is not “through his righteousness” (Umbreit, Vaihinger, Hitzig); but in it; comp. Ewald, Lehrbuch, § 217, 3, f. The intention here is to announce something which Koheleth saw, an evident fact; but this is only the external connection, the association of righteousness and misfortune; not, on the contrary, the misfortune effected through righteousness. The same thing occurs in the following clause, where בְּרָעָתוֹ is not to be understood as “through” but in, that is, in spite of his wickedness. But the author desires by no means to present that righteousness in which one perisheth as blameless, but has doubtless here in view, as in the subsequent verse, that self-righteousness, that apparent outward righteousness which our Lord so often had to censure in the Pharisees (Mat_5:20; Luk_5:32; Luk_15:7, etc.) and which appeared quite early in Old Testament history as a religiously moral tendency, comp. Int. § 4, Obs. 3.—And there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. מַאֲרִיךְ with יָמָיו understood, comp. Ecc_8:12-13; Deu_22:7; Pro_28:2; Pro_28:16, etc.
Ecc_7:16. Be not righteous overmuch neither make thyself overwise. Clearly a warning against that strictly exact, but hypocritical and external righteousness of those predecessors of the Pharisees to whom the preceding verse referred. הִתְחַכֵּם (Reflexive of חִכֵּם “to make wise”) can scarcely here signify anything else than as in Exo_1:10; therefore sapientem se gessit, not sapientem se putavit. This expression “make thyself not over wise,” is consequently not a warning against vainly imagining that one is wise, but against the effort to appear eminently wise, and against, a pretentious assumption of the character of a teacher of wisdom, in short, against that Pharisaical error[6] which Christ ensures in Mat_23:6-7 : φιλοῦσιν—καλεῖσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ῤαββί, ῤαββί. Why shouldst thou destroy thyself? Namely by the curse which God has put upon the vices of arrogance, and hypocrisy; Comp. Christ’s expressions of woe unto you Pharisees ! in Matthew 23. Hitzig says: “Why wilt thou isolate thyself?” This is a useless enfeebling of the sense; foreEcc Ecc_7:15, as well as Ecc_7:17-18 show that the warning of the author is meant in all seriousness, and that he refers to divine and not merely human punishment. Comp. also the sentence of Eze_33:11, so closely allied with this present one: “Why will ye die; O house of Israel?” and also Ecc_4:5. Ecc_7:17. Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish. Koheleth does not recommend a certain moderation in wickedness as though he considered it allowable, but simply and alone because he recognizes the fact as generally acknowledged and certain that in some respects at least, every man is somewhat wicked by nature; see Ecc_7:20-22. He who is “over much wicked” is the maliciously wicked or downright ungodly one (הָרָשָׁע), who sins not merely from weakness, but with consciousness of evil (comp. Lev. 42:27; Num_15:27; Ecc_5:6). Such a one is eo ipso “foolish” (סָכָל) μαινόμενος οῇ ἀδικία, that is, a fool in the sense of Psa_14:1; Psa_53:1.—Why shouldst thou die before thy time? That is, before the time assigned thee by God. For this thought of the shortening of the days of the wicked through divine justice,[7] comp. Pro_10:27; Psa_55:23; Job_15:32; Job_22:16.
Ecc_7:18. It is good that thou shouldst take hold of this; yea, from this also withdraw not thine hand. A recommendation to avoid the two extremes of false righteousness and bold wickedness (of the Pharisees and Sadducees) harmonizing with the thought of Horace: “Medium tenuere beati; medio tutissimus ibis:” and this is not meant in the superficial sense of the ethical eclecticism of the later Greeks and Romans, but in that stern religious sense, which the Lord expresses when, in Mat_23:23, in words most nearly allied to these, (ταῦτα δὲ ἔδει ποσῆσαι κἀκεῖνα μὴ ἄφιεναι) He demands the most conscientious connection between the outer and the inner fulfilment of the law.—For he who feareth God shall come forth of them all. Namely from the bad consequences of false righteousness and those of indecent contempt of the law, and bold immorality. יָצָא with the accusative, signifies here as in Jer_10:20, (בָּנַי יְצָאֻנִי, “my children desert me”), Gen_44:4 (יָצְאוּ אֶת־הָעִיר “they went out of the city”), Amo_4:3, etc.: “to go from something, to escape a thing,” (comp. also 1Sa_14:41). Hitzig’s view gives a somewhat different sense: “He who feareth God goes with both,” i.e., does not strive to exceed the just medium; this is similar to the Vulgate (nihil negligit) and to the Syriac (utrique inhæret). But the usus loquendi is rather more in favor of the former meaning. Ecc_7:19. Wisdom strengtheneth the wise. Lit., “proves itself strong to him (תָּעֹז לֶחָכָם) more than,” etc., i.e., it protects him better, defends him more effectually. More than ten mighty men which are in the city; than ten heroes which are at the head of the troops, than ten commanders surrounded by their forces, to whom the defence of the besieged city is entrusted. For the sentence comp. Pro_10:15, (where קִרְיַת עֹז reminds of עָזַז לְ) Pro_21:22; Pro_24:5. The wisdom whose mightily protecting and strengthening influence is here lauded, is of course, that genuine wisdom which is in harmony with the fear of God; it is that disposition and demeanor which hold the true evangelical mean between the extremes of false righteousness and lawlessness, which forms the necessary contrast and the corrective to “the being over wise” censured in Ecc_7:16.
Ecc_7:20. For there is not a just man upon earth who doeth good and sinneth not. Therefore (this is the unexpressed conclusion), every one needs this true wisdom for his protection against the justice of God; no one can dispense with this only reliable guide in the way of truth. This sentence confirms the 19th verse in the first place, and then the whole preceding warning against the extremes of hypocrisy and impenitence. Comp. the similar confessions of the universal sinfulness of our race in Psa_130:3; Psa_143:2; Job_9:2; Job_14:3; Pro_20:9; 1Ki_8:46.
Ecc_7:21-22 are not simply connected with Ecc_7:20, as Knobel supposes, (who brings out the sequence of thought by means of the idea that as sinners we fall short of our duty, and cause adverse judgments against ourselves) but is also connected with all the preceding verses from the 15th on, so that the connection of ideas is as follows:[8] You will certainly receive the manifold censure of men for living according to the doctrines of this wisdom (you will be considered hypocritical, excessively austere, eccentric, etc.,); but do not be led astray by this, and do not listen to it; and this out of humility, because you must ever be conseious of your faults, and therefore know sufficiently well what is true in the evil reports of men, and what is not.—Also take no heed unto all the words that are spoken. That is, do not cast all to the wind that thou hearest, but only, do not be over anxious about their evil reports concerning thee; do not be curious to hear how they judge thee. We are therefore warned against idle curiosity and latent desire of praise, and reminded of the very significant circumstance that one’s own servant may accord to the vain listener disgrace and imprecation, instead of the desired honor.
Ecc_7:22. For ofttimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others. The expression, “thine own heart,” is clearly equivalent to the guilty conscience that accuses man of his former sins, especially of his unkindness to his neighbor, and his violations of the eighth commandment, and thereby demands of him a more humble self-appreciation, and a wiser restraint in intercourse with others. פְעָמִים רַבּות may be considered either as the accusative of time—“many times”—or the objective accusative—“many cases”—but belongs in either case closely to יָדַע, not to קִלַּלְתָּ. The first גַם is, in strictness, superfluous. אֲשֶׁר at the beginning of the second clause, is not “so that” (Elster), but “there where” (“where it happened that,” etc.); comp. Gen_35:13-15; 2Sa_19:25.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
(With Homiletical Hints.)
This section has three divisions describing the nature of genuine wisdom in three principal phases;—as an earnestness of life, despising the world, as patience, resigned to God, and as an humble penitent fear of God. Of these, the third affords a rich harvest in the dogmatic field, and mainly by emphasizing one of the most important anthropological truths of the entire Old Testament revelation, namely, the universal sinfulness of the human race (see especially Ecc_7:20, and also the parallel passages there quoted from Psalms, Job and the Proverbs). This truth appears here in a connection which is the more significant because it forms the background, and the deepest motive, to all the preceding admonitions. It explains not only the preceding warning against the two extremes of hypocritical and false righteousness and bold lawlessness, (the cardinal vice of Jew and Gentile before Christ, or the fundamental error of Pharisees and Sadducees among the later Jews); but it also finally serves as a basis and impulse (in the first two strophes) to the admonitions to holy earnestness, and to a calm and resigned state of soul. In the admonition to a stern contempt of the world and its pleasures, this is especially clear; for this admonition closes in verse 7 with the highly impressive reference to the fact, that even wise men are exposed to the seduction of vices and follies of divers kinds, whence directly springs the duty of turning from the busy tumult of the world, and of anxious zeal for one’s own salvation in fear and trembling. But the second division (Ecc_7:8-14) also presupposes the fact that men, without exception, lie under the burden of sin; as it declares wisdom [which is unconditional resignation to the divine will] to be the only dispenser of true life (Ecc_7:12) and describes, as the salutary fruit of such wisdom, the patient endurance of the evil as well as the good days which God sends. It needs no further illustration to prove that this significant attention to the principal anthropological truth of the Old Testament gives to this chapter a peculiarly evangelical character,—especially with the quite numerous parallels in New Testament history. (Comp. Mat_5:4; Luk_6:25; Jam_5:9, etc., with Ecc_7:3-4; Ecc_7:6; and 2Co_7:10 with Ecc_7:3; Jam_5:7-8 with Ecc_7:8; Jam_1:19 with Ecc_7:9; Mat_23:5 ff. with Ecc_7:16 ff.; Mat_23:23 with Ecc_7:18; Rom_3:23 with Ecc_7:20).
We may regard the following as the leading proposition of the entire section : The universality of human sin and the only true remedy for it. Or, God withstands the arrogant and grants His favor to the humble; or, “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted; Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth; Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness : for they shall be filled” (Mat_5:4-6, three beatitudes of the sermon on the mount, corresponding to the three divisions of this chapter).—Comp. also Starke. Two rules for Christian conduct: 1. Be ever mindful of death (1–7); 2. Be patient and contented (8–29).
homiletical hints on separate passages
Ver. I. Cramer:—Faith, a good conscience, and a good name, are three precious jewels; we can get nothing better than these from this world.—Starke :—The death of the saints is the completion of their struggle against sin, the devil and the world; it is to them a door of life, an entrance into eternal rest and perfect security.—Hengstenberg:—The difference between the proposition in the latter clause of the first verse, and similar expressions in the Gentile world, is that the Gentiles did not possess the key to explanation of human sorrows on earth, and did not understand how to bring them into harmony with divine justice and love.
Ecc_7:2. Melanchthon:—In prosperity, men become reckless; they think less of God’s wrath, and less expect His aid. Thus they become more and more presumptuous; they trust to their own industry, their own power, and are thus easily driven on by the devil.—Tübingen Bible: Joy in the world is the mark of a man drowned in vanity. It is much better to mourn over sin, and, in reflecting on this vanity, to seek a higher joy that is in God.—Starke:—Although not all cheerfulness is forbidden to the Christian (Php_4:4), it is always safer to think with sorrow of one’s sin, guilt, and liability to punishment, than to assume a false gladsotmeness.—Hengstenberg:—Periods of sorrow are always periods of blessings for the Church.—Deichert: [Sermon on Ecc_7:3-9, in the collection of Old Testament sermons: “The Star out of Jacob, Stuttgard, 1867, p. Ecc 208:]” The house of lamentation is a school of humility. 1. In the house of mourning proud thoughts are abased; 2. There, especially, is the vain pleasure of the world recognized in its emptiness; 3. There, also, we learn to prize the end of a thing more highly than its beginning.
Ecc_7:6-7. Luther:—The joy of fools seems as if it would last forever, and does indeed blaze up, but it is nothing. They have their consolation for a moment, then comes misfortune, that casts them down: then all their joy lies in the ashes..... Pleasure, and vain consolation of the flesh, do not last long, and all such pleasures turn into sorrow, and have an evil end.—Starke:—(Ecc_7:7), Even a wise and God-fearing man is in danger of being turned from the good way (1Co_10:12); therefore watchfulness and prayer are necessary that we may not be carried back again to our evil nature (1Pe_5:8).
Ecc_7:8. Melanchthon:—.In this saying he demands perseverance in good counsels (Mat_10:12); for the good cause appears better in the event. Though much that is adverse is to be borne, nevertheless the right and true triumph in the end.—Lange:—The beginning and the continuance of Christianity are connected with sorrows; but these sorrows are followed by a glorious and blissful end (2Co_4:17.—Berleb. Bible:—Blessed is he who under all circumstances behaves with quiet patience, arms himself with humble resignation and great cheerfulness, adapts himself to good and evil times, and ever finds strength and pleasure in the words: “Thy will be done!”—Hengstenberg:—It is folly to stop at what lies immediately before our eyes; it is wisdom, on the contrary, in the face of the fortune of the wicked, to say: “For they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb.” Psa_37:2; Psa_92:7; Psa_129:6). If we only do not hasten in anger, God in His own time will remove the inducement to anger from our path.
Cramer:—It proceeds from men alone that time is better at one period than at another; on their account also time must be subjected to vanity.—Geier:—The best remedy against evil times is to pray zealously, penitently to acknowledge the deserved punishment of sin, patiently to bear it and heartily to trust in God.—Wohlfarth:—Let us hear the voice of truth! In its light, impartially comparing the present and the past, we shall arrive at the conviction that every period has its peculiar advantages and defects, and that with all the unpleasant features that rest upon our time it nevertheless presents a greater measure of happiness than any former one. Instead, therefore, of embittering the advantages of our epoch by foolish complaints, making its burdens heavier, and weakening our own courage, we should seek rather to become wisely familiar with it, and to remove its defects or make them less perceptible.
Ecc_7:11-14. Starke: (Ecc_7:11-12):—If you are to have but one of two things, you should much rather dispense with all riches than with heavenly wisdom, that after this life you may have eternal blessedness (Wis_7:8-10).—Cartwright (Ecc_7:13):—When a bird is caught in a net, the more he struggles the more tightly is he held. So if a man is taken in the net of Providence, the safest course for him, is to yield himself wholly to the divine will as that which, with the highest good, does nothing unwise or unjust (Job_34:12).—Hengstenberg:—We must be led to contentment in sorrow, by the reflection that it comes from the same God that sends us happiness (Job_2:10). If the sender is the same, there must be in the sending, in spite of all external inequality, an essential equality. God, even when He imposes a cross, is still God, our heavenly Father, our Saviour, who has thoughts of peace regarding us.
Ecc_7:15-18. Luther:—The substance is this: Summum jus summa injuria. He who would most rigidly regulate and rectify everything, whether in the State-or in the household, will have much labor, little or no fruit. On the other hand, there is one who would do nothing, and who contemns the enforcement of justice. Neither is right. As you would not be over-righteous, see to it that you be not over-wicked,—that is, that you do not contemn and neglect all government committed to you, thus letting everything fall into evil. It may be well to overlook some things, but not to neglect everything. If wisdom does not succeed, you are not, therefore, to get mad with rage and vengeance. Mind that you be just, and others with you, enforce piety, firmly persevere, however it may turn out. You must fear lest He come as suddenly and call you to judgment, as he took away the soul of the rich man in the night he thought not of.—Cramer, (Ecc_7:16) :—Those rulers are over-just who search everything too closely; and the theologians are over-wise who, in matters of faith, wish to direct everything according to their own reason.—Zeyss, (Ecc_7:17):—Wickedness itself is already a road to ruin; but where foolish arrogance joins it, so that one boldly sins, divine punishment and vengeance are thereby hastened (Sir_5:4 ff.).—Hengstenberg:—Godly fear escapes the danger of Phariseeism by awakening in the heart an antipathy against deceiving God by the tricks of a heartless and false righteousness; but it also escapes the danger of a life of sin, because the power arising from the confession of sin is inseparably connected with it (Isa_6:5); for with the fear of God is connected a tender aversion to offending God by sin (Gen_39:9) as also the lively desire to walk in the way of His commandments (Psa_119:16.)
