Ecclesiastes 7:1-13 – Law & Gospel Devotional Commentary

Can I just say it? This section of Ecclesiastes seems disconnected and jumbled together. Some might even call it contradictory with other parts of the book. But, I think, that might actually be the point…the preacher speaks in a way that frustrates the foolish but will cause the wise to seek understanding. So, let’s be the kind of people who want to get to the bottom of this book of biblical wisdom and start figuring this thing out.

v. 1 — “A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.” Right out of the gate, this chapter starts to deviate from the pattern of this book, and you’re supposed to notice.

Up to this point, the Preacher has been like that guy who keeps looking around the room and saying, “Yep, that’s broken too.” Vanity here… Oppression there… Pleasure won’t save you. Money won’t save you… Religion can get weird…The whole thing is crooked! “I’ve seen an evil in the world” or “Here’s another thing that’s meaningless or empty.” Chapter 1: all is vanity. Chapter 2: Pleasure is vanity. Chapter 4: The world is full of oppression. Chapter 5: There’s evil in the house of God. Chapter 6: Wealth is vanity.

But, then all of a sudden, chapter 7 opens with, “Here’s what’s better.” Well, how’s that for a change?! In a book that has spent so much time being brutally honest about the bad in the world, when the Preacher says, “Here’s something worth having,” we ought to stop and pay attention! There’s something that’s not so empty or worthless…something that’s actually worth attaining. What is it? … Riches? Success? Being admired? Getting your life so curated that everybody else thinks you’re doing great? No.

He says a good name is better than precious ointment. In other words, character > polish, and integrity > image. Now, how good is a good name? Well, Solomon ranks a “good name” over “precious ointment.”

Now, in the ancient world “precious ointment” was not some random, little luxury item on your bathroom counter… It was costly stuff. Useful stuff. Sacred stuff. It was used in worship, ceremonies, and more! So Solomon isn’t saying a good name is better than something cheap…He’s saying a good name is better than something people in his world would’ve considered genuinely precious.

For one, this ointment or oil was essential for life in ancient Israel. Every time Exodus or Leviticus mentions oil, this is the word being used If you wanted to anoint something or someone with oil to mark it as having a special purpose, you would use this precious ointment, likely a scented olive oil. Or, if you were participating in an ancient worship service, this kind of fragrant oil would be used all over the place. [And, as a side note, if you’ve ever read the Old Testament and thought: “Wow, seems like a lot of oils and incense!” Don’t look at those things as empty ritual…they had a practical purpose too. Our hygiene is much more advanced these days and an ancient crowd of people in a hot desert wouldn’t have been a great smell…but burning cows (steak) and fragrant oils created a pleasing aroma to the Lord].

So, a precious ointment was crucial in Solomon’s day…But a good name is even better! What you don’t see in the English, here, is that there’s some poetry or wordplay going on… In Hebrew, “name” is שֵׁם shem and “ointment” is שֶׁמֶן shemen. The two words sound alike—imagine if I said: “good fame is better than a sweet fume” Solomon uses this exact same word play in his Song of Songs 1:3 – "your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out." And he communicates the same message or idea in Proverbs 22:1 – "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold."

Out of all the things in the world—most of which are completely worthless—a good name can be a good thing. This doesn’t mean that the be-all-end-all goal of your life is to build a good reputation just to earn the applause of others or some other kind of self-seeking popularity…that’d be the very definition of vanity! Instead, Solomon is recommending to us all of the true, good, & honest ways that people earn a good name. When you live life to get attention from others, that’s stupid. That’s not it… But when you’re faithful, wise, & have the kind of integrity that gives you a good name, that’s a good thing.

And I can’t think of a more relevant rebuke for our generation…How many people today—us included—are willing to trade away our character, our reputation, or our honesty just to score points online or have better surface-level clout? We sacrifice the most meaningful things we have just earn a better appearance.

Then, Solomon says death is better than birth, and that really fits with verse 2…

v. 2 — “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.”

If you’ve heard me talk about this before, then you already know I’m liable to say something that sounds a little strange at first: funerals are my favorite church services. And Solomon would nod his head and say, “Exactly.”

Mourning is better than feasting. A funeral is better than a festival. Now that sounds backwards to people like us, because we spend most of our lives trying to avoid anything that reminds us we are not in charge, not permanent, and not getting out of this alive. But a funeral tells the truth in a way a party never will…At a funeral, all the noise dies down. People quit pretending. The little games we play stop working. And when we are forced to face death, we start to see what actually matters in life and we take it to heart. Seriously, go see your dead friend or a dead loved-one—that’ll put life into perspective!

At funerals, you realize: “Why did I spend so much time on things that didn’t matter?” “Why did I keep that grudge?” “Why was I always in such a hurry?” “Why did I not say what I should’ve said while there was still time?” Parties, while they can be great, usually do the opposite…

A party helps you dodge reality for a while. It keeps you laughing just long enough not to think. Not to feel or face the fact that your days are numbered and your life is a vapor and the things you keep obsessing over are not nearly as important as you think they are. Solomon says the wise person is willing to go where the truth hurts. The fool just wants another distraction…Only a fool would always choose a feast over a funeral.

Because you really do learn more in sorrow than you do in celebration. Sadness has a way of teaching what happiness usually does not. Loss clarifies things. My dad used to say after a hard loss in baseball that it was a learning opportunity. And as much as I hated hearing that at the time, he was right.

v. 3-4 — “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”

Don’t hear Solomon saying that laughter is always bad and sadness is holy, as if the goal is to become miserable people for Jesus…That’s not the point. The point is that sorrow can teach you something that fun never will. We learn things while crying that we’re too distracted to notice while we’re laughing. Weeping can bring wisdom whereas fun is often accompanied by foolishness.

