Ecclesiastes 7:1

7:1-6 Reputation for piety and honesty is more desirable than all the wealth and pleasure in this world. It will do more good to go to a funeral than to a feast. 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. But, considering how apt we are to be vain and indulge the flesh, it is best to go to the house of mourning, to learn the end of man as to this world. Seriousness is better than mirth and jollity. That is best for us which is best for our souls, though it be unpleasing to sense. It is better to have our corruptions mortified by the rebuke of the wise, than to have them gratified by the song of fools. The laughter of a fool is soon gone, the end of his mirth is heaviness.

Ecclesiastes 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.

(1) There is a play on words in the original (found also in Song of Solomon 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 Ruth 3:3 ; 2Samuel 12:20 ; Proverbs 7:17 ; Daniel 10:3 .

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 (Ecclesiastes 2:16; Ecclesiastes 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 Ecclesiastes 2:17; Ecclesiastes 4:2; Ecclesiastes 6:5, and in respect of its implying an immediate and a nearer approach to God Ecclesiastes 3:21; Ecclesiastes 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.

CHAPTER 7 Ec 7:1-29. 1. (See on [663]Ec 6:12). name—character; a godly mind and life; not mere reputation with man, but what a man is in the eyes of God, with whom the name and reality are one thing (Isa 9:6). This alone is "good," while all else is "vanity" when made the chief end. ointment—used lavishly at costly banquets and peculiarly refreshing in the sultry East. The Hebrew for "name" and for "ointment," have a happy paronomasia, Sheem and Shemen. "Ointment" is fragrant only in the place where the person is whose head and garment are scented, and only for a time. The "name" given by God to His child (Re 3:12) is for ever and in all lands. So in the case of the woman who received an everlasting name from Jesus Christ, in reward for her precious ointment (Isa 56:5; Mr 14:3-9). Jesus Christ Himself hath such a name, as the Messiah, equivalent to Anointed (So 1:3). and the day of [his] death, &c.—not a general censure upon God for creating man; but, connected with the previous clause, death is to him, who hath a godly name, "better" than the day of his birth; "far better," as Php 1:23 has it.A good name desirable; and the house of mourning and rebuke better than songs and laughter, Ecclesiastes 7:1-6. Exhortations to patience and perseverance, Ecclesiastes 7:7-10. Wisdom and money a defence, Ecclesiastes 7:11,12. God’s providence should render its contented: our duty both in prosperity and adversity, Ecclesiastes 7:13,14.

Prudence and the fear of God necessary in this world, Ecclesiastes 7:15-18. The praise of wisdom, Ecclesiastes 7:19. All men are sinners, Ecclesiastes 7:20. Other men’s opinions of thee not too much to be minded: the motive thereto, Ecclesiastes 7:21,22. The Preacher’s experience thereof, Ecclesiastes 7:23-25. An evil woman more bitter than death, Ecclesiastes 7:26-28. God created man good, Ecclesiastes 7:29. Having largely discoursed of the vanity of all worldly things, and now said in the foregoing verse that no man knew what was best for him, he now proceeds to prescribe some remedies against these vanities, and to direct men to the right method of obtaining that felicity which is not to be expected or found in this world. 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, Proverbs 18:22, and a day for a good day, Luke 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 Psalm 92:10 133:2 Isaiah 39:2. 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.

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 Ecclesiastes 7:1 ; Ecclesiastes 7:5 ; Ecclesiastes 7:8 serve as a connecting link.

The words and the maxims that follow in Ecclesiastes 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 Song of Solomon 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 ( Psalm 45:8 ; Amos 6:6 ; Luke 7:37 ; Matthew 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.