Ecclesiastes 7

Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” Thomas Gray wrote those oft-quoted words in his poem “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.” He pictured the students on the playing field and in the classroom, enjoying life because they were innocent of what lay ahead. Alas, regardless of their doom, The little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come, Nor care beyond today.

His conclusion was logical: at that stage in life, it is better to be ignorant and happy, because there will be plenty of time later to experience the sorrows that knowledge may bring. Yet ah! why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies. Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, ’Tis folly to be wise.

Solomon had come to a similar conclusion when he argued in 1:12–18 that wisdom did not make life worth living. “For in much wisdom is much grief,” he wrote in 1:18, “and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.”

But then the king took a second look at the problem and modified his views. In Ecclesiastes 7 and 8, he discussed the importance of wisdom in life (“wisdom” is found fourteen times in these two chapters); and he answered the question asked in 6:12, “For who knoweth what is good for man in this life?” The Preacher concluded that, though wisdom can’t explain all of life’s mysteries, it can make at least three positive contributions to our lives.

“Better” is a key word in this chapter; Solomon used it at least eleven times. His listeners must have been shocked when they heard Solomon describe the “better things” that come to the life of the person who follows God’s wisdom.

Sorrow is better than laughter (vv. 1–4). If given the choice, most people would rather go to a birthday party than to a funeral, but Solomon advised against it. Why? Because sorrow can do more good for the heart than laughter can. (The word heart is used four times in these verses.) Solomon was certainly not a morose man with a gloomy lifestyle. After all, it was King Solomon who wrote Proverbs 15:13, 15; 17:22—and the Song of Solomon! Laughter can be like medicine that heals the broken heart, but sorrow can be like nourishing food that strengthens the inner person. It takes both for a balanced life, but few people realize this. There is “a time to laugh” (Eccl. 3:4).

Let’s begin with Solomon’s bizarre statement that the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth (v. 1). This generalization must not be divorced from his opening statement that a person’s good reputation (name) is like a fragrant perfume. (There is a play on words here: “name” is shem in the Hebrew and “ointment” is shemen.) He used the same image in 10: and also in Song of Solomon 1:3.

Solomon was not contrasting birth and death, nor was he suggesting that it is better to die than to be born, because you can’t die unless you have been born. He was contrasting two significant days in human experience: the day a person receives his or her name and the day when that name shows up in the obituary column. The life lived between those two events will determine whether that name leaves behind a lovely fragrance or a foul stench. “His name really stinks!” is an uncouth statement, but it gets the point across.

If a person dies with a good name, his or her reputation is sealed and the family need not worry. In that sense, the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth. The life is over and the reputation is settled. (Solomon assumed that there were no hidden scandals.) “Every man has three names,” says an ancient adage; “one his father and mother gave him, one others call him, and one he acquires himself.”

“The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot” (Prov. 10:7; and see Prov. 22:1). Mary of Bethany anointed the Lord Jesus with expensive perfume and its fragrance filled the house. Jesus told her that her name would be honored throughout the world, and it is. On the other hand, Judas sold the Lord Jesus into the hands of the enemy; and his name is generally despised (Mark 14:1–11). When Judas was born, he was given the good name “Judah,” which means “praise.” It belonged to the royal tribe in Israel. By the time Judas died, he had turned that honorable name into something shameful.

In verses 2–4, Solomon advised the people to look death in the face and learn from it. He did not say that we should be preoccupied with death, because that could be abnormal. But there is a danger that we might try to avoid confrontations with the reality of death and, as a result, not take life as seriously as we should. “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).

The Preacher is not presenting us with an either/or situation; he is asking for balance. The Hebrew word for “laughter” in verse 3 can mean “the laughter of derision or scorn.” While there is a place for healthy humor in life, we must beware of the frivolous laughter that is often found in “the house of mirth” (v. 4). When people jest about death, for example, it is usually evidence that they are afraid of it and not prepared to meet it. They are running away.

