"7 A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
2 It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
and the living will lay it to heart.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise
than to hear the song of fools.
6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
so is the laughter of the fools;
this also is vanity.
7 Surely oppression drives the wise into madness,
and a bribe corrupts the heart.
8 Better is the end of a thing than its beginning,
and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
9 Be not quick in your spirit to become angry,
for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.
10 Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”
For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
11 Wisdom is good with an inheritance,
an advantage to those who see the sun.
12 For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money,
and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.
13 Consider the work of God:
who can make straight what he has made crooked?
14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him."
Ecclesiastes 7:1-14
The connection of this chapter with what precedes it seems to lie in what is said in 6:12, 'Who knoweth what is good for man in this life?', for this question is taken up in these verses, with 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11 all beginning in the Hebrew with the word 'better. Here is a collection of proverbs, wise sayings, enshrining the wisdom the Preacher has gathered over the years. At first sight, these seem to be filled with pessimism, even cynicism and despair, yet is this how we are to understand them? Do we understand them best when we understand them thus? Hardly. We have noticed the Preacher's realistic approach to life, and this, it seems, is the key to understanding what he is saying. After all, we have already seen how cheerful and detached he really is, and how he encourages us to rejoice in the good things of life. He can hardly be regarded, therefore, as contradicting that in what he now goes on to say. Rather, it is his realism that is coming through. For example, in the opening verses, and especially in 3, 4, the point he is making is that sorrow is nearer to reality than feasting. What he is doing is setting forth a wisdom of life which takes account of the great negatives - adversity, sorrow, death. And it is unthinking laughter, superficial gaiety, that are contrasted with a more serious view of life. And, paradoxically, it is precisely people who have taken, and do take, life seriously - and the world, and experience, and themselves, and God - who can really learn true merriment and gladness. Conversely, those who do not are empty and vain; and anything, surely, is better than that.