1A good name is better than fine perfume,
and the day of death better than the day of birth.
2It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of every man;
the living should take this to heart.
3Sorrow is better than laughter,
because a sad face is good for the heart.
4The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.
5It is better to heed a wise man’s rebuke
than to listen to the song of fools.
6Like the crackling of thorns under the pot,
so is the laughter of fools.
This too is meaningless.
7Extortion turns a wise man into a fool,
and a bribe corrupts the heart.
8The end of a matter is better than its beginning,
and patience is better than pride.
9Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit,
for anger resides in the lap of fools.
10Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”
For it is not wise to ask such questions.
11Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing
and benefits those who see the sun.
12Wisdom is a shelter
as money is a shelter,
but the advantage of knowledge is this:
that wisdom preserves the life of its possessor.
THAT THE FIRST question of 6:12 (“Who knows what is good [ṭob] for a man in life?”) is not meant to imply a complete lack of human knowledge about what is good, but is intended only to remind us of its contingent and limited nature, is already clear from everything that has preceded this verse in the book. Throughout his discourse on human folly and misery, and even as he has touched on the folly of expecting too much of wisdom (1:12–18; 2:12–16), Qohelet has never deviated from his conviction that some ways of being are better than others—indeed, wisdom is better than folly—and that the good life is bound up with knowing and accepting that this is so (e.g., 2:13, 24–26; 3:12–13, 22; 4:6, 9, 13; 6:9). The point is now underlined in the opening verses of chapter 7, as numerous “good” things (ṭob) are described and often compared to “better” (also ṭob) things.
The reality of death lies at the heart of the opening verses (7:1–6). If previously our author has used death to relativize wisdom, here it is introduced as an incentive to embrace wisdom rather than folly. There is a middle path to be walked between idolizing wisdom and despising it. As verse 2 puts it, “death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart [leb]”; that is, death as human destiny should be deeply rooted in the inner person and be grasped by mind, emotions, and will.1 It is part of the wisdom one needs to live the good life that we should embrace forthrightly the fact of death. Recognizing the brevity and preciousness of life, we should live life seriously.
In this spirit Qohelet commends to us in verse 2 mourning rather than feasting and “pleasure” (śimḥa, “joy,” v. 4), and in verse 3 sorrow rather than laughter. The wise person mourns and listens to rebuke from those who are wise (vv. 4–5). It is the fool who pursues joy and listens only to the songs and the laughter of other fools (vv. 4–6). Qohelet has previously written of such things as joy and eating and drinking as aspects of the good life as it is received from God (e.g., 2:24–26). We are not to think, therefore, that these things in themselves are being criticized here. It is, rather, the pursuit of them as part of a frivolous and trivializing way of life that is under consideration.
There is a way of living that is centered on feasting, on the pursuit of joy, on empty laughter and singing. This is life lived in denial of the true nature of things, hoping to push reality to the margins by flooding the senses with sensation and drowning out quiet contemplation with noise. For such a person, the heart’s home is found in these activities (v. 4). The “day of birth” (v. 1) is life’s defining moment—a day of celebration and unbounded optimism, looking ahead to the fulfillment of all manner of human potential. Given that reality is indeed reality, however, this mode of existence is ultimately futile (v. 6).
By contrast, there is a way of living that is centered on reality. It recognizes that there is a “day of death” (v. 1) as well as a day of birth and that, at least from the point of view of focusing the mind on the business of living, the day of death is the “better” of the two (just as the possession of a good “name” or reputation is of more lasting value than the possession of “fine perfume,” even if people are in due course forgotten after their deaths [2:16; 9:5]). Here death, as well as birth, defines life, and there is an underlying personal seriousness alongside other things (the heart’s home is the “house of mourning,” v. 4). Depth is, in fact, a characteristic of the person who lives in the light of reality, just as superficiality is the mark of the life in denial. The wise person knows the value of things. This is clear from verses 5–6, where words having moral content and directed at the important question of how we should live (the “rebuke”) are preferred to the inane, pointless (hebel, NIV “meaningless”) sounds produced by fools, whether in song or in laughter.
