Some remarks about conditions in life
7
📚A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.2 📚It 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 should take it to his heart.
7:2 The wise man will not reject the thought of death but will face it and learn much needed lessons from it.⚜
3 📚Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.
4 📚The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.
5 📚It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.
6 📚For the laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. This also is emptiness.
7:1-6 Solomon is convinced of the meaninglessness of his own life (v 15). Still he is sure that wisdom is better than folly and that there is a wise way of looking at things, and a wise way of living this brief life. He now sets out to describe what he thinks is the way of wisdom. He continues this theme to the end of the book.⚜
7:3-6 It is far more important for the heart to become wise than for men to go into empty pleasures which, for a time, bring laughter to the face. Sorrow can teach important lessons nothing else can teach.⚜
7 📚Surely oppression makes a wise man foolish, and a bribe destroys 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 📚Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit to anger, for anger rests in the bosom of fools.
10 📚Do not say, “Why is it that former days were better than these?” For you are not asking wisely concerning this.
11 📚Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and those who see the sun will have benefit from it.
12 📚For wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense, but the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.
13 📚Consider the work of God; for who can straighten what he has made crooked?
14 📚Be happy in the day of prosperity, but in the day of adversity consider. God has made the one as well as the other, so that man should not discover what comes after him.
7:11-14 Eccl 1:15. What God does man cannot undo. And what God may do no one can tell (Eccl 3:11; 8:17; Rom 11:33). God creates either good times or bad according to His perfect knowledge of what is just, right, and fitting for a people and a place. God wants men to consider their ways, turn to Him, recognize Him as the giver of all good things, and come to revere, trust, and love Him alone.⚜
15 📚I have seen everything in the days of my futility. There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness. 16 📚Do not be too righteous; neither be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself? 17 📚Do not be too wicked; neither be foolish. Why should you die before your time? 18 📚It is good for you to grasp the one, and not to let your hand go from the other; for he who fears God will depart from all extremes.
7:15-18 Verse 15 gives a truth that Job knew and Job’s friends refused to consider (Job 21:4-34). The wise man Solomon knew very well that sometimes the good die young and the wicked live on to a ripe old age. He probably means that some righteous people perish at the hands of the wicked.⚜
7:16-18 It is not easy to see exactly what Solomon meant by his words in v 16. Possibly he was warning against self-righteousness and pride of wisdom. Perhaps he is making a false conclusion from his own worldly wisdom. Remember, this book gives Solomon’s thoughts about what is best for men, not what God may think. All he says must be tested by the revelation God has given through Christ and His apostles.
Possibly Solomon means this: In a meaningless and wicked world for a man to try to push righteousness too far is to make himself an object of hatred and may cost him his life (compare Isa 59:15). If men do not desire righteousness it is useless and dangerous to force it on them. See Matt 7:6. We must be as righteous in our personal lives as it is possible to be, but we are not to be the accusers, prosecutors and judges of others who care nothing for our righteous principles. Of course great wickedness and foolishness are even more dangerous (v 17). It may bring the wrath of God as well as the wrath of men. The man who truly fears God will be able to discern the right course to follow (v 18).⚜
19 📚Wisdom strengthens the wise more than ten mighty men who are in the city. 20 📚For there is not a just man on earth who does good and who does not sin.
21 📚Also do not take heed to every word that is spoken, or you may hear your servant curse you; 22 📚For also your own heart knows that you yourself have often cursed others.
His quest for wisdom
23 📚All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise”, but it was far from me.
24 📚Who can discover what is far off and exceedingly deep? 25 📚I applied my heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, and of foolishness and madness; 26 📚And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands like chains. Whoever pleases God will escape from her, but the sinner will be taken by her. 27 📚Look, I have discovered this, says the teacher, adding one thing to another, to find out the explanation
7:27 This was the great search of his life.⚜
28 📚which my soul is still seeking, but have not found: I have found one good man in a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all those.
7:28 A word that came out of much experience (1 Kings 11:1-4). But Solomon, it seems, went after the wrong sort of women and it is not surprising that what he found was poor quality. We should not think this is a divine revelation concerning all women.⚜
29 📚Look, I have found only this: God has made man upright, but they have sought out many devices.
7:29 Gen 1:26-27, 31; 3:1-7. Since man’s fall into sin all men seek how to get satisfaction in their own way without God.⚜