Ecclesiastes 7:1 – OK, I get that ‘a good name’ is better, but ‘the day of death’?
Ecclesiastes 7:3 – “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.” That’s contrary to what we believe. We chase the laughter and gladness. I have to admit, I don’t quite get what Solomon is advising in these verses. Are we to seek out sadness and sorrow?
Ecclesiastes 7:9 – “Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.” Yep, been there. It’s not good.
Ecclesiastes 7:10 – “Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” I love this. It’s one of my pet peeves that folks lament the ‘good old days’. Human nature has not changed in all of human history, in my view. The old days are no more good than the ‘new days’, at least as far as how evil people are. When folks try to say that people were better back then, I say no, they were only perhaps better at hiding it.
Ecclesiastes 7:18 – It always comes back to Fearing God. Don’t be too righteous, don’t be too foolish – fear God.
Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.
Ecclesiastes 7:21-22
How true and wise. We often say things that we regret and many times don’t have the opportunity to apologize. We want folks to be forgiving of us in those circumstances, yet when we are hurt by careless words that are later regretted, we tend to hold onto it, taking to heart that which was said in haste and in error. If we would have taken it back if we could, why should we assume they wouldn’t?
I have to say, this chapter really confused me in spots. I read it over and over and didn’t quite get it. Anyone know what Ecclesiastes 7:25-29 is about?
” Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. Ecclesiastes 7:21-22″
I often take things too personally, and I let these things bother me. Im glad to see a scriptural basis for letting these things pass.
“25 I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. 26 And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. 27 Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things— 28 which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. 29 See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”
Sounds like he got burned. Probably from seeking out the folly and foolishness. More than that I dont know.
As far as Eccl 7:25 – 29, maybe the answer is bacon?
Seriously though, Solomon (shorter than saying ‘the writer of Eccl’) is on a quest for wisdom throughout Eccl. He tries great achievement, great folly, great excess, etc. In 7:25, it seems to be he is talking more about his quest to understand wisdom and how things work.
Then, he goes on to mention that while on his search, he a few things:
* A bad woman is worse than death.
Think about the kind of woman described elsewhere in Proverbs whose heart could be full of “snares and nets”. Constrast this to the complete opposite, the Proverbs 31 woman.
* Upright people are scarce.
I don’t want to do what Peterson (the Message) did and pretend that Solomon didn’t say that he has never met an upright woman. I will say though, that whether or not he met an upright woman has no bearing on the ultimate existence of an upright woman. I married one, you married one, too.
* We were made to do good, but we plot and scheme all kinds of evil.
I think of Ephesians 2:10. Considering the lack of upright people, it’s not surprise that we thwart God’s intent. Sin leads us away from God and who He created us to be.
***
Just my thoughts – could very well be off-base.
Hahaha! There you go jumping into shark infested waters again. 🙂
I’ve been closing in on an understanding of 25-29 for a while now. Thinking about it just here, I wonder if maybe I’m not even a little closer.
I married a great specimen of womanhood. Intelligent, curious, fun, honorable. She could be a queen today, given the opportunity. She’d fill the bill in every way.
Then she outgrew Christ and left both Him and me.
Talk about a bad taste in the old mouth!
Solomon had to keep all his wives and concubines and conquests and probably the occasional random woman whom he just wasn’t quite sure whether he’d really married or not. And the exciting ones (the ones who obviously had the stuff to get his attention) all chased other gods.
If you were a woman who valued God, would you chase Solomon?
So, I reckon there were a lot of high quality women Solomon never got a whiff of. And I reckon he never knew what he was missing. I mean, come on. He had his father David for an example, and David married everything that shook a skirt at him, too.
I think what we see here is a tremendous, bleeding wound on a child of God. I think it’s on a direct par with Abram letting Pharaoh have time with his wife. It’s damage plain and simple.
So in the end, I agree with Brian and Pinakidion, but I wanted to do it in my own inimitable idiom. 🙂
> Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
Who knows exactly what Solomon meant, but just turning off the laugh-track on our lives will do amazing things for our hearts. My understanding is the Puritans were the happiest people who ever lived.
“The old days are no more good than the ‘new days'”
..in a general sense that is true Doug but many after an accident, health crisis or death often view the past as better than the present.. but also hope that the future will be better than the present.
I know that I’ve learned more about God in my sorrow.
I think that Job might have said what Milly wrote.