The same theme is probably to be found in verse 3, translated thus: “Anger [kaʿas; NIV “sorrow”] is better than laughter, for a glowering countenance is good for the heart.” The Hebrew word kaʿas is used more often of anger than of sorrow in the Old Testament, particularly of God’s response to sin (e.g., 1 Kings 14:9; 16:2; see also comment on Eccl. 1:18 and below on 7:9). It is only the deeply lost fool who, in response to his folly, prefers sycophantic laughter to redemptive disapproval. Laughter in the midst of folly brings nothing to the situation other than noise (7:6, unless the thought is also that it positively contributes to the fool’s downfall; cf. Ezek. 11:1–11 for the imagery of the pot in the context of divine judgment). Rebuke brings the possibility of change (cf. Prov. 15:31; 17:10).
Verse 7 appears at first sight to have little to do with the theme of verses 1–6, until it is noticed that it, too, concerns the state of the inner personal life (the “heart,” leb), the health and orientation of which has been the subject of verses 1–6. Perhaps it is the thought of associating with and being influenced by fools that leads on in particular to the scenario in which the wise person submits to the temptation to gain wealth through economic oppression and bribery.
The pursuit of wealth has already been characterized as folly on numerous occasions in Ecclesiastes (cf. especially 4:1–12, with its treatment of oppression, Heb. ʿošeq, translated in 7:7 as “extortion”). The wise person who joins the insane race after possessions, compromising integrity in the process, becomes just as much a fool as the wise person who joins with fools in empty laughter (note that Heb. hll, “turns . . . into a fool” [7:7], is used of laughter in 2:2 [it “is foolish”]). It is the pursuit of God, rather than the pursuit of either laughter or wealth, that in turn reintegrates laughter and wealth into the good life and makes them wholesome.
Verses 8–9 pick up the general idea from verse 1 that it is the end of things that should dictate wise behavior rather than their beginning, but they apply this idea now to specific matters rather than to the whole of life. Qohelet advocates a patient attitude toward life. A wise person will not react immediately to circumstances but will take a longer term view, waiting to see the full measure of a matter before deciding how to respond. It is the fool who arrogantly or angrily makes an immediate response (cf. Prov. 12:16; 14:29), giving speedy expression to the anger that has been nursed in his “lap” as if it were a young child in need of being kept warm. Note that “anger” in verse 9 is again kaʿas, as in verse 3. Anger directed at foolish behavior for the purposes of bringing the fool to his senses is a good thing. Anger as an indication of impatience and arrogance is itself a mark of the fool.
The precise connection between verse 10 and what precedes it is unclear. Perhaps the question represents one particular example of the impatience and anger described in verses 8–9, in that it expresses dissatisfaction with the present and suggests a questioner unwilling to take a patient, long-term view of life. An early assessment has rather been made, in which present experience is contrasted unfavorably with past experience and a conclusion reached that disputes the statement of verse 8 (“the end of a matter is better . . .”).
Alternatively, it may simply be that the connection between verse 10 and what precedes it lies in the idea of what is “better” more generally. All sorts of things may be assessed as “better” than others in the context of inquiry into how human beings should presently live their lives, and this inquiry is worthwhile, since it leads immediately to practical consequences. To ask why the past was better than the present, however—even if it is true that it was—is to ask a question that by comparison is of little value. “It is not wise to ask such questions,” whereas it is wise to ask whether, for example, patience is better than pride.
Verses 11–12 sum up the value of wisdom for “those who see the sun,” that is, for all human beings. It is like an “inheritance” passed down through the generations so that those who now receive it may live well. It brings “benefit” (yoter) to those who are its recipients. It is similar to a monetary inheritance in that it provides “shelter” or protection from much of the harshness of life. Yet wisdom has this advantage (yitron) over money: It brings continuing life to the one who possesses it, as opposed to the living death so often enjoyed by the wealthy that has been graphically described in the preceding chapters. As Proverbs 3:13–18 puts it:
Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,
the man who gains understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver
and yields better returns than gold.
She is more precious than rubies;
nothing you desire can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are pleasant ways,
and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who embrace her;
those who lay hold of her will be blessed.
The contrasting case is given in Proverbs 11:28:
Whoever trusts in his riches will fall,
but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.
To embrace wisdom is to embrace life itself, along with all the gifts that may be bestowed with life—length of days and riches and honor. But to embrace and pursue riches and honor of themselves is to head for disaster; as we have seen, even length of days is of itself not necessarily a blessing (Eccl. 6:1–6). Money is something of a shelter against the winds of misfortune that so often blow through life, yet it cannot match the sort of comprehensive protection provided by wisdom. It is for this reason that the father in Proverbs 4:5–7 urges his son:
Get wisdom, get understanding;
do not forget my words or swerve from them.
Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;
love her, and she will watch over you.
Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.
Though it cost all you have, get understanding.
Bridging Contexts
THE PATH THROUGH life that is an expression of, and leads on to, everlasting life is defined in the Scriptures as a narrow path (Matt. 7:13–14). The point about most narrow paths is that it is possible to stray from them on either side. Christian theology rooted in the Scriptures likewise tries to walk a narrow and difficult path, holding complex truths together in the center rather than giving in to the temptation to resolve things simplistically at the extremes and margins.
On the topic of wisdom and the proper attitude that mortal beings should strike in relation to it, the narrow path lies between the extremes of the idolization of wisdom on the one hand, and the despising of it on the other. It is this middle road on wisdom that is mapped out for us in Ecclesiastes 7, as Qohelet first of all extols wisdom and provides us with some specifics for our journey (7:1–12), before going on to mix further similar material with reflections on wisdom’s limitations (7:13–29).
The heart of Qohelet’s concern is that his listeners should live life seriously, with the whole course of the journey in mind. Christian readers are immediately reminded of the second beatitude in Matthew 5:4 (“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”), reflected also in the third beatitude of Luke 6:21 (“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh”). Qohelet’s ultimate “journey’s end” is different from the one described in the Gospels, of course, in that he does not betray any definite conviction about an afterlife, but the idea that the “end” should determine our view of the journey is the same. There is no room for frivolity in life, given that it ends in death and beyond that (as the Gospels make clear) divine judgment and redemption. Life is a deeply serious matter.
The “blessed” form of saying in the beatitudes is itself a form found in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament and in other texts influenced by the wisdom tradition (e.g., Prov. 3:13, 18; 8:32, 34). Perhaps the most famous example is Psalm 1, which speaks of two paths through life and their eventual destinations. That person is blessed (knows a life that is deeply rewarding) who does not follow the advice of the wicked rather than God’s guidance, nor shares the way of life of those who deviate from God’s standards, nor gathers together and spends time with those who mock God and his law (Ps. 1:1). This person rather delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it throughout his or her waking hours (1:2), seeking to have it imprinted on both mind and emotions. The consequence is that there is a solidity and a fertility about this person’s life, and he or she is able to withstand even the fiercest storms of life’s experience (Ps. 1:3). The wicked, on the other hand—the self-ruled, self-grounded, self-centered, and self-seeking—are like the husks of corn thrown up in the air during the winnowing process at harvest. Their lives are insubstantial, and they will not stand in the judgment (1:4–5). Here is wisdom, then, and wisdom leads on to blessing, whether in Psalm 1 or in Matthew 5:3–12.
Jesus’ beatitudes in Matthew 5 set a larger context in which the whole of Qohelet’s message can in fact be more clearly heard. It is only in this larger context that it becomes clear that those who mourn (Eccl. 7:2–4) will indeed be comforted; that those who refrain from grasping after “gain” (3:12–13) but instead adopt the attitude of the poor and the meek, will in due course inherit the earth that they have not sought to control; that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness and are merciful to others, rather than hungering and thirsting after success and power and trampling on their neighbors to possess it (4:1–3), will be filled with good things and will know mercy; that those who have integrity and pursue peace instead of domination will see God and be owned by God; and that those who know the world’s anger because of the pursuit of righteousness will receive their due reward from God.
The serious way of life that Jesus also recommends is not in the New Testament any more than in Ecclesiastes, of course, a way of life that is joyless and repressive, for it is a seriousness lived out before the God of grace and goodness. The blessed who mourn are the same blessed people who are already invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9) and in the meantime know that God has “blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). They know blessing already in the keeping of “the perfect law that gives freedom” (James 1:25; cf. Luke 11:28). A serious life is not a gloomy life.
Jesus himself models for us what it looks like. It is a life firmly based on reality, one that does not allow itself to be distracted from the right path by illusion or delusion; yet it is a way of being that, in being focused on God who is ultimate reality, knows liberation and joy—and is capable of knowing this even in the midst of adversity and grief. The language of blessedness thus attaches itself even to persecution and suffering in the New Testament (e.g., James 1:2, 12; 1 Peter 3:14; 4:14), as does the language of joy (e.g., 2 Cor. 7:4; 8:2; 1 Thess. 1:6). The “man of sorrows” himself knew joy (Isa. 53:3; John 15:11; 17:13) and did not refrain from enjoying the good creation that the triune God has provided for the blessing of all mortal life.