He’s also saying that joy becomes more complete once you have an intimate knowledge of sadness. You can’t understand heat without the cold, light without darkness, or joy without sadness. And this also calls our coping mechanisms into question…I sometimes try to joke in sad or awkward situations because I don’t like sadness. I’m willing to bet you’ve done the same…but, perhaps, we should embrace sorrow more often. It’s better to confront your frustrations & fears than it is to cover up your panic with a party hat. It’s much better—and less damaging—to be honest in a bad situation than it is to pretend you’re happy. You can mask pain, frustration, or fear with laughter, but only sorrow will expose it and allow for healing.

v. 5-6 — “It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity.”

Not only is sadness better than acting happy, but truth is better than entertainment. It’s better for someone to be honest with you than to butter you up. Solomon says something similar in Proverbs 27:6 – "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy."

Now, here, you have another instance of wordplay… Solomon says the crackling of סִיר çiyr (thorns) under a סִרָה cirah (pot). Imagine if I said “I’m gonna use some briars to start some fires” But there’s more than just wordplay here…there’s a point, and it’s that thorns and other weeds don’t burn for very long. And in the same way, the laughter of fools doesn’t last very long either…

v. 7 — “Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart”

Now, in the middle of all these recommendations for wisdom, Solomon interjects this line of caution. Even the wise can be corrupted by opportunities to oppress others or receive bribes.

v. 8 — “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit”

Good names are better than perfume…sadness is better than foolish laughter… being rebuked is better than having your praises sung…and endings are better than beginnings. Now, this is not a nice-sounding promise that there’ll always be a happy ending for you…

What this is saying is that, with everything going on under the sun being meaningless & frustrating, We’re often happy when things—even good things—come to an end. You fantasize about your dream job, but the day will come when you thank God it’s Friday. You plan an amazing party with all of your best friends, but you will be glad when it’s all behind you.

And while you’re waiting for things in life to come to an end, Solomon says patience is better than pride. In other words, the person who can trust God and wait on Him to accomplish what’s needed is better off than the person who is so self-confident that they take matters into their own hands…

v. 9 — “Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools”

Here’s another warning interjected: don’t get angry because it’ll damage your heart. I’m sure there’s some science that’ll tell us that anger causes bad cholesterol or heart problems…

v. 10 — “Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this”

While you’re going through life, waiting for things to end or get better, resist the temptation to romanticize the past. Don’t fall for the lies of nostalgia that tell you things were easier or better back then. Or that people were more moral or righteous—they weren’t…[just read the Bible on that!] Remember the Israelites in the wilderness? They fell into this way of thinking. "We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at." (Numbers 11:5-6).

And when a new temple had been built in Jerusalem after the one Solomon built was destroyed, some of the older generation weren’t too impressed. "But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy" (Ezra 3:12).

v. 11-12 — “Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it”

Okay, we’ve basically heard this before…Wisdom is good because it’s practical and it’ll help make life on earth a little easier. But it still doesn’t solve all your real problems…

v. 13 — “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what He has made crooked?”

Wisdom is a great advantage but you can’t use your own thinking to try and map out what God is doing in your life and in the world…He puts the happy times and the sad times in our lives on a scatterplot

that can’t be drawn with a straight line.

So, what are we left to do? We can’t straighten things on our own. We can’t laugh it all off. We can’t get angry about it. We can’t look back to better days. We can’t have pride in ourselves. The only thing we can do is to learn to live in God’s world without trying to control it. We have to trust Him. So I’d like to tell you a little about this God we trust…

Ecclesiastes has been telling us what’s better, exposing what’s foolish, stripping away our illusions. But if we’re honest, it also leaves us with a problem…Because who actually lives like this? Who actually has a good name? Not just a popular personality, but a truly righteous life?
Who faces death rightly? Who embraces sorrow without running from it? But the good news is this: the wisdom we lack, Christ has.

Solomon says a good name is better than precious ointment. But most of our names bring mixed reactions…we’ve all ruined our reputation at times. And yet, in the Gospel, something unbelievable happens: "your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20), "The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name" (Revelation 3:12).

But you might say, Noah, that’s in the future, I need comfort today. Well, the promise you have for today is that when you go to the house of mourning—when you have to face death itself—you are not there alone. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me" (Psalm 23:4). God Himself has entered that house already.

In the Old Testament, Jesus is called a man of sorrows. He’s the God who stood at the grave of His friend and wept. And He also is the preacher who said: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4).

And, oh by the way, for the Christian, death is totally different. Not because it doesn’t happen, but because it has lost it’s power! So, as a Christian you actually can laugh in the face of death in a new way. "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55).

So, the Christian life is not lived by avoiding death—it’s lived in the full awareness of it. And, for those in Christ, death is not the worst thing that can happen… "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on" (Revelation 14:13).

But, even before we die and are transformed, there is a mechanism put in place by God to transform us. Sorrow and suffering— "we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope," (Romans 5:3).

Sadness, in the Christian life, doesn’t have to destroy you—it can refine you. "For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death" (2 Corinthians 7:8-10). Even rebuke—something we naturally resist—is an act of love in the hands of God. "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:10-11). "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline" (Revelation 3:19).

So even the hard things—correction, conviction, sorrow—are not meaningless. They are tools in the hands of a good Father. And so, for us, the ending will be better than the beginning. Not because life under the sun will get easier, but because your life doesn’t end under the sun…

Paul wrote “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). So even if the “good ol’ days” really were better than what you’re going through right now—that’s not where your hope is…you don’t have to look back to a better time, you can look forward with hope.

Because God has given us eternal life—not through earthly wisdom—but through God’s wisdom personified, Jesus Christ. And “to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent” (John 17:3)—that is the wisdom that preserves life.