1 A [good] name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth.
A [good] name is rather to be chosen than great riches; loving favour rather than silver and gold.
Then I praised the dead who are already dead more than the living who are yet alive;
For for me to live [is] Christ, and to die gain; but if to live in flesh [is my lot], this is for me worth the while: and what I shall choose I cannot tell. But I am pressed by both, having the desire for departure and being with Christ, [for] [it is] very much better,
we are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.
And during supper, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas [son] of Simon, Iscariote, that he should deliver him up,
And these all, having obtained witness through faith, did not receive the promise,
For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Yet in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subjected to you, but rejoice that your names are written in the heavens.
The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from before the evil. He entereth into peace: they rest in their beds, [each one] that hath walked in his uprightness.
even unto them will I give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to stink [and] ferment; [so] a little folly is weightier than wisdom [and] honour.
That which enlighteneth the eyes rejoiceth the heart; good tidings make the bones fat.
There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the wearied are at rest.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Ecclesiastes 7
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 7 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 7
Solomon had given many proofs and instances of the vanity of this world and the things of it; now, in this chapter,
Ecc 7:1-6
In these verses Solomon lays down some great truths which seem paradoxes to the unthinking part, that is, the far greatest part, of mankind.
Ecc 7:7-10
Solomon had often complained before of the oppressions which he saw under the sun, which gave occasion for many melancholy speculations and were a great discouragement to virtue and piety. Now here,
Ecc 7:11-22
Solomon, in these verses, recommends wisdom to us as the best antidote against those distempers of mind which we are liable to, by reason of the vanity and vexation of spirit that there are in the things of this world. Here are some of the praises and the precepts of wisdom.
Ecc 7:23-29
Solomon had hitherto been proving the vanity of the world and its utter insufficiency to make men happy; now here he comes to show the vileness of sin, and its certain tendency to make men miserable; and this, as the former, he proves from his own experience, and it was a dear-bought experience. He is here, more than any where in all this book, putting on the habit of a penitent. He reviews what he had been discoursing of already, and tells us that what he had said was what he knew and was well assured of, and what he resolved to stand by: All this have I proved by wisdom, v. 23. Now here,