The serious life does involve anger, however (Eccl. 7:3, 5). Anger, like wisdom, can be both a good thing and a bad thing as far as the Bible is concerned. God, who is good, is frequently described as being angry with his creatures because of their wickedness. Jesus, who is God incarnate, is likewise often portrayed in the Gospels, whether explicitly or implicitly, as expressing anger (Mark 3:5; John 2:14–16). There is such a thing as righteous anger, which is provoked by sin; ordinary human beings are in principle capable of this anger too, as the apostle Paul implies in Ephesians 4:26, when he urges Christians not to allow anger to become the occasion of sin (and thus suggests that it need not; cf. Ps. 4:4).
There is no essential virtue in not being angry when confronted by wickedness, and there is certainly none in failing to rebuke another person for engaging in wickedness. Such a failure is a failure to love one’s neighbor. Yet righteous anger is not easy for human beings to achieve; after all, this sort of anger is bound up with other aspects of God’s character, like grace and compassion, and its expression in speech and action is therefore slow and measured (e.g., Ex. 34:6; Num. 14:18; Ps. 86:15). There is a need for human beings also not to be quickly provoked (Eccl. 7:9; cf. Prov. 29:11). Beyond that, however, it is clearly the case that anger in human beings is almost inevitably bound up with far from righteous thoughts and motivations. Righteous anger is difficult to achieve because we are not righteous in general. Thus many biblical references to human anger presuppose it to be a wicked or at least a dangerous thing (e.g., Matt. 5:22; 2 Cor. 12:20; Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:8; James 1:20). Anger must be kept under control, so that when we relate to others, we are able to remember that we should be acting for their good and not for our satisfaction. The wise person’s rebuke must always be uttered in such a spirit (e.g., Gal. 6:1; 2 Tim. 2:23–26; Heb. 5:2), even if the actions that provoke the rebuke are reprehensible and have made the wise person rightly angry.
This is not unconnected to Qohelet’s insistence that we should not look back wistfully to the past (Eccl. 7:10). The Bible does not commonly assess the present in terms of the past, but much more typically does so in terms of the future, with all its potential for change. Those who insist on harking back to the past often impose burdens on those who live in the present, from which they cannot escape. But to set the present in the context of the future is to set a path before someone else that allows the past to be left behind and a new way of being to be embraced.
It is such continuing “life” that is said to derive from wisdom as this section of Ecclesiastes comes to a close (7:11–12). It is not at all clear within the confines of Qohelet’s thought what exactly such an assertion may mean, for Qohelet knows very well that wisdom does not always preserve the physical life of its possessor (e.g., 7:15). We find similar sayings about “life” in the book of Proverbs, where they are equally puzzling (e.g., Prov. 3:18; 12:28; 15:24). In the end their meaning only becomes clear as books like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are read in the context of the whole of Christian Scripture and we realize that the “life” being spoken of refers not only to present, temporal existence but also to ongoing, eternal existence. It is in the whole eternal scheme of things that the truth of such sayings is recognized, as what is lacking in “life” here is made up as life continues with God.
I see the Raves as a religious ritual. The God is technology. The music is Techno. . . .
The Rave experience is a spiritual cleansing from the stressed out politically correct technological society.2
We live in an escapist culture. The materialist mansion that we as modern people have constructed for ourselves has become for many an unbearably oppressive prison whose spiritual emptiness is all too apparent. The sensible course of action is to visit the archives, find the building plans, and begin a discussion of what has gone wrong. This would be to admit, however, that a mistake has been made, and there is widespread unwillingness to consider that option—not least because, even in our heartfelt misery, we still rather like our living quarters and do not want to move out.
The alternative choice is escapism, that is, the modern attempt to have our materialist cake and to eat it, but to drown its taste with strong wine. We embrace modern reality to the extent that it is convenient for us to do so for the purposes of income and security, but we make it palatable by fleeing from it as soon as we are able and entering the world of fantasy, where the mind need no longer be engaged and the senses and the appetites can take over.
