The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
Parallel Translations
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The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
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The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
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The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
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Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (18)
Passages linked to Ecclesiastes 7:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Matthew 8:14-16 When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her. She got up and served him. When evening came, they brought to him many possessed with demons. He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick;
- 1 Samuel 25:36 Abigail came to Nabal; and behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. Therefore she told him nothing until the morning light.
- Luke 7:12-13 Now when he came near to the gate of the city, behold, one who was dead was carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Many people of the city were with her. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said to her, “Don’t cry.”
- 1 Samuel 30:16 When he had brought him down, behold, they were spread around over all the ground, eating, drinking, and dancing, because of all the great plunder that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines, and out of the land of Judah.
- 1 Kings 20:16 They went out at noon. But Ben Hadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, he and the kings, the thirty-two kings who helped him.
- Nehemiah 2:2-5 The king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart.” Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why shouldn’t my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates have been consumed with fire?” Then the king said to me, “What is your request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may build it.”
- Isaiah 21:4 My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.
- Isaiah 53:3-4 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him. Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
- Jeremiah 51:39 When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 51:57 I will make her princes, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk. They will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.
- Daniel 5:1-4 Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded that the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem be brought to him; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink from them. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of God’s house which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank from them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of bronze, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
- Daniel 5:30 In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain.
- Hosea 7:5 On the day of our king, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine. He joined his hand with mockers.
- Mark 5:38-43 He came to the synagogue ruler’s house, and he saw an uproar, weeping, and great wailing. When he had entered in, he said to them, “Why do you make an uproar and weep? The child is not dead, but is asleep.” They ridiculed him. But he, having put them all out, took the father of the child, her mother, and those who were with him, and went in where the child was lying. Taking the child by the hand, he said to her, “Talitha cumi!” which means, being interpreted, “Girl, I tell you, get up!” Immediately the girl rose up and walked, for she was twelve years old. They were amazed with great amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and commanded that something should be given to her to eat.
- Mark 6:21-29 Then a convenient day came, that Herod on his birthday made a supper for his nobles, the high officers, and the chief men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, she pleased Herod and those sitting with him. The king said to the young lady, “Ask me whatever you want, and I will give it to you.” He swore to her, “Whatever you shall ask of me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom.” She went out, and said to her mother, “What shall I ask?” She said, “The head of John the Baptizer.” She came in immediately with haste to the king, and asked, “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptizer on a platter.” The king was exceedingly sorry, but for the sake of his oaths, and of his dinner guests, he didn’t wish to refuse her. Immediately the king sent out a soldier of his guard, and commanded to bring John’s head, and he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the young lady; and the young lady gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard this, they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb.
- John 11:31-35 Then the Jews who were with her in the house and were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.” Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.
- 2 Samuel 13:28 Absalom commanded his servants, saying, “Mark now, when Amnon’s heart is merry with wine; and when I tell you, ‘Strike Amnon,’ then kill him. Don’t be afraid. Haven’t I commanded you? Be courageous, and be valiant!”
- Nahum 1:10 For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.
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Explain this verse (12 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Where we may see the hand of God, and…
Where we may see the hand of God, and learn to examine our lives.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Ecc 7:4 The heart of the wise [is] in…
Ecc 7:4 The heart of the wise [is] in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools [is] in the house of mirth.
