When times are good, be happy (7:14). It may strike us as odd that acute awareness of the brevity and severity of life should prompt us to enjoy ourselves when the opportunity presents itself, but this is a major feature of the Egyptian Harpers’ Songs. The Hebrew phrase in verse 14 translated “when times are good” is literally “on a good day.” The expression “a good day” is used in the Harpers’ Songs to describe a time when things are going well and one ought to have some fun.30 At the same time, Ecclesiastes is not simply repeating the maxims of Egyptian wisdom. The focus on enjoying life in the context of patient submission to the circumstances in which God puts us (“God has made the one as well as the other”—v. 14) is distinctive to Ecclesiastes.
Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise (7:16). This attitude stands in contrast with much of the advice of the classic wisdom teaching of the ancient world, which taught precisely that prudence and piety does protect us from harm. For example, we read in the Egyptian Instruction of Any: “Observe the feast of your god, / And repeat its season, / God is angry if it is neglected.”31 It would be a mistake, however, to take Ecclesiastes simply as a cynical piece of anti-wisdom. The exhortations here stem from a conviction that all persons are sinful (7:22, 29) and thus that all attempts to impress God with personal piety fail.32 Also, Ecclesiastes drives the reader to a more profound understanding of the fear of God than that reflected in the external piety of the Egyptian admonition.