The late Dr. Ernest Becker wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Denial of Death, “… the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity— activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man” (Free Press, 1975, ix). King Solomon knew this truth centuries ago!

Rebuke is better than praise (vv. 5–6). King Solomon compared the praise of fools to the burning thorns in a campfire: you hear a lot of noise, but you don’t get much lasting good. (Again, Solomon used a play on words. In the Hebrew, “song” is shir, “pot” is sir, and “thorns” is sirim.) If we allow it, a wise person’s rebuke will accomplish far more in our lives than will the flattery of fools. Solomon may have learned this truth from his father (Ps. 141:5), and he certainly emphasized it when he wrote the book of Proverbs (10:17; 12:1; 15:5; 17:10; 25:12; 27:5, 17; 29:1, 15).

The British literary giant Samuel Johnson was at the home of the famous actor David Garrick, and a “celebrated lady” persisted in showering Johnson with compliments. “Spare me, I beseech you, dear madam!” he replied; but as his biographer Boswell put it, “She still laid it on.” Finally Johnson silenced her by saying, “Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow it so freely.”

The “long haul” is better than the shortcut (vv. 7–9). Beware of “easy” routes; they often become expensive detours that are difficult and painful. In 1976, my wife and I were driving through Scotland, and a friend mapped out a “faster” route from Balmoral Castle to Inverness. It turned out to be a hazardous one-lane road that the local people called “The Devil’s Elbow,” and en route we met a bus and a cement truck! “Watch and pray” was our verse for that day.

Bribery appears to be a quick way to get things done (v. 7), but it only turns a wise man into a fool and encourages the corruption already in the human heart. Far better that we wait patiently and humbly for God to work out His will than that we get angry and demand our own way (v. 8; see also Prov. 14:17; 16:32; James 1:19.)

“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning” applies when we are living according to God’s wisdom. The beginning of sin leads to a terrible end—death (James 1:13–15), but if God is at the beginning of what we do, He will see to it that we reach the ending successfully (Phil. 1:6; Heb. 12:2). The Christian believer can claim Romans 8: because he knows that God is at work in the world, accomplishing His purposes.

An Arab proverb says, “Watch your beginnings.” Good beginnings will usually mean good endings. The Prodigal Son started with happiness and wealth, but ended with suffering and poverty (Luke 15:11–24). Joseph began as a slave but ended up a sovereign! God always saves “the best wine” until the last (John 2:10), but Satan starts with his “best” and then leads the sinner into suffering and perhaps even death.

Today is better than yesterday (v. 10). When life is difficult and we are impatient for change, it is easy to long for “the good old days” when things were better. When the foundation was laid for the second temple, the old men wept for “the good old days” and the young men sang because the work had begun (Ezra 3:12–13). It has been said that “the good old days” are the combination of a bad memory and a good imagination, and often this is true.

Yesterday is past and cannot be changed, and tomorrow may not come, so make the most of today. “Carpe diem!” wrote the Roman poet Horace. “Seize the day!” This does not mean we shouldn’t learn from the past or prepare for the future, because both are important. It means that we must live today in the will of God and not be paralyzed by yesterday or hypnotized by tomorrow. The Victorian essayist Hilaire Belloc wrote, “While you are dreaming of the future or regretting the past, the present, which is all you have, slips from you and is gone.”

One of the marks of maturity is the ability to look at life in perspective and not get out of balance. When you have God’s wisdom, you will be able to accept and deal with the changing experiences of life.

Wealth (vv. 11–12).Wisdom is better than a generous inheritance. Money can lose its value, or be stolen, but true wisdom keeps its value and cannot be lost, unless we become fools and abandon it deliberately. The person who has wealth but lacks wisdom will only waste his fortune, but the person who has wisdom will know how to get and use wealth. We should be grateful for the rich treasure of wisdom we have inherited from the past, and we should be ashamed of ourselves that we too often ignore it or disobey it. Wisdom is like a “shelter” to those who obey it; it gives greater protection than money.