Ver. 4. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.] He gladly makes use of all good means of minding his mortality, and holds it a high point of heavenly wisdom so to do. Hence he frequents funerals, mingles with mourners, hears etiam muta clamare cadavers, makes every tomb a teacher, every monument a monitor, {a} lays him down in his bed as in his grave, looks upon his sheets as his winding sheet. Ut somnus mortis, sic lectus imago sepulchri. If he hears but the clock strike, sees the glass run out, it is as a death’s head to preach memento mori to him; he remembers the days of darkness, as Solomon bids, {Ecc 11:8} acts death aforehand, takes up many sad and serious thoughts of it, and makes it his continual practice so to do, as Job and David did. The wiser Jews digged their graves long before, as that old prophet; {1Ki 13:30} Joseph of Arimathea had his in his garden to season his delights. John, Patriarch of Alexandria (surnamed Eleemosynarius, for his bounty to the poor), having his tomb in building, gave his people charge it should be left unfinished, and that every day one should put him in mind to perfect it, that he might remember his mortality. The Christians in some part of the primitive Church took the sacrament every day, because they looked to die every day. Augustine would not for the gain of a million of worlds be an atheist for half an hour, because he had no certainty of his life for so short a time. His mother, Monica, was heard oft to say, How is it that I am here still? {b} The women of the Isle of Man, saith Speed, {c} whensoever they go out of their doors, gird themselves about with the winding sheet that they purpose to be buried in, to show themselves mindful of their mortality. The philosopher {d} affirms that man is therefore the wisest of creatures, because he alone can number, - Bruta non numerant; this is an essential difference, - but especially in that divine arithmetic of so "numbering his days as to apply his heart to wisdom." {Psa 90:12} This speaks him wise indeed, right in his judgment, right also in his affections. This will render him right in his practice too; as it did Waldus, the merchant of Lyons, who seeing one suddenly fall down dead before him, became a new man, and chief of those old Protestants, the poor men of Lyons, {e} called also Waldenses from this Waldus.
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But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.] {See Trapp on "Ecc 7:3"} As the heart of the wicked is light and little worth, so it is their trade to hunt after lying vanities (as the child doth after butterflies), to "rejoice in a thing of nothing"; {Amo 6:13} he wiles away his time, either in "weaving spiders’ webs or hatching cockatrice’ eggs"; {Isa 59:5} froth or filth {αφροσυνη, Mar 7:22} is their recreation. Sad and serious thoughts they banish, and therefore love not to be alone. They hate to hear of that terrible word death - as Louis XI of France commanded his servants not once to mention it to him, though he lay upon his deathbed. They live and laugh as if they were out of the reach of God’s rod, or as if their lives were riveted upon eternity, They can see death in other men’s brows and visages, not feel it in their own bowels and bosoms. When they behold any laid in their graves, they can shake their heads and say, This is what we must all come to; but after a while all is forgotten, - as water stirred with a stone cast into it hath circle upon circle on the surface for present, but by and by all is smooth as before. As chickens in a storm haste to be under the hen’s wing, but when that is a little over they lie dusting themselves in the sunshine; so it is here. Good thoughts fall upon evil hearts as sparks upon wet tinder; or if they kindle there, fools bring their buckets to quench them, run into merry company to drink, or otherwise drive away those troublesome heart qualms and melancholy dumps, as they call them. This is to excel in madness, &c. {See Trapp on "Pro 10:23"}
{a} Monimenta, quasi mentem momentia.
{b} Quid hic facio. - Aug.
{c} Description of the Isle of Man, abridged.
{d} Arist.
{e} Pauperes de Lugduno.
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 The heart of the wise is in the house…
The heart of the wise is in the house of morning, even when their bodies are absent. They are constantly, or very frequently, meditating upon sad and serious firings, such as death and judgment, the vanity of this life, and the reality and eternity of the next, because they know that these thoughts, though they be not grateful to the sensual part, yet they are absolutely necessary, and highly profitable, and most comfortable in the end, which every wise man most regards.
The heart of fools is in the house of mirth; their minds and affections are wholly set upon feasting and jollity, because, like fools and brutish creatures, they regard only their present delight, and mind not how dearly they must pay for them.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The heart of the wise is in the house…
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,.... When his body is not; when it does not suit him to go thither in person, his mind is there, and his thoughts are employed on the useful subjects of the frailty and mortality of human nature, of death, a future judgment, and a world to come; which shows him to be a wise man, and concerned for the best things, even for his eternal happiness in another state;
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth; where jovial company is, merry songs are sung, and the cup or glass passes briskly round, and all is gay and brilliant: here the fool desires to be oftener than he is, and when he cannot; which shows the folly of his mind, what a vain taste he has, and how thoughtless he is of a future state, and of his eternal welfare.
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 The wise - Are constantly meditating upon serious things.