The object is to shut out the pain of the everyday world. Movies and TV soaps achieve this for some; parties and “raves” for others. Drugs can be combined with almost any such activity to increase one’s personal distance from what is ordinary and mundane. This is homo sapiens in party mode, who borrows his or her motto for partying, perversely, from Qohelet (albeit it in corrupt form): “Let us eat, drink, and be merry” (cf. Luke 12:19). It is a motto well understood by those who work in the advertising industry, who exploit it relentlessly in their pursuit of sales. The human desire for wild, uninhibited “fun” can always be relied on, apparently, to increase the consumption of goods. Advertisers have grasped this truth: that we seem perfectly willing, as a culture, to party our way into oblivion.
That the escapism often has religious overtones is made clear by the quote at the head of this section. It is “spiritual cleansing” from modern culture that is sought—a way out from under the crushing weight of a world that defines our humanness in terms of our economic usefulness and productivity, constricts our imagination and creativity, and can tell us nothing about what it all means. The answer lies, it is thought (whether consciously or not), in using modern technology itself to liberate us from the everyday society that oppresses us. We feel better about it all once we have spent an evening watching our favorite TV shows or have danced the night away while drugged with Ecstasy or alcohol to heighten the experience, that is, once we have entered a “sacred” space away from the normal secular and enslaving space we regularly occupy. As Bowman again puts it with respect to his version of escapist religion:
Techno music is the only place that technology is used for the benefit of primal man. The beat of Techno is made to match the beat of his primal heart. The rhythm is made to match the rhythm of his primordial soul.
Modern religion is enlisted in the pursuit of primal man—our “real selves.” Ancient religion is also not far away, however:
Dayton Ohio’s first Raves coincided with the full moon. Those that felt the vibrations cleansed their soul as primal man had done a million years earlier. But it was different! This time there were two Gods. One was represented by the moon, the other by technology.
Against all such escapism, whether outside or inside the Christian church (some of whose modern worship bears a striking resemblance to non-Christian escapism in both its motivations and form), Qohelet should help us set our face, even as we empathize with and grieve over the sense of personal alienation that produces it. Biblical faith is not escapist. It does not advocate the evacuation of the mind in the face of unpleasant facts, the embrace of fantasy in the face of a harsh reality, or the increase of both noise and activity lest the silence frighten us and our inactivity give us time to think. It certainly does not advise us to seek redemption by dancing the night (or the morning) away to songs with meaningless or banal lyrics that awaken our “primal” instincts (as if that were a good thing). Biblical faith does not advocate a “party culture,” as Qohelet makes clear.
The healing of our pain of which the Bible speaks requires us to confront reality rather than to seek to escape from it. One of these realities is death. It invites us to embrace that reality rather than to push it away; all the partying in the world will not push it away forever. It invites us to allow the fact of death, looked squarely in the eye, to do its work in us. It invites us to pursue the question of death to the end rather than to pursue joy, and to help us to accept this implausible invitation, it claims that to make joy our focus is only in any case to know death now and also forever.
The work that death and its friend illness must do in our lives is to break in on us and confront us with this important reality, namely, that we are mortal beings who only live for a short time, whereas God is God. Death is an evangelist. It helps us to see that there is a great gulf fixed between Creator and creature and places us in a position therefore truly to worship and to repent of our sins. In God’s grace death and illness offer us the gift of knowing the preciousness of mortal life, which must soon pass away, and therefore of knowing the importance of not wasting time. In God’s grace death and illness also offer us the beginnings of wisdom and insight about how to live life well during our time here, for death, if looked courageously in the eye, allows the embrace of wisdom and thus of life, even in the midst of death. Death allows the embrace of serious living before God, which has at its heart “the fear of the LORD.”
True, death is our great enemy (1 Cor. 15:26); yet paradoxically in God’s grace, it becomes our friend, because it convinces us to die to self and abdicate the throne of our lives to God, who is the sovereign King. It is, in the end, only this dying to self that removes death’s sting; for there is then nothing left, in the end, to lose (15:55–56). Death is not to be escaped—and indeed, will not be escaped. It is best met face to face on the road and studied.
Only those who have truly met and understood death and have thus understood themselves can truly understand who God is and what Christian faith means. Only such people fully understand what it means that immortality does not reside in us as a property of our being and that resurrection must come to us as an utter and surprising gift and not (even for Christians) as a right. The path to resurrection passes through death’s citadel, both in the reality and in the comprehension of it. Death must teach us things that no one else can.
This wisdom and more “benefit those who see the sun” (Eccl. 7:11). They walk in darkness who deliberately put themselves in places where they cannot find such wisdom, preferring the worship of their modern, escapist gods.
They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. (Rev. 12:11)