Ecclesiastes 7:2

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.

It is better to go to the house of mourning,.... For deceased relations or friends, who either lie unburied, or have been lately inferred; for the Jews kept their mourning for their dead several days afterwards, when their friends visited them in order to comfort them, as the Jews did Martha and Mary, John 11:31 .

Ecclesiastes 7:2 . It is better to go to the house of mourning — Where mourners meet together to celebrate the funerals of deceased friends; than to the house of feasting — Where people meet to indulge their appetites in eating and drinking, in which they frequently go to excess. For that — Namely, death, the cause of that mourning; is the end of all men — Is a lot that awaits all mankind, and to see instances of it tends to bring them to the serious consideration of their own last end, which is their greatest wisdom and interest; and the living will lay it to his heart — Will be seriously affected with it, and awakened to prepare for it: whereas feasting is commonly attended with levity and manifold temptations, and renders men’s minds indisposed for spiritual and heavenly thoughts. Hence it is evident, those passages of this book, which seem to favour a sensual and voluptuous life, were not spoken by Solomon in his own name, or as his opinion, but in the person of an epicure.

2. Proving that it is not a sensual enjoyment of earthly goods which is meant in Ec 3:13; 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 (Ec 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."

The house of mourning; where mourners meet together to celebrate the funerals of a deceased friend. That , to wit, death, the cause of that mourning, is the end of all men; it brings men to the serious consideration of their last end, which is their greatest wisdom and interest. Will lay it to his heart; will be seriously affected with it, and awakened to prepare for it; whereas feasting is commonly attended with mirth, and levity, and manifold temptations, and indisposeth men’s minds to spiritual and heavenly thoughts. Hence it is evident that those passages of this book which may seem to favour a sensual and voluptuous life, are not spoken by Solomon in his own name, or as his opinion, but in the person of an epicure.

2 . It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting ] The customs of Jewish mourning must be borne in mind to appreciate the full force of the maxim. The lamentation lasting for seven ( Sir 22:10 ) or even for thirty, days, as in the case of Aaron ( Numbers 20:29 ), and Moses ( Deuteronomy 24:8 ), the loud wailing of the hired mourners ( Jeremiah 22:18 ; Matthew 9:23 ; Mark 5:38 ), the visits of consolation ( John 11:31 ), the sad meals of the bread and wine of affliction ( Jeremiah 16:7 ; Hosea 9:4 ; Job 4:17 ),—the sight of these things checked the pride of life and called out sympathy, and reminded the visitor of the nearness of his own end, “Sunt lachrymæ rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.” “We needs must weep the chance and change of life, And mortal sorrows touch a mortal’s heart.” Virg. Æn . i. 462. The words manifestly record a personal experience, and lead us to think of the writer as having learnt to “visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” ( James 1:27 ), and having found that there was some “profit” at least in this.

Verse 2. - It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting. The thought in the last verse leads to the recollection of the circumstances which accompany the two events therein mentioned - birth and death, feasting and joy, in the first case; sorrow and mourning in the second. In recommending the sober, earnest life, Koheleth teaches that wiser, more enduring lessons are to be learned where grief reigns than in the empty and momentary excitement of mirth and joyousness. The house in question is mourning for a death; and what a long and harrowing business this was is well known (see Deuteronomy 24:8 ; Ecclus. 22:10; Jeremiah 22:18 ; Matthew 9:23 , etc.). Visits of condolence and periodical pilgrimages to groves of departed relatives were considered duties ( John 11:19, 31 ), and conduced to the growth in the mind of sympathy, seriousness, and the need of preparation for death. The opposite side, the house of carousal, where all that is serious is put away, leading to such scenes as Isaiah denounces ( Isaiah 5:11 ), offers no wise teaching, and produces only selfishness, heartlessness, thoughtlessness. What is said here is no contradiction to what was said in Ecclesiastes 2:24 , that there was nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and enjoy himself.

For Koheleth was not speaking of unrestrained sensualism - the surrender of the mind to the pleasures of the body - but of the moderate enjoyment of the good things of life conditioned by the fear of God and love of one's neighbor. This statement is quite compatible with the view that sees a higher purpose and training in the sympathy with sorrow than in participation in reckless frivolity. For that is the end of all men viz. that they will some day be mourned, that their house will be turned into a house of mourning. Vulgate, In illa ( dome ) enim finis cunctorum admonetur hominum , which is not the sense of the Hebrew. The living will lay it to his heart. He who has witnessed this scene will consider it seriously ( Ecclesiastes 9:1 ), and draw from it profitable conclusions concerning the brevity of life and the proper use to make thereof. We recall the words of Christ, "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted;" and "Woe unto you that laugh now for ye shall mourn and weep" ( Matthew 5:4 ; Luke 6:25 ).