“Better is a name than precious ointment; and better is the day of death than the day when one is born.” Like ראה and ירא , so שׁם and שׁמן stand to each other in the relation of a paronomasia ( vid ., Song under Song of Solomon 1:3). Luther translates: “ Ein gut Gerücht ist besser denn gute Salbe ” “a good odour (= reputation) is better than good ointment. If we substitute the expression denn Wolgeruch than sweet scent, that would be the best possible rendering of the paronomasia. In the arrangement טוב ... טוב שׁם , tov would be adj. to shem (a good reputation goes beyond sweet scent); but tov standing first in the sentence is pred., and shem thus in itself alone, as in the cogn. prov., Proverbs 22:1, signifies a good, well-sounding, honourable, if not venerable name; cf. anshē hashshem , Genesis 6:4; veli - shem , nameless, Job 30:8. The author gives the dark reverse to this bright side of the distich: the day of death better than the day in which one (a man), or he (the man), is born; cf. for this reference of the pronoun, Ecclesiastes 4:12; Ecclesiastes 5:17. It is the same lamentation as at Ecclesiastes 4:2., which sounds less strange from the mouth of a Greek than from that of an Israelite; a Thracian tribe, the Trausi, actually celebrated their birthdays as days of sadness, and the day of death as a day of rejoicing ( vid ., Bähr's Germ. translat. of Herodotus , Ecclesiastes 4:4). - Among the people of the Old Covenant this was not possible; also a saying such as Ecclesiastes 7:1 is not in the spirit of the O.T. revelation of religion; yet it is significant that it was possible

(Note: “The reflections of the Preacher,” says Hitzig ( Süd. deut. ev. protest. Woch. Blatt , 1864, No. 2) “present the picture of a time in which men, participating in the recollection of a mighty religious past, and become sceptical by reason of the sadness of the present time, grasping here and there in uncertainty, were in danger of abandoning that stedfastness of faith which was the first mark of the religion of the prophets.”)

within it, without apostasy from it; within the N.T. revelation of religion, except in such references as Matthew 26:24, it is absolutely impossible without apostasy from it, or without rejection of its fundamental meaning.

Still more in the spirit of the N.T. (cf. e.g. , Luke 6:25) are these words of this singular book which stands on the border of both Testaments: “It is better to go into a house of mourning than to go into a house of carousal (drinking): for that is the end of every man; and the living layeth it to heart.” A house is meant in which there is sorrow on account of a death; the lamentation continued for seven days (Sirach 22:10), and extended sometimes, as in the case of the death of Aaron and Moses, to thirty days; the later practice distinguished the lamentations ( אנינוּת ) for the dead till the time of burial, and the mournings for the dead ( אבלוּת ), which were divided into seven and twenty-three days of greater and lesser mourning; on the return from carrying away the corpse, there was a Trostmahl (a comforting repast), to which, according as it appears to an ancient custom, those who were to be partakers of it contributed (Jeremiah 16:7; Hosea 9:4; Job 4:17, funde vinum tuum et panem tuum super sepulchra justorum ).

(Note: Cf. Hamb. Real Encyc. für Bibel u. Talmud (1870), article “Trauer.”)

This feast of sorrow the above proverb leaves out of view, although also in reference to it the contrast between the “house of carousal” and “house of mourning” remains, that in the latter the drinking must be in moderation, and not to drunkenness.

(Note: Maimuni's Hilchoth Ebel , iv. 7, xiii. 8.)

The going into the house of mourning is certainly thought of as a visit for the purpose of showing sympathy and of imparting consolation during the first seven days of mourning (John 11:31).

(Note: Ibid . xiii. 2.)

Thus to go into the house of sorrow, and to show one's sympathy with the mourners there, is better than to go into a house of drinking, where all is festivity and merriment; viz., because the former (that he is mourned over as dead) is the end of every man, and the survivor takes it to heart, viz., this, that he too must die. הוּא follows attractionally the gender of סוף (cf. Job 31:11, Kerı̂ ). What is said at Ecclesiastes 3:13 regarding כּל־ה is appropriate to the passage before us. החי is rightly vocalised; regarding the form החי , vid ., Baer in the critical remarks of our ed. of Isaiah under Isaiah 3:22. The phrase נתן אל־לב here and at Ecclesiastes 9:1 is synon. with שׂים אל־לב , שׂים על־לב ( e.g. , Isaiah 57:1) and שׂים בּלב . How this saying agrees with Koheleth's ultimatum : There is nothing better than to eat and drink, etc. (Ecclesiastes 2:24, etc.), the Talmudists have been utterly perplexed to discover; Manasse ben-Israel in his Conciliador (1632) loses himself in much useless discussion.

(Note: Vid ., the English translation by Lindo (London 1842), vol. ii. pp. 306-309.)

The solution of the difficulty is easy. The ultimatum does not relate to an unconditional enjoyment of life, but to an enjoyment conditioned by the fear of God. When man looks death in the face, the two things occur to him, that he should make use of his brief life, but make use of it in view of the end, thus in a manner for which he is responsible before God.