Ecc_7:19-22. Zeyss, (Ecc_7:19-20):—The universal ruin produced by sin must lead every one to heartfelt penitence and humility (Ezr_9:6.)—Starke, (Ecc_7:21-22):—The wisdom of the Creator has given us two ears and only one tongue, in order to teach us that we must hear twice before we speak once (Jam_1:19). If anything grieves thee, examine thyself to learn whether thou hast not deserved it by evil conduct; humble thyself concerning it before God, suffer patiently, and do it no more!—Hengstenberg:—In times of severe sorrow it is important that, in the suffering, we recognize the deserved punishment for our sins. That brings light into the otherwise obscure providence of God, a light that stills the rising of the soul, that animates the hope. If we recognize the footsteps of God in the deserved sorrow, the confidence in His mercy soon becomes strong.
C. True Wisdom must be Energetically Maintained and Preserved in Presence of all the Attractions, Oppressions, and other Hostilities on the part of this World
Ecc_7:23 to Ecc_8:15
1. Against the enticements of this world, and especially unchastity
(Ecc_7:23-29)
23All this have I proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from 24me. That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out ? 25I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness: 26And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands : whoso pleases God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her. 27Behold, this have I found, saith the Preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: 28Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. 29Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
Footnotes:
[1][See Metrical Version, and the remarks on this passage Introd. to Met. Vers. page 179.—T. L.]
[2][The common view of this passage as given in E. V., which makes the wise man the object of oppression, is unquestionably wrong, though so often quoted and used as historical illustration. It does not agree with הוֹלֵל, which does not mean the madness of frenzy caused by a sense of wrong, but vain glory, extravagance, inflation, coming from inward wrong-feeling. Zöckler is doubtless right in saying that it does not denote passively the oppression which the wise man suffers from others; but his rendering “pressure” seems forced and far from being clear. עשֶׁק may denote a state of soul leading to wrong and oppression, as well as the outward act itself; as in Psa_73:8, וִידַבְּרוּ עשֶׁק is parallel to מִמָּרוֹם יְבֵּרוּ, “they speak lofty,” arrogantly. Compare also Isa_59:13, where it is joined with סָרָה “perverseness,” and falsehood. See also Psa_62:11. The connection, then, is with Ecc_7:5 : “To hear the reproving of the wise is better than to listen to the song of fools.” Ecc_7:6 is simply an illustration of what is meant by the song of fools, and then follows the brief clause, “this too is vanity,” which, although connected by the accents with Ecc_7:6, must refer to the whole context that precedes; since it would seem superfluous thus to characterize simply the empty talk of fools. It is frequently the case in Koheleth that an admonition, or serious maxim, given in one sentence, is afterwards qualified, if not wholly modified or retracted, in another; as though there were some vanity even in the gravest of human words or acts. גַּס־זֶה הָבֶל, “this too may be vanity.” that is, “the reproof of the wise,” or of the judge, (as Zöckler, from the context, correctly regards him); for his own arrogance, or perverseness of temper, may lead him astray, or a bribe may corrupt his heart. And thus there is brought out, what seems evidently intended, a contrast between the inward and outward deranging power. —T. L.]
[3][There seems no good reason for departing here from the usual sense of עִם with, in connection with. The other passages referred to explain themselves. The word נַחֲלָה, as used in many places, does not mean inheritance generally, like יְרֵשָׁה but a rich and ample possession, in a most favorable sense, as one given by the Lord, or inherited from one’s father, an estate, or property. The sense is obvious: Wisdom is a good alone, but when joined with an ample estate, as a means of doing good, then is it especially an advantage to the sons of men. See Metrical Version.—T. L.]
[4][Ecc_7:12. הַחָכְמָה תְּהַיֶּה, rendered “wisdom giveth life.” We cannot help thinking that Koheleth means more here than Zöckler‘s interpretation would give, or any of the others he mentions. There is a contrast, too, giving the connection of thought, which they all fail to bring out. “In the shade of wisdom, as in the shade of wealth;” that is, in both is there a defence. Defence of what? Of life evidently. In this they both agree; but knowledge, wisdom (variety of expression for the same thing), does more than this. Its great pre-eminence is, that it giveth life to its possessors (תְּחַיֶּה makes them alive). This means something more than mere animating, in the ordinary sense of cheering, enlivening, or making happy, etc. Knowledge is life. Vivere est cogitare. It is, in a high sense, the soul’s being. It is true of mere human knowledge, science, philosophy, intuition. Much more may it be said of divine or spiritual knowledge. “Man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” Deu_8:3; Mat_4:4. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life,” Joh_6:63. It is not merely spiritual, that is, moral reanimation, as Hengstenberg would have it, but the very life of the soul. It is a sufficient argument against the other interpretations given, that in falling short of this they lose the contrast, and fail to exhibit that connection to which the antithetical nicety of the proverbial diction evidently points.—T. L.]
[5] [Ecc_7:16. “Be not over-righteous,” etc. There is no reason for regarding צַדִּיק, in the 15th verse, as having any other than its ordinary sense, or the truly righteous man. It is the same experience that Koheleth presents elsewhere, the just man in this world having the same lot as the wicked, and sometimes suffering when the wicked seems to escape with impunity,—like the experience of the Psalmist, Psa_73:4-5. The צַדִּיק, in the 16th verse, is, doubtless, suggested by that in the preceding, but such a fact would not necessitate their having precisely the same meaning; since the connection may be poetical, or suggestive, rather than logical. Zöckler’s idea, therefore, of its meaning here the self-righteous, or Pharisaical, might be sustained, perhaps, without carrying the idea into the preceding verse. His view of the צַדִּיק הַרְבֵּה, the over-righteous, is very similar to that of Jerome, who interprets the passage as a condemnation of one who over-judges, rigidum et trucem ad omnia fratrum peccata,—the worthy father, perhaps, little thinking how distinctly he was giving a feature of his own character. “Do not,” he says, “in this respect, be too just (that is, too rigid), because ‘an unjust weight,’ be it too great or too small, ‘is an abomination to the Lord.’ ” And then he cites our Lord’s precept, Matthew 7, Judge not, etc. The being over-wise he refers to proud or curious inquiring into the hidden works and ways of God, such as Paul condemns, Rom_9:20, and the confounding to the effect produced by God’s rebuke, or such an answer as the Apostle gives: “Nay, who art thou, O man?” Stuart renders it, “do not overdo.” Rabbi Schelomo, following the Targum and Jewish authorities so early as to be referred to by Jerome, regards צַדִּיק as meaning kind or merciful, and alleges the example of Saul, who through mistaken clemency, spared the life of Agag. Others refer it to a too strict judging of the ways of Providence, or the arraigning them for what seems to us unjust; as when we see the righteous perish and the wicked man living on in his wickedness. An argument for this interpretation is the support it seems to have from Ecc_7:15. Another interpretation regards it as a caution against asceticism and moroseness, in denying one’s self innocent pleasures for fear of finding sin in them. This is the view of Maimonides in the yad Hachazakah, Part I., Lib. 4., Sec. III., 3, 4. Akin to this is the view, stated by him, which regards it as rebuking works of supererogation, —as when a man attempts to do more than the law requires.
If we keep in view, however, the general scope of this musing, meditative, book, it will be found, we think, that the two members here mean very much the same thing: Do not view the world, or the ways of God, too narrowly, as though we, from our exceedingly limited position, could determine what it would be just or unjust for God to do, or permit. This is in harmony with the preceding verse. It furnishes us with a key to the transition in the train of thought: When you see the righteous suffer, and the wicked prosper, do not let the thought, or even feeling, arise in your mind that you could, or would, be more equitable, if you had the management of the world. This is agreeable to the general style of Koheleth,—one thought correcting what seems too strongly stated, or which may be liable to misunderstanding, in another. It is also in perfect harmony with what follows: “Be not overwise;” that is do not speculate too much, or theorize too much, אַל תִּתְחַכַּם, do not play the philosopher too much; you know too little; your Baconianism (as he might have said had he lived in these our boasting times) has too small an area of inductive facts from which to construct systems of the universe (especially in its moral and spiritual aspects) out of nebular hypotheses. This corresponds with what is said Ecc_3:11, about “the world so given to the minds of men that they cannot find out the work that God worketh, the end from the beginning.” It is the same idea that we have Ecc_8:17 : “Man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun, and even if a wise man (a philosopher) say that he knows it, he shall not be able to discover it.” The Vulgate renders it, neque plus sapias quam necesse est. Jerome, in his Latin Version, ne quæras amplius, LXX μὴ σοφίζου. The whole precept, then, may be taken as a condemnation of that spirit which would be more just and wise than God. No man professes this, or would oven admit that he thus feels, yet it is realized when any one, in any way, finds fault with, or even doubts, or has difficulty with, the ways of God in the world. Such a temper is also condemned Ecc_5:8 : “If thou seest oppression of the poor, etc., be not astonished concerning such a matter, for He who is high above all is watching them.” Compare also Job_4:7, where the Spirit-voice says to Eliphaz הַאֱנוֹשּׁ מֵאֱלוֹהַּ יִצְדָּק, “shall a man (βροτὸς, mortalis) be more just than God?” This is being צַדִּיק הַרְבֵּה. So also Psa_37:1 : “Fret not thyself against the evil doers.” The Hithpahel form, תִּתְחַכַּם, would authorize us to understand it of a seeming or affected wisdom, but it more properly means here a prying into the divine mysteries, whether of revelation, or of the supernatural, or an arrogant denial of both, grounded on the comparative infinitesimality of our knowledge.
לָמָּה תִּשּׁוֹמֵם (for the fuller Hithpahel תִּשְׁתּוֹמֵם) ne obstupescas (Jerome); rather “why shouldst thou be desolate,” or “make thyself desolate,” which would correspond to the first interpretation of תתחכם, “alone in thy wisdom;” or “why shouldst thou be confounded.” He who presumes to settle matters too high for him, will surely, in some way, be taught his ignorance and his folly.—T. L.
[6][There is no indication to the contrary, it should rather be said. The Hebrew is remarkably plain, and there is no way of making it mean “since I belong to this vain empty life.” This is too much practised by those who deny the Solomonic origin of the book, thus to take away the force of certain passages that plainly speak for it, and then to reason on their own false hypothesis. Had this expression not occurred at all, the whole hook furnishes evidence that it was written by one who had an unusual experience of the vanities and vicissitudes of life. A mere personator could never have expressed it so feelingly.—T. L.]
[7]The Syriac has something here which is not in the Hebrew, nor in any other version, דלא תסתנא “that thou mayest not be hated.”—T. L.]
[8][This seems exceedingly forced and far-fetched. Knobel’s view is more so. The simple order of thought may be stated thus: Wise men are scarce, being to the strong men, the שליטים, captains, or principal men in a city, about as one to ten; but one, a truly righteous, or perfectly righteous man, is not found on earth, etc. The wise man of Ecc_7:19, is not the pious man necessarily, or the one who fears God, though that may be included, but wise, simply, in distinction from men of power or political eminence, or wise like the one described Ecc_9:15, “who saved the city.” Such may be found, but the perfectly righteous is a character that does not exist upon earth. The particle כִּי here is emphatic, calling attention to the fact regarded as strange, and yet well known. See Metrical Version.—T. L.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 Proving that it is not a sensual enjoyment of…
Proving that it is not a sensual enjoyment of earthly goods which is meant in Ecc 3:13; Ecc 5:18. A thankful use of these is right, but frequent feasting Solomon had found dangerous to piety in his own case. So Job's fear (Ecc 1:4-5). The house of feasting often shuts out thoughts of God and eternity. The sight of the dead in the "house of mourning" causes "the living" to think of their own "end."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–29 1. Ointment — Better, perfume. Sweet perfumes are always…
1. Ointment — Better, perfume. Sweet perfumes are always mentioned in Scripture in accordance with the value set on them in the East. The latter part of the verse has a logical connexion with the former.
The day of death — Rather, And then the day, etc. That is, to him who achieves a good name, the day of his death is a day of victory. Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, said that he counted no man happy until his death. In this view we reckon that —
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“The dead alone are great,
For when they die, a morning shower
Comes down, and makes their memories flower
With perfume sweet, though late”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–29 1. A good name is better than precious ointment]…
1. A good name is better than precious ointment] The sequence of thought is interrupted, and the writer, instead of carrying on the induction which is to prove that all is vanity, moralizes on the other results of his experience. He has learnt to take a relative estimate of what men count good or evil, truer than that which commonly prevails among them. It lies almost in the nature of the case, that these moralizings should take a somewhat discontinuous form, like that, e.g. of the Pensées of Pascal or the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the entries, let us say, which the thinker entered, day by day, in his tablets or on his codex. They are marked, however, by a sufficient unity of tone. The same pensive cast of thought is found in all, and it raises the thinker out of a mere self-seeking, self-indulgent Epicureanism into a wider and nobler sympathy. He rises as on the “stepping-stones” of his “dead self” to higher things. Nor are the maxims indeed without a certain unity of form, and the three words “it is better” in Ecc_7:1; Ecc_7:5; Ecc_7:8 serve as a connecting link. The words and the maxims that follow in Ecc_7:2-5 have naturally been a stumblingblock to those who saw in Koheleth nothing but the advocate of a sensual voluptuousness, and with the desperate courage of men maintaining a theory, they argue (I take Grätz as the representative of a school) that these are not the thoughts of the Debater himself, but of some imaginary opponent of the ascetic Essene type, against whom he afterwards enters his protest. The view is, it is believed, just as untenable as that of the interpreters of the opposite school, who see in the oft-repeated precepts counselling moderate enjoyment nothing but the utterances of an ideal Epicurean, set up for the purpose of being knocked down.
In the maxim which opens the series there is an alliterative emphasis, which is fairly represented by the German translation (Knobel) “Besser gut Gerücht als güte Gerüche. The good name (shem) is better than good ointment (shemen), echoing in this respect the words of Song Son_1:3, “A good name is better than good nard,” is perhaps the nearest English approximation in this respect. The maxim itself indicates a craving for something higher than the perfumed oil, which was the crowning luxury of Eastern life (Psa_45:8; Amo_6:6; Luk_7:37; Mat_26:7), even the praise and admiration of our fellow-men. To live in their memories, our name as a sweet odour that fills the house, is better than the most refined enjoyment. The student of the Gospel history will recall the contrast between the rich man who fared sumptuously every day (Luk_16:19), whose very name is forgotten, and who is remembered only as a type of evil, and the woman whose lavish gift of the ointment of spikenard is told through the whole world as a memorial of her (Mar_14:9), and who is identified by John, Joh_12:3, with Mary of Bethany.
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and the day of death than the day of one’s birth] The two parts of the thought hang closely together. If the “good name” has been earned in life, death removes the chance of failure and of shame. In the language of Solon (Herod. i. 32) only he who crowns a prosperous life by a peaceful death can be called truly happy. The thought presents, however, a strange contrast to the craving for life which was so strong an element, as in Hezekiah’s elegy (Isa_38:9-20), of Hebrew feeling, and is, like similar thoughts in ch. Ecc_6:3-4, essentially ethnic in its character. So Herodotus (Ecc_7:4) relates that the Trausi, a Thracian tribe, met on the birth of a child and bewailed the woes and sorrows which were its inevitable portion, while they buried their dead with joy and gladness, as believing that they were set free from evils and had entered on happiness, or at least on the unbroken rest of the eternal sleep. So Euripides, apparently with reference to this practice, of which he may well have heard at the court of Archelaus, writes in his Cresphontes,
ἐδεῖ γὰρ ἡμᾶς σύλλογον ποιουμένους
τὸν φύντα θρηνεῖν, εἰς ὅσʼ ἔρχεται κακά•
τὸν δʼ αὖ θανόντα καὶ πόνων πεπαυμένον
χαίροντας εὐφημοῦντας ἐκπέμπειν δόμων.