Providence (v. 13). The rustic preacher who said to his people, “Learn to cooperate with the inevitable!” knew the meaning of this verse. The Living Bible paraphrases it, “See the way God does things and fall into line. Don’t fight the facts of nature.” This is not a summons to slavish fatalism; like Ecclesiastes 1:15, it is a sensible invitation to a life yielded to the will of God. If God makes something crooked, He is able to make it straight; and perhaps He will ask us to work with Him to get the job done. But if He wants it to stay crooked, we had better not argue with Him. We don’t fully understand all the works of God (11:5), but we do know that “He hath made everything beautiful in its time” (3:11). This includes the things we may think are twisted and ugly.

While I don’t agree with all of his theology, I do appreciate the “Serenity Prayer” written in 1934 by Reinhold Niebuhr. A version of it is used around the world by people in various support groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, and it fits the lesson Solomon teaches in verse 13:

O God, give us Serenity to accept what cannot be changed, Courage to change what should be changed, And wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Adversity and prosperity (v. 14). Wisdom gives us perspective so that we aren’t discouraged when times are difficult or arrogant when things are going well. It takes a good deal of spirituality to be able to accept prosperity as well as adversity, for often prosperity does greater damage (Phil. 4:10–13). Job reminded his wife of this truth when she told him to curse God and die: “What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil [trouble]?” (2:10). Earlier, Job had said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (1:21).

God balances our lives by giving us enough blessings to keep us happy and enough burdens to keep us humble. If all we had were blessings in our hands, we would fall right over, so the Lord balances the blessings in our hands with burdens on our backs. That helps to keep us steady, and as we yield to Him, He can even turn the burdens into blessings.

Why does God constitute our lives in this way? The answer is simple: to keep us from thinking we know it all and that we can manage our lives by ourselves. “Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future” (v. 14 niv). Just about the time we think we have an explanation for things, God changes the situation, and we have to throw out our formula. This is where Job’s friends went wrong: they tried to use an old road map to guide Job on a brand-new journey, and the map didn’t fit. No matter how much experience we have in the Christian life, or how many books we read, we must still walk by faith.

Righteousness and sin (vv. 15–18). If there is one problem in life that demands a mature perspective, it is “Why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper?” The good die young, while the wicked seem to enjoy long lives, and this seems contrary to the justice of God and the Word of God. Didn’t God tell the people that the obedient would live long (Ex. 20:12; Deut. 4:40) and the disobedient would perish? (Deut. 4:25–26; Ps. 55:23).

Two facts must be noted. Yes, God did promise to bless Israel in their land if they obeyed His law, but He has not given those same promises to believers today under the new covenant. Francis Bacon (1561–1626) wrote, “Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.” Our Lord’s opening words in the Sermon on the Mount were not “Blessed are the rich in substance” but “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3; and see Luke 6:20).

Second, the wicked appear to prosper only if you take the short view of things. This was the lesson Asaph recorded in Psalm 73 and that Paul reinforced in Romans 8: and 2 Corinthians 4:16–18. “They have their reward” (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16), and that reward is all they will ever get. They may gain the whole world, but they lose their own souls. This is the fate of all who follow their example and sacrifice the eternal for the temporal.

Verses 16–18 have been misunderstood by those who say that Solomon was teaching “moderation” in everyday life: don’t be too righteous, but don’t be too great a sinner. “Play it safe!” say these cautious philosophers, but this is not what Solomon wrote.

In the Hebrew text, the verbs in verse 16 carry the idea of reflexive action. Solomon said to the people, “Don’t claim to be righteous and don’t claim to be wise.” In other words, he was warning them against self-righteousness and the pride that comes when we think we have “arrived” and know it all. Solomon made it clear in verse 20 that there are no righteous people, so he cannot be referring to true righteousness. He was condemning the self-righteousness of the hypocrite and the false wisdom of the proud, and he warned that these sins led to destruction and death.

