Ecclesiastes 7
What Happens in This Chapter
The Teacher collects sayings that compare things people usually rank the other way: a funeral over a feast, sorrow over laughter, a rebuke from the wise over the song of fools, patience over pride. He says wisdom protects a person like money does, but no one can straighten what God has bent, and God sets good days and hard days side by side so no one can figure out what comes next. He observes that a righteous man can perish in his righteousness while a wicked man lives long, warns against extremes in either direction, and says no one on earth does good and never sins. He then describes his own search for wisdom, which stayed out of reach, and ends with what he did find: God made people upright, but they have gone looking for many schemes.
A good reputation is worth more than expensive perfume, and the day a person dies is better than the day he was born.
1A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
Perfumed oil was a costly luxury in the ancient Near East, used for grooming, hospitality and burial; it was stored as wealth the way jewelry might be. The line also turns on a pun that English cannot carry: the Hebrew for "name" is *shem* and for "oil/perfume" *shemen*.
2It is better to go to a house where people are mourning than to a house where people are feasting, because death is how every person ends, and the living should take that to heart.
2It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.
A "house of mourning" is a household in the middle of a funeral. Mourning was a public, communal affair lasting seven days or more, with visitors coming to the bereaved home to weep, sit with the family and eat a mourners' meal. The "house of feasting" is its opposite: a banquet, likewise held over days.
3Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face does the heart good.
3Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.
"Heart" in Hebrew is not the seat of feeling as opposed to thought. It is the whole inner person, mind, will, judgment and emotion together. Throughout this chapter, wherever "heart" appears, read something closer to "mind" or "inner self".
4The heart of a wise person is in the house of mourning, but the heart of a fool is in the house of pleasure.
4The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
5It is better to listen to a wise person correct you than to listen to the singing of fools.
5It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.
6The laughter of a fool is like the crackling of thorn branches burning under a pot. This too is empty.
6For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.
Dry thornbush was cheap, quick-burning fuel: it flares up with a lot of loud snapping and is gone before the pot is hot. The Hebrew adds a pun, *sirim* (thorns) under a *sir* (pot). "Empty" here translates *hebel*, literally vapor or a puff of breath, the key word of Ecclesiastes, used nearly forty times for what is fleeting, insubstantial and impossible to grasp. The King James renders it "vanity", which in 1611 meant emptiness or futility, not conceit.
7Squeezing money out of people turns a wise man into a fool, and a bribe ruins the heart.
7Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.
8The end of something is better than its beginning, and a patient spirit is better than a proud one.
8Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
9Do not let your spirit be quick to get angry, because anger settles down in the lap of fools.
9Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
The "lap" or "bosom" is the fold of a loose garment at the chest, where a person carried possessions close to the body. To say anger settles there is to say the fool keeps it on him, carried about rather than set down.
10Do not ask, "Why were the old days better than these?" It is not wise of you to ask that question.
10Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.
11Wisdom is good, as good as an inheritance, and it benefits those who are alive to see the sun.
11Wisdom is good with an inheritance: and by it there is profit to them that see the sun.
12Wisdom gives shelter, and so does money, but the advantage of knowledge is this: wisdom keeps its owner alive.
12For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.
The Hebrew word behind the King James "defence" is literally "shade" or "shadow". In that climate shade is not a pleasant extra but survival, so it became a standard image for protection, the shelter of a wall, a patron or a king.
13Think about what God does. Who can straighten what he has bent?
13Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?
14When times are good, be glad. When times are hard, stop and think: God has made the one day along with the other, so that no one can find out anything about what comes after him.
14In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.
The last clause is deliberately open in Hebrew. "Find out anything after him" can mean discover what the future holds, or discover what will happen once he is gone. The wording does not settle which, and the rendering leaves it unsettled.
15In my brief and empty life I have seen both of these: a good man dying even though he does what is right, and a wicked man living a long life even though he does wrong.
15All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.
16Do not be righteous to excess, and do not make yourself too wise. Why destroy yourself?
16Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself ?
This verse and the next have been argued over for centuries. The Hebrew verb forms can mean "be righteous / be wise" or "make yourself out to be righteous / play the wise man", so the advice may warn against righteousness pressed to extremes, or against a performance of it. The rendering keeps both readings open.
17Do not be wicked to excess, and do not be a fool. Why die before your time?
17Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?
18It is good to take hold of the one and not let go of the other, because the person who fears God will come through with both of them.
18It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this; yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand: for he that feareth God shall come forth of them all.
"The one" and "the other" are the two warnings just given in verses 16 and 17. The closing phrase is literally "will go out with both of them", an idiom that can mean either escapes both dangers or discharges both obligations.
19Wisdom makes a wise man stronger than ten rulers in a city.
19Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city.
The Hebrew word means men who hold power, city officials or magistrates, rather than the warriors suggested by the King James "mighty men". Cities of the period were governed by a small body of such men, and "ten" pictures a full complement of them.
20There is certainly no one on earth who is righteous, who does good and never sins.
20For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
21Also, do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your own servant curse you.
21Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee:
The Hebrew verb here means to belittle, disparage or speak lightly of someone. It does not require calling down a supernatural curse; it covers ordinary bad-mouthing behind a person's back.
22You know in your own heart that many times you too have cursed other people.
22For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.
23I tested all of this with wisdom. I said, "I am going to be wise." But wisdom stayed out of my reach.
23All this have I proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me.
24Whatever exists is far away and very deep. Who can figure it out?
24That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?
25I turned my mind to learn, to explore, and to search out wisdom and the explanation of things, and to understand how wicked foolishness is, and how stupid and senseless.
25I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness:
26And I find something more bitter than death: the woman who is a trap, whose heart is a net and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God gets away from her, but the sinner is caught by her.
26And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.
Snare, net and chains are hunting and fishing equipment, the vocabulary of trapping game. The Hebrew has a definite article, "the woman", and readers have long disagreed whether it points to a particular type already familiar from the wisdom writings (the seductress of Proverbs) or makes a sweeping statement about women; the Hebrew does not decide it.
27"Look," says the Teacher, "this is what I found by adding one thing to another to work out the explanation:
27Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account:
"The Teacher" (the King James has "the Preacher") translates the Hebrew title *Qoheleth*, from a verb meaning to gather or assemble. It denotes someone who convenes an assembly and addresses it, not a preacher in the modern religious sense. The counting language that follows ("one by one", "the account") is drawn from bookkeeping.
28My soul kept searching and did not find it. Among a thousand I found one man, but among all of them I did not find one woman.
28Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.
The Hebrew says only "one *adam* among a thousand I found", what kind of one is left unstated, which is why translations supply words like "upright". *Adam* can mean a human being in general or a male in particular, and the contrast with "woman" in the second half is what makes the reading here specific. Some readers take the whole line as a saying the Teacher is quoting rather than one he endorses.
29This alone I found: God made people upright, but they have gone looking for many schemes."
29Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
"Man" here is *adam*, humankind collectively rather than a male individual. "Inventions" in the King James means devices, contrivances or schemes, not inventions in the modern technological sense; the Hebrew noun comes from the same counting-and-reckoning vocabulary used in verses 25 and 27, so the sense is calculations people have worked out for themselves.
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