“It were well done, comparing things aright,
To wail the new-born child for all the ills
On which he enters; and for him who dies
And so has rest from labour, to rejoice
And with glad words to bear him from his home.”
Strabo, who quotes the lines (xi. c. 12, p. 144), attributes the practice to Asiatic nations, possibly to those who had come under the influence of that Buddhist teaching as to the vanity and misery of life of which even the partial pessimism of Koheleth may be as a far-off echo.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28 (1) There is a play on words in the…
(1) There is a play on words in the original (found also in Son_1:3), which Plumptre represents by “a good name is better than good nard.” It was probably an older proverb, which the Preacher completes by the startling addition, “and so is the day of death better than that of birth.” For the use of perfumes, see Rth_3:3; 2Sa_12:20; Pro_7:17; Dan_10:3.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–29 Ver. 1 Ecc_12:8. Division II DEDUCTIONS FROM THE ABOVE-MENTIONED…
Ver. 1 Ecc_12:8. Division II DEDUCTIONS FROM THE ABOVE-MENTIONED EXPERIENCES IN THE WAY OF WARNINGS AND RULES OF LIFE.
Vers. 1-7. Section 1. Though no man knows for certain what is best, yet there are some practical rules for the conduct of life which wisdom gives. Some of these Koheleth sets forward in the proverbial form, recommending a serious, earnest life in preference to one of gaiety and frivolity.
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A good name is better than precious ointment. The paronomasia here is to be remarked, rob ahem mishemen tob. There is a similar assonance in Son_1:3, which the German translator reproduces by the sentence, "Besser gut Gerucht als Wohlgeruch," or," gute Geruche," and which may perhaps be rendered in English, "Better is good favor than good flavor." It is a proverbial saying, running literally, Better is a name than good oil. Shem, "name," is sometimes used unqualified to signify a celebrated name, good name, reputation (comp. Gen_11:4; Pro_22:1) Septuagint, jAgaqon onoma uJpen. Vulgate, Melius eat nomen bonum quam unguenta pretiosa. Odorous unguents were very precious in the mind of an Oriental, and formed one of the luxuries lavished at feasts and costly entertainments, or social visits. (see Ecc_9:8; Rth_3:3; Psa_45:8; Amo_6:6 RAPC Wis 2:7; Luk_7:37, Luk_7:46) It was a man"s most cherished ambition to leave a good reputation, and to hand down an honorable remembrance to distant posterity, and this all the more as the hope of the life beyond the grave was dim and vague (see on Ecc_2:16, and comp. Ecc_9:5) The complaint of the sensualists in RAPC Wis 2:4 is embittered by the thought," Our name shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance." We employ a metaphor like that in the clause when we speak of a man"s reputation having a good or ill odor; and the Hebrews said of ill fame that it stank in the nostrils (Gen_34:30; Exo_5:21; see, on the opposite side, Ecc 24:15; 2Co_2:15) And the day of death than the day of one"s birth. The thought in this clause is closely connected with the preceding. If a man"s life is such that he leaves a good name behind him, then the day of his departure is better than that of his birth, because in the latter he had nothing before him but labor, and trouble, and fear, and uncertainty; and in the former all these anxieties are past, the storms are successfully battled with, the haven is won. (see on Ecc_4:3) According to Solon"s well-known maxim, no one can be called happy till he has crowned a prosperous life by a peaceful death (Herod., 1:32; Soph., "Trachin.," 1-3; ("Ed. Tyr.," 1528, sqq.); as the Greek gnome runs Mhpw megan eiphv prisant idhv
Call no man great till thou hast seen him dead.
So Ben-Sira, "Judge none blessed (mhrize mhdena) before his death; for a man shall be known in his children" (Ecc 11:28).
Ver. 1.
A good name better than precious ointment.
I MORE DIFFICULT OF ACQUISITION. Money will buy the "good nard," but the cost of a "good name" is beyond rubies. This which cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof, can be secured only by laborious personal exercise in goodness, always smiled on by Heaven"s favor and assisted by Heaven"s grace. It is the flower, fruit, and fragrance of a soul long practiced in well-living and good-doing. If, therefore, things are valuable in proportion to the cost of obtaining them, the above proverbial utterance bears the stamp of truth.
II MORE HONORABLE IN POSSESSION. It is:
1. An article of greater value in itself. Precious ointment is, after all, only a production of the earth; whereas a good name is a spiritual aroma proceeding from the soul.
2. An index of truer wealth. Precious ointment at the best is material riches; a good name proclaims one possessed of fiches which are spiritual.
3. A mark of higher dignity. Costly unguent a sign of social rank among the children of men; a good name attests that one has qualities of soul, of mind, heart, and disposition, proclaiming him a son of God and a peer of heaven.
III MORE SATISFYING IN ENJOYMENT. Perfumed oil may yield a pleasant fragrance which gratifies the sense of smell and revives the body"s vigor; the spiritual aroma of a good name not only diffuses happiness amongst those who come to hear of it, but imparts a sweet joy, holy and refreshing, to him who bears it.
IV MORE DIFFUSIVE IN INFLUENCE. The odor of precious ointment extends to those in its immediate vicinity; the savor of a good name goes far and wide, often pervades the community in which the owner of it lives; sometimes, as in the instance of Mary of Bethany, (Mar_14:9) spreads itself abroad through the whole world.
V MORE ENDURING IN CONTINUANCE. The fragrance of the unguent ultimately ceases. Becoming feebler the longer it is exposed to the air and the wider it diffuses itself, it ultimately dies away. The savor of a good name never perishes. (Psa_112:6) It passes on from age to age, being handed down by affectionate tradition to succeeding, frequently to latest, generations. Witness the names of Noah, the preacher of righteousness; Abraham, the father of the faithful; Moses, the law-giver of Israel; David, the sweet singer of the Hebrew Church; John, the beloved disciple; Peter, the man of rock; Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles; with names like those of Polycarp, Cyprian, Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, Chrysostom, Luther, Calvin, Knox, etc.
VI MORE BLESSED IN ITS ISSUE. Precious ointment can only secure for one entrance into earthly circles of rank and fashion; a good name will procure for him who bears it admission into the society of Heaven"s peerage.
LESSONS.
1. Seek this good name.
2. Cherish it above all earthly distinctions.
3. Guard it from getting tarnished.
4. Walk worthy of it.
The day of death and the day of birth.
I The latter begins a life at the longest brief; (Psa_90:10) the former a life which shall never end. (Luk_20:36)
II The latter ushers into a field of toil; (Psa_104:23) the former into a home of rest. (Rev_14:13)
III The latter admits into a scene of suffering; (Job_5:7 Job_14:1) the former into a realm of felicity. (Rev_7:16)
IV The latter introduces a life of sin Gen_8:21; Job_14:4; Psa_58:3; Rom_5:12 the former an existence of holiness. (Jud_1:24 Rev_21:27)
V The latter opens a state of condemnation; (Rom_5:18) the former a state of glory. (2Co_4:17)
LESSONS.
1. The secret of living well keeping an eye on the day of one"s death (Deu_32:29; Psa_90:12)
2. The secret of dying happily living in the fear of God (Act_13:36; Php_1:21)
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Ver. 1.
Reputation.
The connection between the two clauses of this verse is not at first sight apparent. But it may well be intended to draw attention to the fact that it is in the case of the man who has justly gained a good name that the day of death is better than that of birth.
I THERE IS A SENSE IN WHICH REPUTATION AMONG MEN IS WORTHLESS, AND IN WHICH SOLICITUDE FOR REPUTATION IS FOLLY. If the reality of fact points one way, and the world"s opinion points in an opposite direction, that opinion is valueless. It is better to be good than to seem and to be deemed good; and it is worse to be bad than unjustly to be reputed bad. Many influences affect the estimation in which a man is held among his fellows. Through the world"s injustice and prejudice, a good man may be evil spoken of. On the other hand, a bad man may be reputed better than he is, when he humors the world"s caprices, and falls in with the world"s tastes and fashions. He who aims at conforming to the popular standard, at winning the world"s applause, will scarcely make a straight course through life.
II YET THERE IS A RIGHTEOUS REPUTATION WHICH OUGHT NOT TO BE DESPISED. Such good qualities and habits as justice, integrity and truthfulness as bravery sympathy, and liberality, must needs, in the course of a lifetime, make some favorable impression upon neighbors, and perhaps upon the public; and in many cases a man distinguished by such virtues will have the credit of being what he is. A good name, when deserved, and when obtained by no mean artifices, is a thing to be desired, though not in the highest degree. It may console amidst trials and difficulties, it is gratifying to friends, and it may serve to rouse the young to emulation. A man who is in good repute possesses and exercises in virtue of that very fact an extended influence for good.
III IT IS ONLY WHEN LIFE IS COMPLETED THAT A REPUTATION IS FULLY AND FINALLY MADE UP. "Call no man happy before his death" is an ancient adage, not without its justification. There are those who have only become famous in advanced life, and there are those who have enjoyed a temporary celebrity which they have long outlived, and who have died in unnoticed obscurity. It is after a man"s career has come to an end that his character and his work are fairly estimated; the career is considered as a whole, and then the judgment is formed accordingly.
IV THE APPROVAL OF THE DIVINE JUDGE AND AWARDER IS OF SUPREME CONSEQUENCE. A good name amongst one"s fellow-creatures, as fallible as one"s self, is of small account. Who does not admire the noble assertion of the Apostle Paul, "It is a small thing for me to be judged by man"s judgment"? They who are calumniated for their fidelity to truth, who are persecuted for righteousness" sake, who are execrated by the unbelieving and the worldly whose vices and sins they have opposed, shall be recognized and rewarded by him whose judgment is just, and who suffers none of his faithful servants to be for ever unappreciated. But they may wait for appreciation until "the day of death." The clouds of misrepresentation and of malice shall then be rolled away, and they shall shine like stars in the firmament. "Then shall every man have praise of God. T.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Ver. 1.
Reputation.
There is much both of exalted enjoyment and of valuable influence in a man"s reputation. It is said of the great explorer and philanthropist, David Livingstone, that he used to live in a village in Africa until his "good name" for benevolence had been established and had gone on before him: following his reputation, he was perfectly safe. A good reputation is
I THE AROMA WHICH OUR LIFE SHEDS AROUND US. We are always judging one another; every act of every kind is appraised, though often quite unconsciously, and we stand better or worse in the estimation of our neighbors for all we do and are. Our professions, our principles, our deeds, our words, even our manners and methods, all these leave impressions on the mind concerning ourselves. What men think of us is the sum-total of these impressions, "and constitutes our "name," our reputation. The character of a good man is constantly creating an atmosphere about him in which he will be able to walk freely and happily. It is indeed true that some good men seriously injure their reputation by some follies, or even foibles, which might easily be corrected and which ought to be avoided; but, as a rule, the life of the pure and holy, of the just and kind, is surrounded by a radiance of good estimation, as advantageous to himself as it is valuable to his neighbors.
II THE BEST LEGACY WE LEAVE BEHIND US. At "the day of one"s birth" there is rejoicing, because "a man is born into the world." And what may he not become? what may he not achieve? what may he not enjoy? But that is a question indeed. That infant may become a reprobate, an outcast; he may do incalculable, deplorable mischief in the world; he may grow up to suffer the worst things in body or in mind. None but the Omniscient can tell that. But when a good man dies, having lived an honorable and useful life, and having built up a noble and steadfast character, he has won his victory, he has gained his crown; and he leaves behind him memories, pure and sweet, that will live in many hearts and hallow them, that will shine on many lives and brighten them. At birth there is a possibility of good, at death there is a certainty of blessedness and blessing.
1. Reputation is not the very best thing of all. Character stands first. It is of vital consequence that we be right in the sight of God, and tried by Divine wisdom. The first and best thing is not to seem but to be right and wise. But then:
2. Reputation is of very great value.
(1) It is worth much to ourselves; for it is an elevated and ennobling joy to be glad in the well-earned esteem of the wise.
(2) It is of great value to our kindred and our friends. How dear to us is the good name of our parents, of our children, of our intimate friends!
(3) It is a source of much influence for good with our neighbors. How much weightier are the words of the man who has been growing in honor all his days, than are those of either the inexperienced and unknown man, or the man whose reputation has been tarnished! C.
HOMILIES BY J. WILLCOCK Ver 1.
The charm of goodness.
When our author wrote these words he had, for a time at any rate, passed into a purer atmosphere; some gleams of light, if not the full dawn of day, had begun to shine upon him. Up to this he has been analyzing the evil conditions of human life, and has depicted all the moods of depression and sorrow and indignation they excited in him. Now he tells us of some things which he had found good, and which had cheered and strengthened him in his long agony. They were not, indeed, efficient to remove all his distress or to outweigh all the evils he had encountered in his protracted examination of the phenomena of human life; but to a certain extent they had great value and power. The first of these compensations of human misery is the beauty and attractiveness and lasting worth of a good character. The name won by one of honorable and unblemished character, who has striven against vice and followed after virtue, who has been pure and unselfish and zealous in the service of God and man, "is better than precious ointment." It is not unwarrantable thus-to expand the sentence; for though the epithet "good" is not in the original, but supplied by our translators (Revised Version), it is undoubtedly understood, and also it is taken for granted that the renown so highly praised is fully deserved by its possessor. "Dear," he says, "to the human senses speaking, remember, to an Eastern world the odor of costly unguents, of sweet frankincense and fragrant spikenard; but dearer still, more precious still, an honored name, whose odor attracts the love, and penetrates and fills for a while the whole heart and memory of our friends" (Bradley). There is in the original a play upon words ( shem, a name; shemen, ointment) which harmonizes with the brightness of the thought, and, gives a touch of gaiety to the sentence so strangely concluded with the reflection that for the owner of the good name the day of his death is better than the day of his birth. An exquisite illustration of the justness of our author"s admiration for a good name is to be found in that incident in the Gospels of the deed of devotion to Christ, on the part of the woman who poured upon his head the precious ointment. Her name, Mary of Bethany, (Joh_12:3) is now known throughout the whole world, and is associated with the ideas of pure affection and generous self-sacrifice. The second part of the verse, which at first sounds so out of harmony with what precedes it, is yet closely connected with it. The good name is thought of as not finally secured until death has removed the possibility of failure and shame. So many begin well and attain high fame in their earlier life which is sadly belied by their conduct and fate in the close. The words recall those of Solon to Croesus, if indeed they are not a reminiscence of them, "Call no man happy until he has closed his life happily" (Herod., 1:32); and are to the same effect as those in ver. 8, "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof." It is not to be denied that there is, however, more in the words than a prudential warning against prematurely counting upon having secured the "good name" which is better than ointment. They betray an almost heathenish distaste for life, which is utterly out of harmony with the revelation both of the Old Testament and of the New; and are more appropriate in the mouth of one of that Thracian tribe mentioned by Herodotus, who actually celebrated their birthdays as days of sadness, and the day of death as a day of rejoicing, than of one who had any faith in God. The only parallel to them in Scripture is what is said of Judas by our Lord, "It had been good for that man if he had not been born". (Mat_26:24) Ingenuity may devise explanations of the sentiment which bring it into harmony with religious sentiments. Thus it may be said, at death the box of precious ointment is broken and its odors spread abroad; prejudices that assailed the man of noble character during his lifetime are mitigated, envy and jealousy and detraction are subdued, and his title to fair fame acknowledged on all hands. It may be said life is a state of probation, death the beginning of a higher and happier existence. Life is a struggle, a contest, a voyage, a pilgrimage; and when victory has been won, the goal reached, the reward of labor is attained. We may borrow the words and. infuse a brighter significance into them; but no trace of any such inspiring, cheering thoughts are in the page before us. "The angel of death is there; no angel of resurrection sits within the sepulcher. J.W.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21, 28, 29 A good name is better than precious ointment.