Verse 18 balances the warning: we should take hold of true righteousness and should not withdraw from true wisdom, and the way to do it is to walk in the fear of God. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10), and Jesus Christ is to the believer “wisdom and righteousness” (1 Cor. 1:30), so God’s people need not “manufacture” these blessings themselves.

“Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city” (v. 19 niv). The wise person fears the Lord and therefore does not fear anyone or anything else (Ps. 112). He walks with the Lord and has the adequacy necessary to face the challenges of life, including war (see 9:13–18).

What are some of the problems in life that we must face and overcome?

Sin (v. 20, and note 1 Kings 8:46). We are all guilty of both sins of omission (“doeth good”) and sins of commission (“sinneth not”). If we walk in the fear of God and follow His wisdom, we will be able to detect and defeat the wicked one when he comes to tempt us. Wisdom will guide us and guard us in our daily walk.

What people say about us (vv. 21–22). The wise person pays no attention to the gossip of the day because he has more important matters which to attend. Charles Spurgeon told his pastoral students that the minister ought to have one blind eye and one deaf ear. “You cannot stop people’s tongues,” he said, “and therefore the best thing to do is to stop your own ears and never mind what is spoken. There is a world of idle chitchat abroad, and he who takes note of it will have enough to do” (Lectures to My Students; Marshall, Morgan, and Scott reprint edition, 1965, 321). Of course, if we are honest, we may have to confess that we have done our share of talking about others! (See Ps. 38 and Matt. 7:1–3.)

Our inability to grasp the meaning of all that God is doing in this world (vv. 23–25; and see 3:11; 8:17). Even Solomon with all his God-given wisdom could not understand all that exists, how God manages it, and what purposes He has in mind. He searched for the “reason [scheme] of things” but found no final answers to all his questions. However, the wise man knows that he does not know, and this is what helps to make him wise!

The sinfulness of humanity in general (vv. 26–29). Solomon began with the sinful woman, the prostitute who traps men and leads them to death (v. 26; and see Prov. 2:16–19; 5:3–6; 6:24–26; 7:5–27). Solomon himself had been snared by many foreign women who enticed him away from the Lord and into the worship of heathen gods (1 Kings 11:3–8). The way to escape this evil woman is to fear God and seek to please Him.

Solomon concluded that the whole human race was bound by sin and one man in a thousand was wise— and not one woman! (The number 1,000 is significant in the light of 1 Kings 11:3.) We must not think that Solomon rated women as less intelligent than men, because this is not the case. He spoke highly of women in Proverbs (12:4; 14:1; 18:22; 19:14; 31:10ff.), Ecclesiastes (9:9), and certainly in the Song of Solomon. In the book of Proverbs, Solomon even pictured God’s wisdom as a beautiful woman (1:20ff.; 8:1ff.; 9:1ff.). But keep in mind that women in that day had neither the freedom nor the status that they have today, and it would be unusual for a woman to have learning equal to that of a man. It was considered a judgment of God for women to rule over the land (Isa. 3:12; but remember Miriam and Deborah, two women who had great leadership ability).

God made man (Adam) upright, but Adam disobeyed God and fell, and now all men are sinners who seek out many clever inventions. Created in the image of God, man has the ability to understand and harness the forces God put into nature, but he doesn’t always use this ability in constructive ways. Each forward step in science seems to open up a Pandora’s box of new problems for the world, until we now find ourselves with the problems of polluted air and water and depleted natural resources. And besides that, man has used his abilities to devise alluring forms of sin that are destroying individuals and nations.

Yes, there are many snares and temptations in this evil world, but the person with godly wisdom will have the power to overcome. Solomon has proved his point: wisdom can make our lives better and clearer and stronger. We may not fully understand all that God is doing, but we will have enough wisdom to live for the good of others and the glory of God.