For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.
Parallel Translations
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For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.
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For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.
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For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool; this also is vanity.
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Ecclesiastes 7:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 58:9 Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns, he will sweep away the green and the burning alike.
- Psalms 118:12 They surrounded me like bees. They are quenched like the burning thorns. In Yahweh’s name I cut them off.
- Ecclesiastes 2:2 I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?”
- Luke 6:25 Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
- Proverbs 29:9 If a wise man goes to court with a foolish man, the fool rages or scoffs, and there is no peace.
- Isaiah 65:13-15 Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, my servants will rejoice, but you will be disappointed; Behold, my servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will wail for anguish of spirit. You will leave your name for a curse to my chosen; and the Lord Yahweh will kill you. He will call his servants by another name,
- Amos 8:10 I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.
- Luke 16:25 “But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But here he is now comforted, and you are in anguish.
- 2 Peter 2:13-17 receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and defects, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you; having eyes full of adultery, and who can’t cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls; having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing; forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing; but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A mute donkey spoke with a man’s voice and stopped the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.
- Jude 1:12-13 These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Ecc 7:6 For as the crackling of thorns under…
Ecc 7:6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so [is] the laughter of the fool: this also [is] vanity.
Ver. 6. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot.] Much noise, little fire; much light, little heat. So here is much mirth, little cause; a blaze it may yield, but is suddenly extinct; this blaze is also under a pot; the gallantry of it is checked with troubles and terrors; it is insincere many times; it is but the "hypocrisy of mirth," as one calls it. It is truly and trimly here compared to a handful of brushwood, or sear thorn, under the pot. Ecquando vidisti flammam stipula exortam, claro strepitu, largo fulgore, cito incremento, sed enim materia levi, caduco incendio, nullis reliquiis, saith Apuleius - a very dainty description of carnal joy, and agreeable to this text. And herewith also very well suits that of the Psalmist, "Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath." {Psa 58:9} Fools themselves are but thorns twisted and folded together; {Nah 1:10} "briars"; {Mic 7:4} "brambles." {Jdg 9:14} Their laughter is also fitly compared to thorns, because it chokes good motions, scratcheth the conscience, harbours the vermin of base and baggage lusts. And as themselves, like thorns, shall be thrust away and utterly burnt with fire in the same place, {2Sa 23:6-7} so their joy soon expireth, and proves to be rather desolation than consolation - as lightning is followed with rending and roaring, as comets outblaze the very stars, but when their exhaled matter is wasted, they vanish and fill the air with pestilent vapours. The prophet Amos telleth the wicked that "their sun shall go down at noonday." {Amo 8:9} Surely as metals are then nearest melting when they shine brightest in the fire, and as the fishes swim merrily down the silver streams of Jordan till they suddenly fall into the Dead Sea, where presently they perish, so it fares with these merry Greeks that fleer {a} when they should fear, and laugh when they should lament. "Woe to you that laugh," {Luk 6:25} saith Christ; how suddenly are they put out as the fire of thorns! {Psa 118:12}
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{a} To laugh in a coarse, impudent, or unbecoming manner.
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 crackling of thorns, which for a time make…
The crackling of thorns, which for a time make a great noise and blaze, but presently waste themselves, and go out without any considerable effect upon the meat in the pot.
So; so vanishing and fruitless.
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 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,…
For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool,.... As thorns are weak, useless, and unprofitable; yea, hurtful and pernicious, and only fit for burning; so are foolish and wicked men, Sa2 23:6; and as the noise and sound of the one under a pot is very short, they make a blaze for a while, and is soon over; so though the laughter of a fool is loud and noisy, it makes no melody, no more than the noise of thorns; and is but for a moment, and will be soon changed for weeping and howling, which will last for ever; see Job 20:5;
this also is vanity; the carnal mirth of wicked men.
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 Thorns - Which for a time make a great…
Thorns - Which for a time make a great noise and blaze, but presently go out.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. For as the crackling of thorns] They…
Verse 6. For as the crackling of thorns] They make a great noise, a great blaze; and are extinguished in a few moments. Such indeed, comparatively, are the joys of life; they are noisy, flashy, and transitory.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain As the crackling of thorns - Noisy while it…
As the crackling of thorns - Noisy while it lasts, and quickly extinguished. See Psa 58:9 note.
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 Wise man. Much prudence is requisite to correct with…
Wise man. Much prudence is requisite to correct with fruit, and to persuade the sinner that he is under a mistake. (Calmet)
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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain crackling--answers to the loud merriment of fools. It is…
crackling--answers to the loud merriment of fools. It is the very fire consuming them which produces the seeming merry noise (Joe 2:5). Their light soon goes out in the black darkness. There is a paronomasia in the Hebrew, Sirim ("thorns"), Sir ("pot"). The wicked are often compared to "thorns" (Sa2 23:6; Nah 1:10). Dried cow-dung was the common fuel in Palestine; its slowness in burning makes the quickness of a fire of thorns the more graphic, as an image of the sudden end of fools (Psa 118:12).
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 6. Crackling of thorns — The reason why. The…
6. Crackling of thorns — The reason why. The usual fuel mentioned in the Old Testament is charcoal, compared with which dry thorn bushes though quicker to kindle, are brief and ineffectual. The Hebrew words for pot and thorns sound queerly together, like the English “noisy nettles under kettles” — imitating a shallow laughter.
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 6. As the crackling of thorns under a pot]…
6. As the crackling of thorns under a pot] As in Ecc_7:1 the epigrammatic proverb is pointed by a play of alliterative assonance (sirim = thorns, sir = pot). “As crackling nettles under kettles,” “As crackling stubble makes the pot bubble” are the nearest English equivalents. The image is drawn from the Eastern use of hay, stubble, and thorns for fuel (Mat_6:30; Psa_118:12). A fire of such material, burnt up more quickly than the charcoal embers (Jer_26:22; Joh_18:18), which were also in common use, but then it also died out quickly and left nothing but cold dead ashes. So it would be with the mirth which was merely frivolous or foul. That also would take its place in the catalogue of vanities.
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 (6) There is again a play on words, which…
(6) There is again a play on words, which German translators represent by “the crackling of nettle under the kettle,” and Plumptre “the crackling of stubble which makes the pot bubble.” The reference plainly is to the quick blazing up and quick going out of the flame.
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 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot.…
For as the crackling of thorns under a pot. There is a play of words in the Hebrew, "The crackling of sirim under a sir," which Wright expresses by translating, "Like the noise of the nettles under the kettles." In the East, and where wood is scarce, thorns, hay, and stubble are used for (Psa_58:9 Psa_120:4; Mat_6:30) Such materials are quickly kindled, blaze up for a time with much noise, and soon die away. (Psa_118:12) So is the laughter of the fool. The point of comparison is the loud crackling and the short duration of the fire with small results. So the fool"s mirth is boisterous and noisy, but comes to a speedy end, and is spent to no good purpose. So in Job (Job_20:5) we have, "The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment." All this profitless mirth is again nothing but vanity.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.