Ecc_7:1
A good name is better than precious ointment.
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The fragrance of moral worth
I. The elements of a good name. It is something more than being well spoken of, for often what is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. It is not even a good reputation, unless that be sustained by the good reality. Socrates, on being asked how one might obtain a good name, replied, Study really to be what you wish to be accounted. A good name is enshrined in whatsoever things are honest, lovely, and of good report--a name not only remembered on earth, but written in heaven. It includes--
1. Piety.
2. Diligence.
3. Integrity.
4. Patriotism.
5. Benevolence.
6. Devotion.
II. The superior value of a good name. Better than precious ointment.
1. It is rarer. Rare as some oriental unguents are, they are plentiful compared with Scriptures good name in this pretentious world.
2. It is more costly. Not a little did the alabaster box of ointment, poured by one on the Saviour, cost; but who shall estimate the expense at which a rebel against God has been so changed in state and character as to have a name, absolutely fragrant, not only in a sinful earth, but throughout a sinless universe? The sufferings of Jesus and the influences of the Spirit indicate a cost which no arithmetic can compute.
3. It is more enduring than ointment. The latters delectable properties will soon evaporate, as if it had never been; but a good name, earned in doing the will of God, abideth for ever. The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.
4. Than ointment, such a good name is better for the individual himself. It inlays the soul with satisfaction. A good man shall be satisfied, not with, but from himself. He secures a signal luxury. It is more blessed to give than to receive. Such a good name is better for society. It is stimulating. Barnabass good name was a passport to Saul of Tarsus among the Churches. Pauls good name was all that was needed to secure large donations for the poor saints at Jerusalem. Such a name is absolutely beneficial. What woes have not fled before its odoriferous power! What songs has it not kindled on lips unaccustomed to the music of the spheres! (A. M. Stalker.)
A well-grounded good name
The improving of our life in this world to the raising up a well-grounded good name and savoury character in it, is the best balance for the present for the vanity and misery attending our life, better than the most savoury earthly things.
I. Some things supposed in the doctrine.
1. There is a vanity and misery that is the inseparable attendant of human life in this world. No man in life is free of it, nor can be (Psa_39:6).
2. Every man will find himself obliged to seek for some allay of that vanity and misery of life, that he may be enabled to comport with it (Psa_6:6). This makes a busy world, every one seeking something to make his hard seat soft.
3. It is natural for men to seek an allay to the vanity and misery of life in earthly things (Psa_6:6).
4. But the best of earthly things will make but a sorry plaster for that sore; they will not be able to balance the vanity and misery of life, but with them all life may be rendered sapless, through the predominant vanity and misery of it.
5. Howbeit, the improving of life to the raising a well-grounded good name, will balance the vanity and misery of life effectually; so that he who has reached that kind of living, has what is well worth the enduring all the miseries of life for. There is an excellency and good in it that downweigh all the evils attending life.
II. What is the well-grounded good name that is the balance of the vanity and misery of human life?
1. It is the name of religion, and no less; for there is nothing truly good separate from religion (Mat_7:18).
2. It is raised on the reality of religion, and no less; for a mere show of religion is but a vain and empty thing, which will dwindle to nothing with other vanities. We may take up that good name in three parts.
(1) Friend of God (Jam_2:23).
(2) Faithful to the Lord (Act_16:15). That designs the mans temper and way towards God.
(3) Useful to men, serving his generation (Act_13:35). That designs the mans temper and way towards his neighbour.
III. What is the improvement of life whereby that good name may be raised.
1. Improve your life by a personal and saving entering into the covenant of grace, and uniting with Christ, by believing on His name.
2. Improve your life to a living a life of faith in this world.
(1) Let it be a life of believing and dependence on God in Christ for all.
(2) Let it be a life of devotion, despise and scoff at it who will. In respect of the truths of God made known to you, reckoning every truth sacred, and cleaving thereto against all hazards and opposition (Pro_23:28). In respect of the worship of God; in secret, private, and public, showing reverence in the frame of your heart and outward gestures; so shall ye have the good name.
(3) Let it be a life of heavenly-mindedness and contempt of the world (Php_3:20). So Enoch got the good name of walking with God (Gen_5:24), and the worthies (Heb_11:13-16).
(4) Let it be a life of Christian deportment under trials and afflictions in flee. So patience, resignation, holy cheerfulness under the cross are necessary to raise the good name (Jam_1:4).
(5) Let it be a life of uprightness, the same where no eye sees you but Gods, as where the eyes of men are upon you.
3. Improve your life to the living of a life beneficial to mankind, profitable to your fellow-creatures, diffusing a benign influence through the world, as ye have access; so that when you are gone, the world may be convinced they have lost a useful member that sought their good; so shall ye have the good name, Useful to men (Act_13:36).
(1) Cast the world a copy by your good example (Mat_5:18). Of devotion and piety towards God, in a strict and religious observance of your duty towards Him. This will be a practical testimony for Him, a light that will condemn the worlds profane contempt of Him (Pro_28:4). Of exact justice and truth in all your doings and sayings with men (Zec_8:16). Of sobriety in moderating your own passions with a spirit of peacefulness, meekness, and forbearance (Mat_11:29).
(2) Be of a beneficent disposition, disposed to do good to mankind as you have access (Gal_6:10).
(3) Lay out yourselves to forward the usefulness of others (1Co_16:10-11).
(4) Be conscientious in the performance of the duties of your station and relations (1Co_7:24). It is exemplified in the ease of the priests (Mal_2:6); of wives (1Pe_3:1); and of servants (Tit_2:9-10). To pretend to usefulness without our sphere is the effect of pride and presumption, and is the same absurdity in moral conduct as it would be in nature for the moon and stars to set up for the rule of the day, the sun contenting himself with the rule of the night.
IV. Confirm the point.
1. This improvement of life is the best balance for the present, for the vanity and misery of life.
(1) Hereby a man answers the end of his creation, for which he was sent into the world; and surely the reaching of such a noble end is the best balance for all the hardships in the way of it.
(2) It brings such a substantial and valuable good out of our life as will downweigh all the inconveniences that attend our life in the world.
(3) It brings such valuable good into our life as more than counterbalanceth all the vanity and misery of it. A present comfort and satisfaction within oneself (2Co_1:12). A future prospect, namely, of complete happiness, which must needs turn the scales entirely, be the miseries of life what they will (Rom_8:35-39).
(4) That good name well grounded is a thing that may cost much indeed, but it cannot be too dear bought (Pro_23:23). Whatever it cost you, you will be gainers, if ye get it (Php_3:8).
2. This improvement of life is better than the best and most savoury earthly things.
(1) It will give a greater pleasure to the mind than any earthly thing can do (Pro_3:17; Psa_4:7; 2Co_1:17).
(2) It will last longer than they will all do (Psa_112:6).
(3) It is the only thing we can keep to ourselves in the world to our advantage when we leave the world.
(4) The good name will, after we are away, be savoury in the world, when the things that others set their hearts on will make them stink when they are gone.
(5) The good name will go farther than the best and most savoury things of the earth. Mary pours a box of precious ointment on Christ, which no doubt sent its savour through the whole house; but Christ paid her for it with the good name that should send its savour through the whole world (Mat_26:13). But ye may think we can have no hope that ever our good name will go that wide. That is a mistake; for if we raise ourselves the good name, it will certainly be published before all the world at the last day (Rev_3:5), and we will carry it over the march betwixt the two worlds into the other world (Ecc_7:12). (T. Boston, D. D.)
A good name
There are a thousand men in our cities to-day who are considering, What is the best investment that I can make of myself? What are the tools that will cut my way in life best? It sounds to them very much like old-fashioned preaching to say that a good name is the best thing you can have. Now, let us consider that a little. In the first place, what is included in a name? A man that has a name has a character; and a good name is a good character; but it is more than a good character; it is a good character with a reputation that properly goes with character. It is what you are, and then what men think you to be--the substance and the shadow both; for character is what a man is, and what men think him to be; and when they are coincident, then you have the fulness of a good name. In the world at large, what are the elements of conduct which leave upon society a kind of impression of you? The first foundation quality of manliness is truth-speaking. Then, perhaps, next to that is justice; the sense of what is right between man and man; fairness. Then sincerity. Then fidelity. If these are all coupled with good sense, or common sense, which is the most uncommon of all sense; if these are central to that form of intelligence which addresses itself to the capacity of the average man, you have a very good foundation laid. Men used, before the era of steam, to wearily tow their boats up through the lower Ohio, or through the Mississippi, with a long line; and at night it was not always safe for them to fasten their boats on the bank while they slept, because there was danger, from the wash of the underflowing current, that they would find themselves drifting and pulling a tree after them. Therefore they sought out well-planted, solid, enduring trees and tied to them, and the phrase became popular, That man will do to tie to--that is to say, he has those qualities which make it perfectly safe for you to attach yourself to him. Now, not only are these foundation qualities, but they are qualities which tend to breed the still higher elements. If with substantial moral excellence there comes industry, superior skill, in any and every direction, if a mans life leads him to purity and benevolence, then he has gone up a stage higher. If it is found, not that the man is obsequious to the sects, but that he is God-fearing in the better sense of the term fear, that he is really a religious-minded man, that he is pure in his moral habits, though he is deficient in his enterprise and endeavours, so that his inspiration is not calculation, so that the influence that is working in him is the influence of the eternal and invisible; if all these qualities in him have been known and tested; if it is found that his sincerity is not the rash sincerity of inexperience, and that it is not the impulse of an untutored and untrained generosity; if it is found that these qualities implanted in him have been built upon, that they have increased, that they have had the impact of storms upon them, and that they have stood; if there have been inducements and temptations to abandon truth and justice, and sincerity and fidelity, but the man has been mightier than the temptation or the inducement--then he has built a name, at least, which is a tower of strength; and men say, There is a man for you. Now, how does a mans name affect his prosperity? It is said that it is better than precious ointment. Well, in the first place, it works in an invisible way, in methods that men do not account for. It suffuses around about one an atmosphere, not very powerful, but yet very advantageous, in the form of kind feelings and wishes. Then consider how a good name, where it is real, and is fortified by patient continuance in well-doing, increases in value. There is no other piece of property whose value is enhanced more rapidly than this, because every year that flows around about a man fortifies the opinion of men that it is not put on, that it is not vincible, that it is real and stable. Then, a good name is a legacy. There is many and many a father that has ruined a son by transmitting money to him. There is no knife that is so dangerous as a golden knife. But there is no man that ever hurt his son by giving him a good name--a name that is a perpetual honour; a name such that when it is pronounced it makes every one turn round and say, Ah, that is his son, and smile upon him. A good name is worth a mans earning to transmit to his posterity. And that is not the end of it, where men are permitted to attain a great name. Some such we have had in our history. Some such appear in every age and generation in European history--some far back over the high summits of the thousands of years that have rolled between them and us. But some names there are in European history, and some names there are in American history, that have lifted the ideal of manhood throughout the whole world. So a good name becomes a heritage not only to ones children, to ones country, and to ones age, but, in the cases of a few men, to the race. (H. W. Beecher.)
A good name
Hitherto the book has chiefly contained the diagnosis of the great disease. The royal patient has passed before us in every variety of mood, from the sleepy collapse of one who has eaten the fabled lotus, up to the frantic consciousness of a Hercules tearing his limbs as he tries to rend off his robe of fiery poison. He now comes to the cure. He enumerates the prescriptions which he tried, and mentions their results. Solomons first beatitude is an honourable reputation. He knew what it had been to possess it; and he knew what it was to lose it. And here he says, Happy is the possessor of an untarnished character! so happy that he cannot die too soon! A name truly good is the aroma from virtuous character. It is a spontaneous emanation from genuine excellence. It is a reputation for whatsoever things are honest, and lovely, and of good report. To secure a reputation there must not only be the genuine excellence but the genial atmosphere. There must be some good men to observe and appreciate the goodness while it lived, and others to foster its memory when gone. But should both combine,--the worth and the appreciation of worth,--the resulting good name is better than precious ointment. Rarer and more costly, it is also one of the most salutary influences that can penetrate society. For, just as a box of spikenard is not only valuable to its possessor, but pre-eminently precious in its diffusion; so, when a name is really good, it is of unspeakable service to all who are capable of feeling its exquisite inspiration. And should the Spirit of God so replenish a man with His gifts and graces, as to render his name thus wholesome, better than the day of his birth will be the day of his death; for at death the box is broken and the sweet savour spreads abroad. There is an end of the envy and sectarianism and jealousy, the detraction and the calumny, which often environ goodness when living; and now that the stopper of prejudice is removed, the world fills with the odour of the ointment, and thousands grow stronger and more lifesome for the good name of one. Without a good name you can possess little ascendancy over others; and when it has not pioneered your way and won a prepossession for yourself, your patriotic or benevolent intentions are almost sure to be defeated. And yet it will never do to seek a good name as a primary object. Like trying to be graceful, the effort to be popular will make you contemptible. Take care of your spirit and conduct, and your reputation will take care of itself. (J. Hamilton, D. D.)
The day of death than the day of ones birth.--
The day of the Christians death
This statement must be understood not absolutely, but conditionally. It is applicable only to those who die unto the Lord, and none can do so but those who are sincere believers in Christ, the sinners Savior.
I. The day of the Christians death brings deliverance from all suffering and grief. The end of a voyage is better than the beginning, especially if it has been a stormy one. Is not then the day of a Christians death better than the day of his birth?
II. In the case of the believer in Jesus, the day of death is the day of final triumph over all sin, It is the day in which the work of grace in his soul is brought unto perfection; and is not that day better than the day of his birth?
III. In the case of Christs followers, the day of their decease introduces them into a state of endless reward (Psa_31:19; 1Pe_1:4; 1Co_2:9; Rev_3:21). (G. S. Ingram.)
The believers deathday better than his birthday
You must have a good name,--you must be written among the living in Zion, written in the Lambs book of life, or else the text is not true of you; and, alas, though the day of your birth was a bad day, the day of your death will be a thousand times worse. But now, if you are one of Gods people, trusting in Him, look forward to the day of your death as being better than the day of your birth.
I. First, then, our deathday is better than our birthday: and it is so for this among other reasons--Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. When we are born we begin life, but what will that life be? Friends say, Welcome, little stranger. Ah, but what kind of reception will the stranger get when he is no longer a new-comer? He who is newly born and is ordained to endure through a long life is like a warrior who puts on his harness for battle; and is not he in a better case who puts it off because he has won the victory? Ask any soldier which he likes best, the first shot in the battle or the sound which means Cease firing, for the victory is won. When we were born we set out on our journey; but when we die we end our weary march in the Fathers house above. Surely it is better to have come to the end of the tiresome pilgrimage than to have commenced it. Better is the day of death than our birthday, because about the birthday there hangs uncertainty. I heard this morning of a dear friend who had fallen asleep. When I wrote to his wife I said, Concerning him we speak with certainty. You sorrow not as those that are without hope. A long life of walking with God proved that he was one of Gods people, and we know that for such there remains joy without temptation, without sorrow, without end, for ever and ever. Oh, then, as much as certainty is better than uncertainty, the day of the saints death is better than the day of his birth. So, too, in things which are certain the saints deathday is preferable to the beginning of life, for we know that when the child is born he is born to sorrow. Trials must and will befall, and your little one who is born to-day is born to an inheritance of grief, like his father, like his mother, who prophesied it as it were by her own pangs. But look, now, at the saint when he dies. It is absolutely certain that he has done with sorrow, done with pain. Now, surely, the day in which we are certain that sorrow is over must be better than the day in which we are certain that sorrow is on the road.