The wise - Are constantly meditating upon serious things.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 4. The heart of the wise is in…
Verse 4. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning] A wise man loves those occasions from which he can derive spiritual advantage; and therefore prefers visiting the sick, and sympathizing with those who have suffered privations by death. But the fool - the gay, thoughtless, and giddy - prefers places and times of diversion and amusement. Here he is prevented from seriously considering either himself or his latter end. The grand fault and misfortune of youth.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain House of mourning ... house of mirth - These…
House of mourning ... house of mirth - These phrases acquire a forcible significance from the Eastern custom of prolonging both festive and mournful celebrations through several days. See Gen 50:10; Jdg 14:17. This verse indicates that a life of enjoyment, does not mean the abandonment of ourselves to pleasures, but the thankful and sober use of the beautiful things which God gives us.
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 Anger. That is, correction, or just wrath and zeal…
Anger. That is, correction, or just wrath and zeal against evil, (Challoner) is preferable to a misguided complaisance, Proverbs xxvii. 6. (Calmet) --- Anger, when rightly used, helps us to correct our faults. (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).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 4. This verse is of the nature of an…
4. This verse is of the nature of an inference from the preceding. The wise do not shun the homes and scenes of sorrow, but take sincere part with them, while the fool loves only jest and mirth.
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 4. The heart of the wise] This follows as…
4. The heart of the wise] This follows as the natural sequel. Like goes to like. The impulse of the fool takes him to that which promises enjoyment; that of the wise leads him to that which has the promise of a higher wisdom and therefore of a more lasting gain.
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.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The heart of the wise is in the house…
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. This is the natural conclusion from what was said in vers. 2, 3. The man who recognizes the serious side of life, and knows where to learn lessons of high moral meaning, will be found conversant with scenes of sorrow and suffering, and reflecting upon them. But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. The fool, who thinks of nothing but present enjoyment, and how to make life pass pleasantly, turns away from mournful scenes, and goes only there where he may drown care and be thoughtless and merry.
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 The heart of the wise is in the house…
Ecc_7:4
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.
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The advantages of visiting the mansions of distress
For so valuable a purpose it is well worth while to bear with all the gloominess of the house of mourning. For most useful lessons will the heart of the wise be able to learn there; and excellent rules of conduct, with respect to himself, to the memory of those who are deceased, and to such as they have left behind them.
1. With respect to himself. Death is the end of all men, and the living will lay it go his heart. It is because we do not lay it to our hearts that we most of us go on just as if we imagined there was to be no end at all; and though we do not, indeed, speculatively think so, yet we live and act upon that supposition; and our knowing it to be a false one hath no manner of influence for want of reflecting upon it as such. This could not be would we but stop a little at the house of mourning; and make the most obvious of all reflections there, from contemplating the end of others, how very quickly our own end may come, and how soon it must. Such thoughts will enliven our diligence in performing our duty here; in working, while it is day, the works of Him that sent us. And as the thoughts of death are excellently fitted to compose the vehemence of our other passions, so they are fitted particularly to check that very sinful kind of vehemence, which we are exceedingly prone to express, one against another. Another instruction, which the heart of the wise will learn in the house of mourning, is, never to flatter himself with expectations of any lasting good in a state so uncertain as this. You see, therefore, what improvement the heart of the wise may receive from a general consideration of the end of all men. But the further view of the different ends of different men is a subject of yet further advantage.
2. The heart of the wise, whilst it dwells in the house of mourning, will not only improve itself in a general sense of Christian piety, but also more especially in such precepts of it as constitute a proper behaviour with respect to the memory of those whose departure is at any time the object of our thoughts. The dead, indeed, are out of our reach: our goodness extends not to them, and our enmity can do them no harm. But for the sake of common justice and humanity, we are bound to the amiable duties of stowing candour in regard to their failings, and paying the honour which is due to their merit.
3. We may learn, from a considerate meditation on the examples of mortality, very useful instructions for our behaviour, not only with respect to the deceased, but those whom they have left behind any way peculiarly related to them. The death of a wise and good, of a near and affectionate friend, is unspeakably the greatest of all calamities. Whoever is capable of these reflections, if he allows himself time to make them, will sincerely pity all that have suffered such a loss, and equally esteem all that show they are sensible of it. (T. Secker.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.