II. The day of death is better to the believer than all his happy days. What were his happy days? I shall take him as a man, and I will pick out some days that are often thought to be happy. There is the day of a mans coming of age, when he feels that he is a man, especially if he has an estate to come into. That is a day of great festivity. You have seen pictures of Coming of age in the olden time, when the joy of the young squire seemed to spread itself over all the tenants and all the farm labourers: everybody rejoiced. Ah, that is all very well, but when believers die they do in a far higher sense come of age, and enter upon their heavenly estates. Then shall I pluck the grapes from those vines that I have read of as enriching the vales of Eshcol; then shall I lie down and drink full draughts of the river of God, which is full of water; then shall I know even as I am known, and see no more through a glass darkly, but face to face. Another very happy day with a man is the day of his marriage: who does not rejoice then? What cold heart is there which does not beat with joy on that day? But on the day of death we shall enter more fully into the joy of our Lord, and into that blessed marriage union which is established between Him and ourselves. There are days with men in business that are happy days, because they are days of gain. They get some sudden windfall, they prosper in business, or perhaps there are long months of prosperity in which all goes well with them, and God is giving them the desires of their heart. But, oh, there is no gain like the gain of our departure to the Father; the greatest of all gains is that which we shall know when we pass out of the world of trouble into the land of triumph. To die is gain. There are days of honour, when a man is promoted in office, or receives applause from his fellow-men. But what a day of honour that will be for you and me if we are carried by angels into Abrahams bosom! Days of health are happy days, too. But what health can equal the perfect wholeness of a spirit in whom the Good Physician has displayed His utmost skill? We enjoy very happy days of social friendship, when hears warm with hallowed intercourse, when one can sit a while with a friend, or rest in the midst of ones family. Yes, but no day of social enjoyment will match the day of death. Some of us expect to meet troops of blessed ones that have gone home long ago, whom we never shall forget.
III. The day of a believers death is better than his holy days on earth. I think that the best holy day I ever spent was the day of my conversion. There was a novelty and freshness about that first day which made it like the day in which a man first sees the light after having been long blind. Since then we have known many blessed days; our Sabbaths, for instance. We can never give up the Lords day. Precious and dear unto my soul are those sweet rests of love--days that God has hedged about to make them His own, that they may be ours. Oh, our blessed Sabbaths! Well, there is this about the day of ones death--we shall then enter upon an eternal Sabbath. Our communion days have been very holy days. It has been very sweet to sit at the Lords table, and have fellowship with Jesus in the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine; but sweeter far will it be to commune with Him in the paradise above, and that we shall do on the day of our death. Those days have been good, I am not going to depreciate them, but to bless the Lord for every one of them. When we say that a second thing is better, it is supposed that the first thing has some goodness about it. Aye, and our holy days on earth have been good; fit rehearsals of the jubilee beyond the river. When you and I enter heaven, it will not be going from bad to good, but from good to better. The change will be remarkable, but it will not be so great a change as thoughtless persons would imagine. First, there will be no change of nature. The same nature which God gave us when we were regenerated--the spiritual nature--is that which will enjoy the heavenly state. On earth we have had good days, because we have had a good nature given us by the Holy Spirit, and we shall possess the same nature above, only more fully grown and purged from all that hinders it. We shall follow the same employments above as we have followed here. We shall spend eternity in adoring the Most High. To draw near to God in communion--that is one of our most blessed employments. We shall do it there, and take our fill of it. Nor is this all, for we shall serve God in glory. You active-spirited ones, you shall find an intense delight in continuing to do the same things as to spirit as you do here, namely, adoring and magnifying and spreading abroad the saving name of Jesus in whatever place you may be.
IV. The day of a saints death is better than the whole of his days put together, because his days here are days of dying. The moment we begin to live we commence to die. Death is the end of dying. On the day of the believers death dying is for ever done with. This life is failure, disappointment, regret. Such emotions are all over when the day of death comes, for glory dawns upon us with its satisfaction and intense content. The day of our death will be the day of our cure. There are some diseases which, in all probability, some of us never will get quite rid of till the last Physician comes, and He will settle the matter. One gentle touch of His hand, and we shall be cured for ever. Our deathday will be the loss of all losses. Life is made up of losses, but death loses losses. Life is full of crosses, but death is the cross that brings crosses to an end. Death is the last enemy, and turns out to be the death of every enemy. The day of our death is the beginning of our best days. Is this to die? said one. Well, then, said he, it is worth while to live even to enjoy the bliss of dying. The holy calm of some and the transport of others prove that better is the day of death in their case than the day of birth, or all their days on earth. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Of the birthday and the dying-day
To one who has so lived as to obtain the good name, hie dying day will be better than his birthday, quite downweighing all the vanity and misery of life in this world.
I. Some truths contained in this doctrine.
1. However men live, they must die.
2. The birthday is a good day, notwithstanding all the vanity and misery of human life. It is a good day to the relations, notwithstanding the bitterness mixed with it (Joh_16:21). And so it is to the party, too, as an entrance on the stage of life whereby God is glorified, and one may be prepared for a better life (Isa_38:19).
3. The dying-day is not always so frightful as it looks; it may be a good day too. As in scouring a vessel, sand and ashes first defiling it makes it to glister; so grim death brings in a perfect comeliness. The waters may be red and frightful, where yet the ground is good, and they are but shallow, passable with all safety.
4. Where the dying-day follows a well-improved life, it is better than the birthday, however it may appear. There is this difference betwixt them, the birthday has its fair side outmost, the dying day has its fair side inmost; hence the former begins with joy, but opens out in much sorrow; the latter begins with sorrow, but opens out in treasures of endless joy. And certainly it is better to step through sorrow into joy than through joy into sorrow.
5. The dying-day in that case is so very far better than the birthday, that it quite downweighs all the former vanity and misery of life.
6. But it will not be so in the ease of an ill-spent life. For whatever joy or sorrow they have been born to in this world, they will never taste of joy more, but be overwhelmed with floods of sorrow when once their dying-day is come and over.
II. In what latitude this doctrine is to be understood.
1. As to the parties, those who have so lived as to obtain the good name. It is to be understood of them--
(1) Universally, whatever different degrees be among them in the lustre of the good name.
(2) Inclusively, of infants dying in their infancy, before they are capable of being faithful to God, or useful to men; because, having the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them, whereby they are united to Christ, they are the friends of God.
(3) Exclusively of all others. They that have not so lived as to obtain the good name have neither part nor lot in this matter (Pro_14:32).
2. As to the points in comparison, the birthday and the dying-day, it is to be understood of them--
(1) In their formal notion as days of passing into a new world. It is better for him when he has got the good name to leave his body a corpse, than it was to leave the womb of his mother when he was a ripe infant.
(2) In all circumstances whatsoever. The saints dying-day compared with his birthday does so preponderate, that no circumstances whatsoever can east the balance; suppose him born healthy and vigorous, dying in the most languishing manner, or in the greatest agonies; born heir to an estate or a crown, dying poor at a dyke-side, neglected of all; yet the day of his death, in spite of all these advantages of his birth, is better than the day of his birth.
3. As to the preference, it stands in two points.
(1) The advantages of the saints dying-day are preferable to the advantages of his birthday.
(2) The advantages of the saints dying-day downweigh all the disadvantages of his birthday.
III. Demonstrate the truth of this paradox, this unlikely tale, That the saints dying-day is better than his birthday.
1. The day of the saints birth clothed him with a body of weak and frail flesh, and so clogged him; the day of his death looses the clog, and sets him free, clothing him with a house that will never clog him (2Co_5:1-8).
2. The day of his birth clogged him with a body of sin; the day of his death sets him quite free from it, and brings him into a state morally perfect (Heb_12:23).
3. The day of the saints death carries him into a better world than the day of his birth did.
(1) The day of his birth brought him into a world of uncertainty, set him down on slippery ground; the day of his death takes him into a world of certainty, sets his feet on a rock.
(2) The day of his birth brought him into a world of sin and defilement; but the day of his death brings him into a world of purity (Heb_12:23).
(3) The day of his birth brought him into a world of toil and labour; but the day of his death brings him into a world of rest (Rev_14:13).
(4) The day of his birth brought him into a world of care and sorrow; but the day of his death brings him into a world of ease and joy (Mat_25:21).
(5) The day of his birth brought him into a world of disappointment; but the day of his death brings him into a world surmounting expectation (1Co_2:9).
(6) The day of his birth brought him into a world of death; but the day of his death takes him into a world of life (Mat_10:30).
4. The day of his death settles him among better company than the day of his birth did (Heb_12:22).
(1) The day of his birth brought him at most into but a small company of brothers and sisters; perhaps he was an eldest child, or an only one; but the day of his death lands him in a numerous family, whereof each one with him calls God in Christ Father (Rev_14:1). Whatever welcome he had in the day of his birth from neighbours or relations, the joy was but on one side; though they rejoiced in him, he could not rejoice in them, for he knew them not; but in the day of his death the joy will be mutual; he that in the day of his birth was not equal to imperfect men will in the day of his death be equal to the angels. He will know God and Christ, the saints, and angels, and will rejoice in them, as they will rejoice in him. Whatever welcome he had into the world in the day of his birth, he had much uncomfortable society there in the days of his after life that made him often see himself in his neighbourhood in the world, as in Mesech and Kedar (Psa_120:5), yea, dwelling among lions dens and mountains of leopards (Son_4:8). But in the day of his death he will bid an eternal farewell to all uncomfortable society, and never see more any in whom he will not be comforted to be with them.
5. The day of his death brings him into a better state than the day of his birth did.
(1) The day of his birth sets him down in a state of imperfection, natural and moral; the day of his death advances him to a state of perfection of both kinds (Heb_12:23).
(2) The day of his birth brought him into a state of probation and trial; but the day of his death brings him into a state of retribution and recompense (2Co_5:10).
(3) The day of his birth brought him into a state of changes, but the day of his death brings him into an unalterable state (Rev_3:12).
6. The day of the saints death brings him to, and settles him in better exercise and employment than the day of his birth did. He will spend his eternity in the other world better than he did his time in this world, how well soever he spent it (Rev_4:8). (T. Boston, D. D.)
Comparative estimate of life and death
What are those circumstances of the Christian which give superiority to the time of death--which justify us in adopting the sentiment of the text as our own?
I. There is an essential difference in the condition of the Christian at the periods of his earliest and latest consciousness. At the day of birth you cannot distinguish the future king from the peasant; the hero from the coward; the philosopher from the clown; the Christian from the infidel. There is a negation of character common to them all; and the positive qualities of each are not to be distinguished from the other. What is there to give value to the birthday of such a being? We pass over the years of childhood and youth, during which the human being is acquiring varied knowledge, to the period when character is more fully developed. He feels his responsibility, and knows himself to be a sinner; but his heart has never submitted to Divine authority, he has never sought for the pardon of his sins, he is an utter stranger to the grace of the Gospel. What reason has such a man to exult in the day of his birth? to commemorate it as a joyous event? But imagine him spared by the goodness of God until he is brought to repentance. He is in an essentially different position to that in which he was on the day of his birth, not only by the enlargement of his faculties, and the exercise of his affections, but they are directed to nobler objects; he knows and loves the character of God, he aspires after the enjoyment of Him, looks forward to enduring happiness with Him after the toils and sufferings of earthly existence, and his faith becomes the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. On the day of his birth he was the mere creature of flesh and sense, but now he is born of the Spirit, and he lives by faith. Oh, let death come when it may to the Christian, his dying day will be better than his birthday.
II. Life is a period of probation, the successful termination of which is better than its commencement. It requires the utmost circumspection and watchfulness--the strictest examination of our motives and feelings, to preserve the evidences of our Christian character bright and unclouded. There are few Christians, faithful to their own hearts, who have not had seasons of darkness and gloominess, and been distressed with various doubts and fears. And when once these arise in the mind, they impart a character of uncertainty to our personal salvation. But as we draw nearer to the goal, our confidence increases; the decline of a Christians life is ordinarily marked by greater stability of mind--by a less wavering faith. God has been, in times past, better to us than our fears; He has frequently perfected His strength in our weakness, and carried us unexpectedly through deep waters of affliction; the ultimate issue appears more certain; we are more habitually confiding on the arm of omnipotence. And when we come to die, with our souls awake to our real condition, conscious that we have been upheld to the last moment, a vigorous faith may enable the Christian go say, with the apostle, in the near prospect of death, I have fought the good fight, etc. We mean not to say that every successful competitor has a feeling of triumph in the dying hour. The shout of victory may not be heard on this side the stream of death; but, when he has passed through its flood, and reached the opposite bank, his redeemed soul will be attuned to a song of glorious and everlasting triumph.
III. If we consider the evils to which the Christian is exposed in life, we shall see he has reason to regard the day of death as better than the day of his birth. On this side death there are bitter herbs for medicine, suitable to imperfect and diseased conditions of life; but on the other side are the fruits of paradise, not to correct the tendencies of an evil nature, but to feed the soul, to nourish it up unto everlasting blessedness.
IV. The present life is to the Christian a period of imperfect enjoyment. Here he is, at a distance from home, from his Fathers house, in which there are many mansions; here his graces are imperfect, and constitute very limited channels of happiness to his spirit; here he cannot always enjoy God. His weak faith fails to realize the loveliness and perfections of Jehovah. Here he cannot at all times hold fellowship with the Saviour; it is interrupted by doubts and fears--by unworthy suspicions and criminal feelings. Here he knows but in part, sees but through a glass darkly, and this state of imperfection will continue until the period of death. The better country which the Christian seeks is a heavenly country--it is an incorruptible, undefiled, unfading inheritance, not to be realized in mortal flesh not to be reached until the spirit, freed from the bonds of earth, ascends to God who gave it. (S. Summers.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 8, 15, 23 Ecc_7:2. For that is the end of all men]…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecc_7:2. For that is the end of all men] Not the house of mourning itself, but the fact that every house must, in turn, become such.
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Ecc_7:3. Sorrow] Not that passionate and unavailing sorrow of the children of this world, but that salutary grief for our own sinfulness—the godly sorrow of 2Co_7:10. Laughter] The boisterous merriment of the children of light enjoyment, as distinguished from that recreation of reason—that spiritual joy in which it is proper for the righteous to indulge.
Ecc_7:7. Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad] The meaning is, not that the wise man by oppression is driven to the verge of madness, but that the oppressor himself (who but for his own fault might have been a wise man) suffers intellectual and moral injury by repeated acts of unkindness and wrong. His higher intelligence becomes deadened, and he falls into the wretched condition of those in whom the lamp of reason is extinguished. A gift destroyeth the heart] A bribe accepted by men in power corrupts the moral nature. This kind of corruption was common amongst Oriental nations. All could be procured for presents.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Ecc_7:1-7
THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF GOODNESS
I. It makes Life Real and Earnest. Goodness in the soul expresses itself outwardly in actions of moral beauty—deeds of kindness and love. These win the admiration of society. Hence arises a good reputation. Goodness in character possesses an immense power, transforming human life into a solemn reality, and filling it with earnest endeavour. It does this,
1. By supplying the noblest impulse of life. (Ecc_7:1.) A man of high spiritual character cherishes an increasing passion for goodness. He desires one excellence above all others—that he may be right and true himself, and secure a good reputation amongst men. This is the noble ambition of the pure and holy. They aim to be good—to be like God; and so have a definite and lofty purpose in life. With such, life is an earnest and real thing. The constant striving after goodness imparts increased faculty to the powers of the soul.
2. By redeeming life from all that is frivolous and vain. Goodness in man must have in it an element of admiration for a goodness higher than his own. When the soul is enamoured of God’s holiness, life becomes a serious thing. It is seen with sober eyes, and felt to be the place for the discharge of loving duty, not for vain, trifling, and thoughtless frivolity. Good men have the aspirations, feelings, and refinements of true greatness, representing amongst their fellows the style and circumstances of a nobler citizenship. They have higher pleasures than feasting, a more exquisite joy than the thoughtless mirth of the children of this world, and more solid entertainment than the songs of fools. (Ecc_7:3-5.)
II. It Preserves the Soul from Great Dangers. There are forms of sin which have the most disastrous consequences, even in this life. They deprave every faculty of the soul. Two of these forms are introduced here as having elements of special danger—acts of tyranny and oppression, and corruption of the heart by receiving bribes. (Ecc_7:7.) Here we have two great dangers, from which the love of goodness and the desire of a fair reputation save us.
1. The injury of the rational faculty. He who indulges in repeated acts of tyranny and oppression becomes at length a monster, and hateful in the eyes of men. All his higher powers suffer injury. He loses his rational understanding; and when this is gone, destruction is near at hand. Sinners of this class madly pull down ruin upon themselves.
2. The injury of the moral faculty. When those in power and station take bribes, their moral faculties become weakened. They lose the sense of fine and delicate perception in things relating to conduct. In the strong language of Scripture, their whole moral nature becomes “corrupt,” i.e., broken together—unfitted for performing its proper functions. It is only by obedience and love that the delicacy of the moral sense can be preserved.
III. It Changes the Complexion of Earthly Sorrows. The sorrows of human life wear a forbidding aspect. The children of this world strive to forget them in the dissipation of pleasure, or they are driven by them into sullen despair. But goodness in the soul, appearing in the moral beauties of character, transforms sorrow—yea, transfigures it into the bright and heavenly. Sorrow, instead of being an unmixed evil, consuming and fretting the spirit of man, becomes the channel of precious benefits.
1. Death becomes a great teacher. (Ecc_7:2.) When men die, their houses are filled with friends who mourn their loss. It is but nature to weep then, in the presence of the greatest sorrow that can fall upon any home. But good men though they feel the common distresses of humanity, and shrink instinctively from the terrors of death, yet learn to make them the occasion of spiritual benefit. Death becomes a great teacher, giving them solemn lessons which they lay to heart. From what appears to be the terminus of life’s journey, good men can discern the lights of another and better country. Death himself holds the torch which shows them the path of life.
2. Human sorrow becomes a moral renovator. (Ecc_7:3.) The same afflictions which sink some men into despair, or drive them into the mazes of unreal and unwholesome pleasures, only refine the nature of the good man. They purify his affections from every mean and base element. “The heart is made better” by the pure and heavenly objects which it loves—by the increased fervour of its devotion. It is often in the seclusion of sorrow that the noblest purposes are framed, and strength is gathered for the greatest moral victories.
3. The pain of righteous reproof becomes more grateful than the loudest joys of the world. (Ecc_7:5.) “The rebuke of the wise” may be painful to a good man who has committed a fault, or has been betrayed into folly; but he accepts it with thankfulness, and learns the lessons it imparts. If the righteous thus smite him, he shall deem it a kindness; for they but imitate the action of the Merciful God who wounds only to heal. When the smart of reproof is over, they feel a greater joy than in listening to the thoughtless and empty merriment of fools.
IV. It makes Death itself to be Gain. (Ecc_7:1.) To our merely human apprehension, all the circumstances of death are clothed with terror. Levity turns pale at the contemplation of the last enemy, and the hardiest frame shudders as with a mortal chill. But the death of a good man is for him but a step in the path of progress; and for others a precious example, and a support of faith and hope. Let us consider the death of the good
(1) As a gain to society. There are certain elements of loss to society when the good pass away for ever. Yet death serves to set the virtues and graces of their character in a fairer and more enduring light. Whilst in this work-day world, they are not fully known; but death sets them on high, where they “shine as the stars for ever and ever.” Death opens the way to fame, and when their presence is no longer with us, they bless us with the scented fragrance of their ended life. How have the Apostles of our Lord gained by death, in the estimation of mankind, and in an ever-expanding influence! St. Paul and St. John are more fully known and revered at this day than they were in their own times.
2. As a gain to the individual. The day of a good man’s death is better to him than the day of his birth. It is an introduction to a sublimer state of existence—the day of his better nativity. It is in death that his soul seizes the infinite, and enters upon the wealth of all her mysterious nature. Death loosens the righteous from care, temptation, and sorrow. It is to him the greatest of liberties.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecc_7:1. At this point, the Royal Preacher enters upon a new stage of enquiry. He had laid open the sins, sorrows, and perplexities of humanity; now he seeks a remedy. If men would be happy and secure amidst all the storms of evil fortune, they must be good. They must learn to interpret the lessons of affliction, to control passion, to exercise wisdom and knowledge in conduct, and must seek to regain that uprightness which was the property of human nature as it came fresh from the hands of its Creator.
Whatever perplexities may arise in the contemplation of our existence and condition here, there are certain things that must be right. It must be right to cultivate goodness, to have confidence (notwithstanding appearances) in the rectitude of God, and to put ourselves in harmony with those Divine laws which are the charter and the pledge of liberty.
A good reputation springs from inherent goodness in the soul. The spiritual life within must work itself outwards. The savour of our good name cannot be confined; but like a precious ointment, it fills the whole sphere of our influence.
The richest perfumes, like every luxury of sensation, exhaust themselves, but the aroma of a good name is for ever fresh, and unhurt by the wrongs of time.
The awe and veneration which a good name inspires is the homage which society pays to virtue.
Just as a box of spikenard is not only valuable to its possessor, but preeminently precious in its diffusion; so, when a name is really good, it is of unspeakable service to all who are capable of feeling its exquisite inspiration; and should the Spirit of God so replenish with His gifts and graces, so as to render his name thus wholesome, better than the day of his birth will be the day of his death; for at death the box is broken, and the sweet savour spreads abroad. There is an end of the envy, and sectarianism, and jealousy, the detraction and the calumny, which often environ goodness when living; and now that the stopper of prejudice is removed, the world fills with the odour of the ointment, and thousands grow stronger and more lifesome for the good name of one [Dr. J. Hamilton].
Birth introduces the good upon the stage of a severe probation, full of risk and danger; but death fixes their goodness, placing it beyond the reach of injury. The monster, created by natural fears, is for the righteous but a friend who removes the load of earthly endurance, thus giving liberty to the soul to recover her strength, and to try her unencumbered powers.
In life, the righteous are but outdoor servants of the King of kings. In death, they are admitted to His palace, where they serve with increased dignity and comfort.
Ecc_7:2. A good man possesses the heavenly secret of distilling sweetness from sorrow.
The contemplation of suffering and death, with the practical recognition of the teaching they impart, best prepare us for that land where sorrow is unknown, and where life endures to immortality.
He who is spiritually wise discovers that the afflictions of our mortal state have their bitter root in sin. He penetrates beneath the surface, and contemplates that moral evil from which all natural evil grows. He therefore boldly faces the solemn fact which will restore for him the lost harmonies of creation, for it makes a “new earth” as well as “new heavens.”
The coarse mirth of the world ends in disgust and weariness, having no element of permanent consolation and hope. But the discipline of sorrow refines the character, imparts a serious and thoughtful attitude to the soul, and gladdens it by a hope beyond the grave.
In the place where they mourn for the dead, a man is reminded that to this also he must come. When a few years, at most, are gone, his own house will be turned into a house of mourning.
It is better to lay to heart the most painful facts of life, and to learn their solemn lessons, than to indulge in the forced merriment of foolish men.
The winds and the waves are terrible powers, but man, by the exercise of his reason and invention, forces them to render him obedient service, and to carry him whither he would be. So heavenly wisdom and goodness in the soul turn the sorrows of life into the means of spiritual improvement. The forces that destroy the foolish are elements in the triumph of the wise.
God saith unto the Prophet Jeremiah, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear My words” (Jer_18:2). The “potter’s house” is the house of mourning wherein is the earthen vessel broken, the earthen vessel of man’s body, broken by death. And if we shall go down thither, that will make us willing to hear the words of God, whereby to keep our souls from the infection of sin. The very temper of sadness is a friend to virtue [Jermin].
Ecc_7:3. Godly sorrow, leading on, as it does, to endurance and experience, thus becomes one of the ancestry of hope. The laughter of the world is changed to sorrow which at length degenerates into remorse.
Worldly joy gleams on the surface, but leaves the heart within unchanged, still evil and unprofitable. The sorrows of the righteous may leave a sadness on the countenance, but peace and joy reign within.
The design of Providence, by the discipline of sorrow, is improvement.
By affliction the heart is made tender, and thus prepared for the impressions which the love of God can make upon it.
The affections of the soul are often trained in the school of adversity. The first lessons may be a wearisome bitterness and pain; but they impart superior moral culture, lead to the sweets of victory, and to bliss without alloy.
Strangers to godly sorrow must needs be strangers to their own blessedness [Nisbet].
Ecc_7:4. A wise man will choose to go where he can learn most of the nature of those great realities with which he is concerned. In the house of mourning, he learns to see—
1. The rebuke of pride and vanity.
2. The evil of sin. It surrounds our removal to another state with such awful circumstances.
3. The importance of goodness as a defence against the unknown and untried. Whatever the great future may reveal, if we have attained to the Divine image, we cannot fail.
It is with no sorrowful acceptance, but with glad heart that the righteous take up the cross. They follow that Divine Leader, who, though He may conduct them through barren and unpromising regions, will at length bring them to the heights of immortality.
The fool has no far-reaching sight, no power of penetration into the dread realities around him. Hence he is pleased with what glitters before his eyes, and only seeks the satisfaction of the present.
Let the heart of the wise go to the house of such an one as may reprove him when he offends, that he may bring him to tears, and make him to lament his own sins; and let him not go to the house of mirth where the teacher flatters and deceives; where he seeks, not the conversion of his hearers, but his own applause and praise [St. Jerome].
The moral nature of the inner man is determined by the objects of the heart’s satisfaction.
Ecc_7:5. The rebuke of the wise is but the sharp incision of a cunning hand that wounds only to heal. It is the rod of gentle and loving reproof, not the fist of wickedness.
The rebuke of the wise, though it may occasion a smart, leads to moral improvement; but the songs of fools, though they may afford some passing entertainment, are without any worthy aim.
There is in rebuke a jarring and harsh music, because it opposeth the fault that is committed, it disagreeth with the mind of him that hath committed it: but yet it is better music than the melodious songs of flattering parasites, who, leading on in wickedness, do bring on to destruction [Jermin].
The rough-hewn marble gives but the promise of a statue. Many a stroke and finishing touch must be given before it attains perfection. So the spiritual character requires those frequent touches of wise reproof which gradually shape it into symmetry and beauty.
It is better to follow the course of duty, though it may seem commonplace and the conditions of it severe, than to be lured to destruction by the siren songs of sinful pleasure.
Ecc_7:6. The joy of fools seems as if it would last for ever, and does indeed blaze up, but it is nothing. They have their consolation for a moment, then comes misfortune, that casts them down; then all their joy lies in the ashes.… Pleasure, and vain consolation of the flesh, do not last long, and all such pleasures turn into sorrow, and have an evil end [Luther].
In the mirth of the children of this world there lies no deep moral worth. It is but a sudden blaze of the fancy, or the passing joy of a tickled appetite.
This world’s mirth may be loud and imposing, but the sound of it quickly dies away, and the heated passion which inspired it subsides into melancholy and regret. Nothing remains but the ashes of disappointment.
The mouth of the righteous shall then be filled with laughter, when, the tears of their pilgrimage being dried up, their hearts shall be satisfied with exultation of joy. When the servants of God, being filled with joy of a manifest beholding of Him, shall, as it were, break forth into a cheerfulness of laughing, in the mouth of their understanding. Then their laughter shall not be as the crackling of thorns under a pot, but as the singing together of the morning stars, and as the shouting for joy of all the sons of God Jermin].
The mirth of sinners is noisy and short-lived, but the joy of the righteous is like the everlasting lights that shine in the calm depths of heaven.
Ecc_7:7. The health of the mind, which is wisdom, can no more be trifled with than the health of the body. Acts of cruelty and oppression harden the heart, dull the moral sensibilities, and gradually steal away every attainment of virtue. When the sound mind is lost, a man becomes a prey to every delusion and foolish temptation.
That a wise man may be changed into a monster of cruelty is an illustration of the terrible power of sin. It can destroy the tender charities of nature, and impart to the conduct that wild recklessness which amounts to fury, and which calls for the restraints of Divine judgment.
Acts of cruelty and oppression tend, more than any other forms of human sin, to efface the image of God in the soul They cause a man to approach to the likeness of the Evil One, who is both the Destroyer and the Adversary.
To ruin the promise of wisdom by entering upon the most dangerous courses of folly, is moral madness. Covetousness destroys the heart of them that are under the power of it; blinds their understanding that they cannot see the evil of anything that makes for their gain; sways their heart to receive bribes, which being received, they think themselves obliged to gratify the giver by perverting justice in his favour [Nisbet].
It is dangerous to weaken our moral sensibility by yielding to the lust of gain. When the heart is destroyed, there is taken away from a man the very capacity for religion.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 The text expresses the general principle or doctrine that…
Ecc 7:8
The text expresses the general principle or doctrine that by the condition of our existence here, if things go right, a conclusion is better than a beginning. It is on the condition of our existence in this world that this principle is founded. That condition is that everything is passing on toward something else in order to, and for the sake of, that something further on, so that its chief importance or value is in that something to be attained further on. And if that ulterior object be attained, and be worth all this preceding course of things, then "the end is better than the beginning." We have to consider the year on the supposition of our living through it. And it is most exceedingly desirable that in the noblest sense "the end" should be "better than the beginning." Consider what state of the case would authorise us at the end of the year to pronounce this sentence upon it.
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I. The sentence may be pronounced if at the end of the year we shall be able, after deliberate conscientious reflection, to affirm that the year has been in the most important respects better than the preceding.
II. The sentence will be true if during the progress of the year we shall effectually avail ourselves of the lessons suggested by a review of the preceding year.
III. The text will be a true sentence if then we shall have good evidence that we are become really more devoted to God.
IV. It is but putting the same thing in more general terms to say, The end will be better than the beginning if we shall by then have practically learnt to live more strictly and earnestly for the greatest purposes of life.
V. If we shall have acquired a more effectual sense of the worth of time, the sentence will be true.
VI. It will, again, be true if with regard to fellow-mortals we can conscientiously feel that we have been to them more what Christians ought than in the preceding year.
VII. Another point of superiority we should hope the end may have over the beginning of the year is that of our being in a better state of preparation for all that is to follow.
VIII. It will be a great advantage and advancement to end the year with if we shall then have acquired more of a rational and Christian indifference to life itself.
J. Foster, Lectures; 1st series, p. 1.
References: Ecc 7:8.—J. Hamilton, The Royal Preacher, p. 165; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 366.
Ecc 7:10
This text has a natural and deep connection with Solomon and his times. The former days were better than his days; he could not help seeing that they were. He must have feared lest the generation which was springing up should inquire into the reason thereof in a tone which would breed—which actually did breed—discontent and revolution. Therefore it was that Solomon hated all his labour that he had wrought under the sun, for all was vanity and vexation of spirit.
I. Of Christian nations these words are not true. They pronounce the doom of the old world, but the new world has no part in them, unless it copies the sins and follies of the old. And therefore for us it is not only an act of prudence, but a duty—a duty of faith in God, a duty of loyalty to Jesus Christ our Lord—not to ask why the former times were better than these. For they were not better than these. Each age has its own special nobleness, its own special use; but every age has been better than the age which went before it, for the Spirit of God is leading the ages on toward that whereof it is written, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things which God hath prepared for those that love Him."
II. The inquiry shows disbelief in our Lord’s own words that all dominion is given to Him in heaven and earth, and that He is with us always, even to the end of the world. It is a vain inquiry, based on a mistake. When we look back longingly to any past age, we look not at the reality, but at a sentimental and untrue picture of our own imagination. We are neither to regret the past, nor rest satisfied in the present, but, like St. Paul, forgetting those things that are behind us, and reaching onward to those things that are before us, press forward each and all to the prize of our high calling in Jesus Christ.
C. Kingsley, The Water of Life, p. 189.
I. This is the outcry of every age. Certainly it is a great difficulty in the way of the evolution theory as the one explanation of man and of things. That it plays a very important part there can be no question; but looking at it as the one explanation, it is a fact that the past looms brighter in man’s memory than either the present or the future: there are always rays of glory trailing down the vistas of time. Every movement for reformation is really, when you look into the springs of it, a lament for restoration; what man prays for always is the restoration of the glittering pageant, the golden saturnine reign. (1) By a wise law of Providence, time destroys all the wreck and waste of the past and saves only the pleasures—destroys the chaff and saves the grain. (2) The worship of the past springs out of man’s deep and noble dissatisfaction with the present.
II. We are always looking back with complaint and longing in our own personal lives. Always there is the great fact of childhood in our lives, the careless time, the joyous time, when the mere play of the faculties was a spring of enjoyment. The days of old were better than these. We are always mourning for a lost Eden, but a wilderness is better than Eden, for it is a pathway from Eden up to heaven.
III. Notice the unwisdom of the complaint. In the deepest realities of life, in the work and the purposes of God, the complaint is not true. The former days were not better, for you are now larger, stronger, richer in power, with a far further horizon round you. If something is lost, something more is gained at every step. It is all faithlessness which is at the root of this lamentation of man, which a sight of the realities of life and of Him whose hand is in mercy moving all the progresses of the world would correct. The world mourns the past because it does so little with the present. Faith, hope, and love would soon make a today which would cast all the yesterdays into the shade.
J. Baldwin Brown, Penny Pulpit, No. 925.
References: Ecc 7:11-29.—R. Buchanan, Ecclesiastes: its Meaning and Lessons, p. 250. Ecc 7:12.—F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. ii., p. 240.
Ecc 7:14
The wise Preacher is speaking here of the right use of the changeful phenomena and conditions of man’s life on earth. God sets prosperity over against adversity, and He does this that man should find nothing after Him; that is, that the future should remain hid from man, so that he can at no time count upon it, but must ever wait upon God, the supreme Disposer of all things, and trust in Him alone. The principle here involved pervades the Divine administration, and receives numerous exemplifications even within the sphere of our observation.
I. Notice, first, the analogies which subsist between the natural and the spiritual world as a setting on a large scale of one thing over against another. How much the natural world may be employed to illustrate the world within, how much nature may be made in this way the handmaid of religion, and how much the facts of secular life may be transformed into lessons of high moral and spiritual truth, every attentive reader of the Bible must have seen.
II. As a second illustration of the Divine operation suggested in the text may be mentioned the antagonisms by means of which the administration of sublunary affairs is carried on. Experience amply shows us that it is only by the balance of conflicting interests and powers that the social machine can be made to work easily and beneficially to all. It is under the same great law that God has placed the moral discipline of our race, for it is through the antagonism of joy and sorrow, prosperity and adversity, life and death, that the perfection of the individual and of the race is to be reached.
III. A third illustration is furnished by the compensations which we find in the world around us, and in God’s dealings with us.
IV. Another set of illustrations is supplied by the relations which God has made us sustain to each other in family and social life. Of these relations the great principle is reciprocity. In all the relations of life God has set one thing over against another; and it is only as this is recognised, and the reciprocal duties thence arising are faithfully discharged, that the arrangement becomes a source of benefit to men.
W. Lindsay Alexander, Sermons, p. 215.
References: Ecc 7:14.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 20; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 8th series, pp. 68, 74, and 7th series, p. 96; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ix., p. 302; S. Cox, An Expositor’s Notebook, p. 171. Ecc 7:15-18.—T. C. Finlayson, A Practical Exposition of Ecclesiastes, p. 165.
Ecc 7:16
It is no light argument for the Divine authority of the Bible that so little is to be found in it which can by any sophistry be perverted into an encouragement for sin. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that in two or three places, taken apart from the context or otherwise misquoted, it is just possible for an ignorant man very much in love with his sins to fancy that he finds an excuse for continuing in them. Perhaps no text has suffered more from this kind of perversion than the present one: "Be not righteous overmuch."
I. Consider how far this manner of speaking is justifiable in the persons who use it. It is only the light and superficial in Christian studies and the formalist in Christian practice who show alarm at the thought of being too good. The text is oftener quoted in a mood half sportive, and as a short way of silencing unpleasant discussion, than as a serious ground of argument. But the misery of it is that men act on it quite in earnest. They evidently cannot themselves believe that it will bear the weight they lay upon it, and yet they are not afraid to conduct themselves as if it were the only commandment God had ever given.
II. Consider how far this opinion and the doctrine grounded upon it are consistent with the general tenor of Scripture. (1) This notion of over-righteousness cannot stand with that precious corner-stone of our faith the doctrine of the Atonement. For what need of a Redeemer to one who is already so far advanced in goodness that no more is wanted to bring him to heaven, to one who only requires a check lest in his too forward pursuit of the next world he miss the enjoyments of this? (2) Another test, the application of which will give the same result, is the doctrine of sanctification. God is dishonoured in His Spirit as well as in His Son by this fear of superfluous goodness. All holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works we daily acknowledge to be gifts of God, proceeding from Him through the Holy Ghost, the Comforter; and can we ever have too much of such gifts? (3) Another great doctrine which is utterly inconsistent with the vulgar use of the text is the inequality of the future rewards of the blessed in heaven. We know not exactly how low the least degree of obedience is; but this we are quite sure of: that he who aims no higher will be sure to fall short even of that, and that he who goes farthest beyond it will be most blessed. (4) If neither saint nor martyr, neither prophet nor apostle, though he did all that he was commanded, could do enough to make God his debtor, but had still need to confess himself an unprofitable servant, which of us all can ever be justified in saying, "Here I may stop short; I will not try to amend myself any farther, lest I be over-righteous"?
III. What if it should appear, on considering the text itself, that it was intended as a warning against the very error which it is so often and so unfortunately used to encourage? I would abide by the way of explaining the passage which supposes these two verses to be spoken by the inspired writer not in his own person, but in the person of an irreligious and worldly man, and the verse which follows them to be a caution against that erroneous view of things which they contain and a reference to the only principle which can save us from such a fatal mistake; namely, the fear of God.
J. Keble, Sermons Occasional and Parochial, p. 1.
References: Ecc 7:16.—J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 327. Ecc 7:18.—D. Burns, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix.,p. 83. Ecc 7:19-29.—T. C. Finlayson, A Practical Exposition of Ecclesiastes, p. 175.
Ecclesiastes 7:19-8:15
Koheleth seems to have had a suspicion all the time that his view of life was a low one. He intimates that he had tried for a better, but failed to reach it: "I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me." "Far remaineth" (so Ecc 7:24 should read)—"Far remaineth what was far, and deep remaineth what was deep."
I. From his lower standpoint he now sets himself to inquire into the origin of evil. "I applied my mind," he says, "to discover the cause of wickedness, and vice, and mad folly." He finds it, as he thinks, in woman. By her fatal gift of beauty she often lures men to a doom more bitter than death; and at the best she has but a shallow, unbalanced nature, capable of doing much mischief, but incapable of doing any good. In these notions Koholeth does not stand alone. The depreciatory estimate of women used to be accepted almost as a truism, and was not unfrequently adopted by women themselves. It is a woman whom Euripides represents as saying that one man is better than a thousand of her sex.
II. To many of us these sentiments will appear almost inexplicable. Surely, we say to ourselves, the women of whom such things were said must have been very different from the women of the present day; and no doubt they were—different through no fault of their own, but by reason of the treatment to which they had been subjected. Contempt for women was at one time universal, and it inevitably had on them a deteriorating effect. As soon as woman received fair play, she proved herself not only equal to man, but superior, lacking, no doubt, some of his best qualities, but possessing others which more than compensated for the deficiency. Scarcely any one in the present day whose opinion deserves a moment’s consideration would agree with Koheleth. Instead of his arithmetical calculation about the thousand men and the thousand women, most persons would substitute Oliver Wendell Holmes’: that there are at least three saints among women for one among men.
A. W. Momerie, Agnosticism, p. 236.
Ecc 7:29
We may well look back on the garden of Eden as we would on our own childhood. Adam’s state in Eden seems to have been like the state of children now: in being simple, inartificial, inexperienced in evil, unreasoning, uncalculating, ignorant of the future, or, as men now speak, unintellectual.
I. Adam and Eve were placed in a garden to cultivate it. How much is implied even in this! If there was a mode of life free from tumult, anxiety, excitement, and fever of mind, it was the care of a garden. If the life of Christ and His servants be any guide to us, certainly it would appear as if the simplicity and the repose of life with which human nature began is an indication of its perfection. And again, does not our infancy teach us the same lesson, which is especially a season when the soul is left to itself, withdrawn from its fellows as effectually as if it were the only human being on earth, like Adam in his enclosed garden, fenced off from the world and visited by angels?
II. Fenced off from the world! Nay, fenced off even from itself, for so it is, and most strange too, that our infant and childish state is hidden from ourselves. We know not what it was, what our thoughts in it were, and what our probation, more than we know Adam’s.
III. Another resemblance between the state of Adam in paradise and the state of children is this: that children are saved not by their purpose and habits of obedience, not by faith and works, but by the influence of baptismal grace. And into Adam God "breathed the breath of life, and man became a living soul." What man fallen gains by dint of exercise, working up towards it by religious acts—that Adam had already acted from. He had that light within him which he might make brighter by obedience, but which he had not to create. This gift, which sanctified Adam and saves children, becomes the ruling principle of Christians generally when they advance to perfection. According as habits of holiness are matured, principle, reason, and self-discipline are unnecessary; a moral instinct takes their place in the breast, or rather, to speak more reverently, the Spirit is sovereign there.
IV. What is intellect itself, as exercised in the world, but a fruit of the Fall, not found in paradise or in heaven more than in little children, and at the utmost but tolerated in the Church, and only not incompatible with regenerate mind? Reason is God’s gift, but so are the passions. Adam had the gift of reason, but so had he passions; but he did not walk by reason, nor was he led by his passions. He, or at least Eve, was tempted to follow passion and reason instead of her Maker; and she fell. Reason has been as guilty as passion. God made man upright, and grace was his strength; but he has found out many inventions, and his strength is reason.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. v., p. 99.
References: Ecc 7:29.— Homiletic Magazine, vol. ii., p. 36; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 84; J. Bennet, The Wisdom of the King, p. 358. 7— C. Bridges, An Exposition of Ecclesiastes, p. 132; J. H. Cooke, The Preacher’s Pilgrimage, p. 101.
Ecclesiastes 7 and Ecc 8:1-15
I. The endeavour to secure a competence may be not lawful only, but most laudable, since God means us to make the best of the capacities He has given us and the opportunities He sends us. Nevertheless we may pursue this right end from a wrong motive, in a wrong spirit. Both spirit and motive are wrong if we pursue our competence as though it were a good so great that we can know no happy content and rest unless we attain it. For what is it that animates such a pursuit save distrust in the providence of God? Left in His hands, we do not feel that we should be safe; whereas if we had our fortune in our own hands, and were secured against chances and changes by a comfortable investment or two, we should feel safe enough.
II. Our sympathies go with the man who seeks to acquire a good name, to grow wise, to live in the golden mean. But when he proceeds to apply his theory, to deduce practical rules from it, we can only give him a qualified assent, nay must often altogether withhold our assent. The prudent man is likely: (1) to compromise conscience (Ecc 7:15-20); (2) to be indifferent to censure (Ecc 7:21-22); (3) to despise women (Ecc 7:25-29); (4) to be indifferent to public wrong (Ecc 8:1-13).
III. In the closing verses of the third section of the book, the Preacher lowers his mask, and tells us plainly that we cannot, and must not, rest in the theory he has just expounded; that to follow its counsels will lead us away from the chief good, not towards it. This new theory of life he confesses to be a "vanity" as great and deceptive as any of those he has hitherto tried.
S. Cox, The Quest of the Chief Good, p. 188.
References: Ecc 8:1.—T. Hammond, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 333. Ecc 8:1-8.—R. Buchanan, Ecclesiastes: its Meaning and Lessons, p. 281. Ecc 8:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1697, and My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 201 Ecc 8:8.—U. R. Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 38; A. Mursell, Ibid., vol. xix., p. 297.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v8
Ecclesiastes
FINIS CORONAT OPUS
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Ecc 7:8.
This Book of Ecclesiastes is the record of a quest after the chief good. The Preacher tries one thing after another, and tells his experiences. Amongst these are many blunders. It is the final lesson which he would have us learn, not the errors through which he reached it. ‘The conclusion of the whole matter’ is what he would commend to us, and to it he cleaves his way through a number of bitter exaggerations and of partial truths and of unmingled errors. The text is one of a string of paradoxical sayings, some of them very true and beautiful, some of them doubtful, but all of them the kind of things which used-up men are wont to say-the salt which is left in the pool when the tide is gone down. The text is the utterance of a wearied man who has had so many disappointments, and seen so many fair beginnings overclouded, and so many ships going out of port with flying flags and foundering at sea, that he thinks nothing good till it is ended; little worth beginning-rest and freedom from all external cares and duties best; and, best of all, to be dead, and have done with the whole coil. Obviously, ‘the end of a thing’ here is the parallel to ‘the day of death’ in Ecc 7:1, which is there preferred to ‘the day of one’s birth.’ That is the godless, worn-out worlding’s view of the matter, which is infinitely sad, and absolutely untrue.
But from another point of view there is a truth in these words. The life which is lived for God, which is rooted in Christ, a life of self-denial, of love, of purity, of strenuous ‘pressing towards the mark,’ is better in its ‘end’ than in its ‘beginning.’ To such a life we are all called, and it is possible for each. May my poor words help some of us to make it ours.
I. Then our life has an end.
It is hard for any of us to realise this in the midst of the rush and pressure of daily duty; and it is not altogether wholesome to think much about it; but it is still more harmful to put it out of our sight, as so many of us do, and to go on habitually as if there would never come a time when we shall cease to be where we have been so long, and when there will no more arise the daily calls to transitory occupations. The thought of the certainty and nearness of that end has often become a stimulus to wild, sensuous living, as the history of the relaxation of morality in pestilences, and in times when war stalked through the land, has abundantly shown. ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,’ is plainly a way of reasoning that appeals to the average man. But the entire forgetfulness that there is an end is no less harmful, and is apt to lead to over-indulgence in sensuous desires as the other extreme. Perhaps the young need more especially to be recalled to the thought of the ‘end’ because they are more especially likely to forget it, and because it is specially worth their while to remember it. They have still the long stretch before the ‘end’ before them, to make of it what they will. Whereas for us who are further on in the course, there is less time and opportunity to shape our path with a view to its close, and to those of us in old age, there is but little need to preach remembrance of what has come so close to us. It is to the young man that the Preacher proffers his final advice, to ‘rejoice in his health, and to walk in the ways of his heart, and in the sight of his eyes,’ but withal to know that ‘for these God will bring him into judgment.’
And in that counsel is involved the thought that ‘the end which is better than the beginning’ is neither old age, with its limitations and compulsory abstinences, nor death, which is, as the dreary creed of the book in its central portions believes it to be, the close of all things, but, beyond these, the state in which men will reap as they have sown, and inherit what they have earned. It is that condition which gives all its importance to death-the porter who opens the door into a future life of recompence.
II. The end will, in many respects, not be better than the beginning.
Put side by side the infant and the old man. Think of the undeveloped strength, the smooth cheek, the ruddy complexion, the rejoicing in physical well-being, of the one, with the failing senses, the tottering limbs, the lowered vitality, the many pains and aches, of the other. In these respects the end is worse than the beginning. Or go a step further onwards in life, and think of youth, with its unworn energy, and the wearied longing for rest which comes at the end; of youth, with its quick, open receptiveness for all impressions, and the horny surface of callousness which has overgrown the mind of the old; of youth, with its undeveloped powers and endless possibilities, which in the old have become rigid and fixed; of youth, with the rich gift before it of a continent of time, which in the old has been washed away by the ocean, till there is but a crumbling bank still to stand on; of youth, with its wealth of hopes, and of the hopes of the old, which are solemn ventures, few and scanty-and then say if the end is not worse than the beginning.
And if we go further, and think of death as the end, is it not in a very real and terrible sense, loss, loss? It is loss to be taken out of the world, to ‘leave the warm precincts and the cheerful day,’ to lose friends and lovers, and to be banned into a dreary land. Yet, further, the thought of the end as being a state of retribution strikes upon all hearts as being solemn and terrible.
III. Yet the end may be better.
The sensuous indulgence which Ecclesiastes preaches in its earlier portions will never lead to such an end. It breeds disgust of life, as the examples of in all ages, and today, abundantly shows. Epicurean selfishness leads to weariness of all effort and work. If we are unwise enough to make either of these our guides in life, the only desirable end will be the utter cessation of being and consciousness.
But there is a better sense in which this paradoxical saying is simple truth, and that sense is one which it is possible for us all to realise. What sort of end would that be, the brightness of which would far outshine the joy when a man-child is born into the world? Would it not be a birth into a better life than that which fills and often disturbs the ‘threescore years and ten’ here? Would it not be an end to a course in which all our nature would be fully developed and all opportunities of growth and activity had been used to the full? which had secured all that we could possess? which had happy memories and calm hopes? Would it not be an end which brought with it communion with the Highest-joys that could never fade, activities that could never weary? Surely the Christian heaven is better than earth; and that heaven may be ours.
That supreme and perfect end will be reached by us through faith in Christ, and through union by faith with Him. If we are joined to the Lord and are one with Him, our end in glory will be as much better than this our beginning on earth as the full glory of a summer’s day transcends the fogs and frosts of dreary winter. ‘The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.’
If the end is not better than the beginning, it will be infinitely worse. Golden opportunities will be gone; wasted years will be irrevocable. Bright lights will be burnt out; sin will be graven on the memory; remorse will be bitter; evil habits which cannot be gratified will torment; a wearied soul, a darkened understanding, a rebellious heart, will make the end awfully, infinitely, always worse than the beginning. From all these Jesus Christ can save us; and, full as He fills the cup of life as we travel along the road, He keeps the best wine till the last, and makes ‘the end of a thing better than the beginning.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Practical Aphorisms
Practical Aphorisms
1-6. Things useful to remember in life. The writer has just warned as that we cannot rely on either the present or the future. We can, however, guide ourselves in the conduct of life by bearing in mind useful truths. These he now proceeds to give.
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1. Precious ointment] This was a much-prized luxury in the East (cp. Psa_45:8; Amo_6:6; Mat_26:7; Luk_7:37), but to be held in esteem is still better. There is a play on words in the Heb. (Shem, 'a name,' and Shemen, 'ointment'), which can scarcely be reproduced in English. Plumptre suggests, 'A good name is better than good nard.' The day of death] Even in this respect, however, a man's life cannot be judged happy till its end is reached.
2. The living will lay it to his heart] Oriental mourning is elaborate and prolonged. Hence there is abundant opportunity for those who take life in earnest to obtain a hearing for their counsels.
6. As the crackling of thorns] Frivolity is like the fire which the wayfarer lights from the thorns that he has gathered, and which goes out as suddenly as it has sprung up, leaving only dead ashes: cp. Psa_58:9.
7-14. Ill-treatment may well provoke anger, yet pause and exercise control. Accept the present, with submission. Wisdom and money are both valuable, but wisdom is the better of the two. All things are in the hands of God.
7. Oppression] RV 'extortion': sufferings inflicted on the weak by the strong. Mad] RV 'foolish.' The heart] RV 'the understanding.' To be condemned by one whose decision is detennined by a bribe causes a man to lose all power of calm judgment.
8. Better is the end] The connexion seems to be this: the danger of being warped in our view by outward circumstances is such a real one that we cannot pronounce an unqualified judgment upon anything till the end is reached.
10. Thou dost not enquire wisely] We have not the materials for a just comparison.
11, 12. Some men through the attainment of wisdom or wealth have reached a vantage ground in the battle of life. Of the two wisdom is to be preferred, as possessed of a quickening power which money cannot bestow.
11. Them that see the sun] i.e. the living.
12. A defence] lit. a shadow: cp. Isa_30:2-3; Isa_32:2.
13. Who can make that straight, etc.] If trouble be God's will for us, we cannot change it.
14. Consider] Ask yourself what you may learn from it. Over against] RV 'side by side with.' Both run through the course of human life. To the end, etc.] So that we cannot forecast the part which the one and the other will play in the future.
15. The anomalies of life.
15. A just man that perisheth, etc.] It was perplexing enough that there should be but one end to the righteous and the wicked (Ecc_3:19). It is more so when we see the just man cut off by an untimely death and the evil-doer enjoying a green old age.
16-18. Extremes, whether of asceticism or of excess, are bad.
17. Over much wicked] The expression seems strange, as though moderate wickedness were allowable. But the sense is probably as follows: the author had just said, 'Be not righteous over much,' perhaps alluding to the over-scrupulousness of the Jews in observing ceremonies, etc.: cp. Matthew 23. He may now be meeting the thought of those who would reply, 'There is no fear that we shall exceed in that direction,' and he warns them that there is an opposite kind of excess to which they are more prone. Excess in either direction, and folly, tend to disturb and shorten life.
18. From this] RV 'from that.' Whatever the nature of the experience to which God subjects you, take cognisance of the evil as well as of the good. That in using such language he is not condoning sin is clear from the last part of the v. If only he fear God, he shall come forth unscathed.
19-22. Be wise enough not to be over sensitive to criticism, since you also indulge in it.
19. Wisdom strengthened] There is a power greater than brute force.
23-28. Wisdom eludes the grasp. Sweeping condemnation of the female sex.
24. That which is far off] RV 'That which is is far off.' 'That which is,' viz. God's world-plan, all the phenomena of the world and of human life, can only be realised by us in fragmentary form.
25. Madness] As in Ecc_2:12, wickedness and madness are closely connected.
26-28. The writer gives us the general result of his experience of human character. Among men he has found but one true friend. The other sex he condemns without exception. We cannot tell why, ignorant as we are of the circumstances of his life. We must, however, remember that the position of women in the East has always been favourable to the growth of habits of frivolity, cunning, and licentiousness; also that elsewhere (Ecclesiastes 9 : cp. perhaps also Ecc_4:8) he modifies this judgment. It remained for Christianity to bring woman back to her rightful position as a helpmeet for man.
29. Many inventions] From the Fall in Eden there has been a continued display of manifold ingenuity to thwart God's benevolent purposes for man.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv11, 16 Or, as good as an inheritance, yea, better too.
good
Or, as good as an inheritance, yea, better too.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. The Good Advice of the Natural Man, Discouragement…
PART II. CHAPTERS 7-12
1. The Good Advice of the Natural Man, Discouragement and Failure
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CHAPTER 7
1. The better things (Ecc 7:1-14)
2. The anomalies (Ecc 7:15-18)
3. The strength of wisdom, yet none perfect (Ecc 7:19-22)
4. The worst thing he found (Ecc 7:23-29)
Ecc 7:1-14. All had been tested by the royal searcher; all was found out to be vanity and vexation of spirit. Darkness, discouragement, uncertainty and despair were the results. The good, that which is right and comely for men, supposedly, found had also turned unto vapor, empty and hollow like the rest. He starts now in a new direction; he turns moralist and philosophizeth on the better things. He climbs high with his reason and deductions. He had come to the conclusion that life is not worth living. Having riches, possession of everything, were found out nothing but vanity. Perhaps being good, having the better things morally, and doing good, will satisfy the heart in “which is set eternity,” the soul of man, And so he makes his observations in seven comparisons.
A good name better than precious ointment;
the day of death better than the day of birth;
the house of mourning is better than the house of feasting;
sorrow is better than laughter,
the rebuke of the wise better than the songs of fools;
the end of a thing better than the beginning;
the patient in spirit better than the proud in spirit.
He has used his highest power of reasoning in reaching these conclusions, similar to the conclusion of other wise men, moralists and philosophers among the pagans. The different “sacred writings” of other nations, the Greek, Roman, Persian, Hindu, Chinese, etc., poetry and ethics as well as philosophies of all these nations give a definite proof that Ecclesiastes is the book of the natural man, that reason speaks and not revelation. For these “sacred writings” and philosophies are on the same line as our book. But does this satisfy? Can man thereby attain perfection? His heart has passions which man cannot control. Oppression makes a wise man mad (Ecc 7:7); anger is in his bosom (Ecc 7:9). Again he mentions wisdom. It is a good thing, just as good as an inheritance; it profits to see the sun, but not above the sun. Wisdom and wealth are both good as a defense; both give life, animate the person who possesses them, give a certain amount of enjoyment. But can both wisdom and wealth give a solution to man’s problem? Who can make that straight which God hath made crooked? His ways are mysterious, unsolvable as far as man is concerned; man cannot solve the providential dealings of God. Prosperity is followed by adversity and adversity by prosperity; He sets one over against the other. But who by his reason, by his wisdom, can find out what God will do in the future, what His dealings will be? In the very reading of all these statements one feels like walking in a dense fog. Some statements are beclouded so that it is difficult to ascertain the correct meaning that the searcher is really aiming at. Perhaps this is the case to teach the lesson how man, with his finite reason searching for light, apart from revelation, wanders in darkness and ends in confusion.
Ecc 7:15-18. Prosperity and adversity, controlled by a higher power; how are they meted out? No one knows when they come; they come to the righteous and to the wicked. He has seen the righteous perish in his righteousness and the wicked prolongs his days in his wickedness. How does the natural man, the philosopher, meet this difficulty? He answereth it by what is called “common sense.” “Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself overwise; why should thou destroy thyself?” Do not overdo it, strike a happy medium; avoid any kind of excess; be not too self-righteous for you might become puffed up and then you destroy yourself. Here is more “common sense” of the natural man. Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish; why shouldst thou die before thy time? Enjoy yourself, but avoid too much wickedness; have a good time but avoid excesses. Not too much righteousness and not too much wickedness; just a happy middle way; such a way, thinks the natural man, is not compatible with the fear of God.
Ecc 7:19-22. Wisdom is strength. He had tried wisdom; he tells us what he proved by wisdom. But the wise man makes a wise confession: “I said I will be wise; but it was far from me.” He owns his ignorance. Everything has left him unsatisfied. He cannot find out by wisdom that which is far off and exceeding deep. All is imperfection. “There is not a just man on the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Ecc 7:20).
Ecc 7:23-29. Again he applies his heart to know, to search and to go to the root of the matter--to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness. And what does he find? “I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands.” He speaks here as a Hebrew with the knowledge at least of what happened to man. God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. And woman was deceived by the serpent and her heart is often a snare and a net and her hands drag down into the vile things of the flesh. Here, at least, is an acknowledgement that sin is in the world and has corrupted the old creation, but what about the remedy? He knows nothing of that, for the new creation which lifts man out of the condition where sin has put him is the subject of the revelation of God.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 15 Contempt of the World and the Spirit Of Calm…
Contempt of the World and the Spirit Of Calm Resignation
v. 1. A good name, an excellent reputation before men and a high regard in the sight of God, is better than precious ointment, which was highly valued in the Orient for its refreshing odor; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth, for at birth a person’s fate is as yet unknown, while on the day of death life with all its vanities lies behind. To the believer particularly death means a deliverance from all evil, Php 1:23.
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v. 2. It is better to go to the house of mourning, where people, lamenting for some deceased relative or friend, meditate upon the vanity of life, than to go to the house of feasting, where banqueting and carousing is indulged in and the serious side of life is ignored; for that, the fact that every house eventually becomes a house of mourning, is the end of all men, wherefore all men should keep it in mind; and the living will lay it to his heart.
v. 3. Sorrow, a proper, mournful regard of the vanity of this world, is better than laughter, that is, worldly and boisterous merriment, which deliberately ignores the serious side of life; for by the sadness of the countenance, by a proper, serious contemplation of the vanities of life, the heart is made better, it will then observe a cheerfulness based upon understanding and not upon frivolousness.
v. 4. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, that is, with all outward cheerfulness he never forgets the sober aide of life and its problems; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth, given to senseless merriment, which ignores the true conditions.
v. 5. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, whereby some foolish behavior is censured, than for a man to hear the song of fools, the boisterous and suggestive, coarse and ribald songs which thoughtless and wicked people love, by which they attempt to forget the facts of life.
v. 6. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, where they are nevertheless consumed by the fire, so is the laughter of the fool, it agrees well with the apparent merriment of the thorns as they feed the fire; this, the senseless, boisterous merriment of fools, also is vanity.
v. 7. Surely oppression, various forms of tyranny practiced by fools in high and low places, maketh a wise man mad, either by making him call in question the wisdom of God’s providence or by leading him into some transgression by which he seeks revenge; and a gift, a bribe offered to the wise man, destroyeth the heart, so that even he yields to corruption.
v. 8. Better is the end of a thing, when a person knows just how he will succeed or has succeeded, than the beginning thereof, when one does not yet know how an affair will turn out; and the patient in spirit, long-suffering both in enduring wrong and in awaiting the outcome of some incident, is better than the proud in spirit, in whose case haughtiness is combined with a violent temper.
v. 9. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, easily insulted, holding a grudge for a long time, impatient in adversity; for anger resteth in the bosom of fools, with them only is an irritable disposition found.
v. 10. Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? the reference being to such as criticize and carp without attempting to improve present conditions. For thou dost not enquire wisely, literally, "on the basis of wisdom," concerning this, for the truly wise will try to improve conditions as he finds them.
v. 11. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, that is, if compared with earthly possessions, or when joined with an ample estate, for the wise man, if wealthy, will use his wealth in accordance with the will of God, especially for the advantage of such as are in need; and by it there is profit to them that see the sun, wisdom combined with wealth will result in various benefits for the living.
v. 12. For wisdom is a defense, literally, "a shadow," and money is a defense, both of them serve for protection in adversity; but the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom giveth life to them that have it, it is the more precious of the two blessings.
v. 13. Consider the work of God, with the proper calmness of spirit; for who can make that straight which He hath made crooked? A man’s impatience will not straighten out what to him seems foolish and adverse in human destiny.
v. 14. In the day of prosperity be joyful, enjoying God’s blessings with due thankfulness, but in the day of adversity consider, regard most carefully, let your thoughts run along these lines; God also hath set the one over against the other, He sends evil days as well as good, to the end that man should find nothing after him, in order that the future be hidden and remain hidden from man, for if the veil were lifted which hides the future, men would consider themselves independent of the divine dispensation.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29 A good name
A good name
Here a person's "name" is used to represent their reputation. AT: "A good reputation" (See: Metonymy)
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must take this to heart
This is an idiom. AT: "must think seriously about this" (See: Idiom)
translationWords
good
name
die
house
mourn
feast
life
heart
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26, 28, 29 7:1-4 These proverbs are similar to the sayings in…
7:1-4 These proverbs are similar to the sayings in the book of Proverbs.
7:1 The effort to pursue luxuries such as costly perfume is better spent seeking a good reputation for wisdom and righteousness (Prov 22:1; 28:6). • the day you die is better than the day you are born: There is a sense of relief when the troubles of life are over. The difficulties of life can make one look forward to the peace of death (Eccl 1:18; 2:22; 4:2-3; 12:1).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.