The joy of life must thus be not riot and tumult, but a joy tempered with seriousness: “Better is sorrow than laughter: for with a sad countenance it is well with the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, and the heart of fools in the house of mirth.” Grief and sorrow, כּעס , whether for ourselves or occasioned by others, is better, viz., morally better, than extravagant merriment; the heart is with רע פּ ( inf . as רע , Jeremiah 7:6; cf. פן ר , Genesis 40:7; Nehemiah 2:2), a sorrowful countenance, better than with laughter, which only masks the feeling of disquiet peculiar to man, Proverbs 14:13. Elsewhere לב ייטב = “the heart is (may be) of good cheer,” e.g. , Ruth 3:7; Judges 19:6; here also joyful experience is meant, but well becoming man as a religious moral being. With a sad countenance it may be far better as regards the heart than with a merry countenance in boisterous company. Luther, in the main correct, after Jerome, who on his part follows Symmachus: “The heart is made better by sorrow.” The well-being is here meant as the reflex of a moral: bene se habere .

Sorrow penetrates the heart, draws the thought upwards, purifies, transforms. Therefore is the heart of the wise in the house of sorrow; and, on the other hand, the heart of fools is in the house of joy, i.e. , the impulse of their heart goes thither, there they feel themselves at home; a house of joy is one where there are continual feasts, or where there is at the time a revelling in joy. That Ecclesiastes 7:4 is divided not by Athnach , but by Zakef , has its reason in this, that of the words following אבל , none consists of three syllables; cf. on the contrary, Ecclesiastes 7:7, חכם . From this point forward the internal relation of the contents is broken up, according to which this series of sayings as a concluding section hangs together with that containing the observations going before in Ecclesiastes 6:1-12.

A fourth proverb of that which is better ( מן טוב ) presents, like the third, the fools and the wise over against each other: “Better to hear the reproof of a wise man, than that one should hear the song of fools. For like the crackling of Nesseln (nettles) under the Kessel (kettle), so the laughter of the fool: also this is vain.” As at Proverbs 13:1; Proverbs 17:10, גּערה is the earnest and severe words of the wise, which impressively reprove, emphatically warn, and salutarily alarm. שׁיר in itself means only song, to the exclusion, however, of the plaintive song; the song of fools is, if not immoral, yet morally and spiritually hollow, senseless, and unbridled madness. Instead of משּׁמע , the words מא שׁ are used, for the twofold act of hearing is divided between different subjects. A fire of thorn-twigs flickers up quickly and crackles merrily, but also exhausts itself quickly (Psalms 118:12), without sufficiently boiling the flesh in the pot; whilst a log of wood, without making any noise, accomplishes this quietly and surely.

We agree with Knobel and Vaihinger in copying the paronomasia [ Nessel-Kessel ]. When, on the other hand, Zöckler remarks that a fire of nettles could scarcely crackle, we advise our friend to try it for once in the end of summer with a bundle of stalks of tall dry nettles. They yield a clear blaze, a quickly expiring fire, to which here, as he well remarks, the empty laughter of foolish men is compared, who are devoid of all earnestness, and of all deep moral principles of life. This laughter is vain, like that crackling.

There is a hiatus between Ecclesiastes 7:6 and Ecclesiastes 7:7. For how Ecclesiastes 7:7 can be related to Ecclesiastes 7:6 as furnishing evidence, no interpreter has as yet been able to say. Hitzig regards Ecclesiastes 7:6 as assigning a reason for Ecclesiastes 7:5, but 6 b as a reply (as Ecclesiastes 7:7 containing its motive shows) to the assertion of Ecclesiastes 7:5, - a piece of ingenious thinking which no one imitates. Elster translates: “Yet injustice befools a wise man,” being prudently silent about this “yet.” Zöckler finds, as Knobel and Ewald do, the mediating thought in this, that the vanity of fools infects and also easily befools the wise. But the subject spoken of is not the folly of fools in general, but of their singing and laughter, to which Ecclesiastes 7:7 has not the most remote reference. Otherwise Hengst.: “In Ecclesiastes 7:7, the reason is given why the happiness of fools is so brief; first, the mens sana is lost, and then destruction follows.” But in that case the words ought to have been כסיל יהולל ; the remark, that חכם here denotes one who ought to be and might be such, is a pure volte. Ginsburg thinks that the two verses are co-ordinated by כי ; that Ecclesiastes 7:6 gives the reason for Ecclesiastes 7:5 , and Ecclesiastes 7:7 that for Ecclesiastes 7:5 , since here, by way of example, one accessible to bribery is introduced, who would act prudently in letting himself therefore be directed by a wise man. But if he had wished to be thus understood, the author would have used another word instead of חכם , 7a, and not designated both him who reproves and him who merits reproof by the one word - the former directly, the latter at least indirectly. We do not further continue the account of the many vain attempts that have been made to bring Ecclesiastes 7:7 into connection with Ecclesiastes 7:6 and Ecclesiastes 7:5. Our opinion is, that Ecclesiastes 7:7 is the second half of a tetrastich, the first half of which is lost, which began, as is to be supposed, with tov . The first half was almost the same as Psalms 37:16, or better still, as Proverbs 16:8, and the whole proverb stood thus:

טוב מעט בּחדקה

מרב תּבוּאות בּלא משׁפּט׃

[and then follows Ecclesiastes 7:7 as it lies before us in the text, formed into a distich, the first line of which terminates with חכם ]. We go still further, and suppose that after the first half of the tetrastich was lost, that expression, “also this is vain,” added to Ecclesiastes 7:6 by the punctuation, was inserted for the purpose of forming a connection for כי עשק : Also this is vain, that, etc. ( כי , like asher , Ecclesiastes 8:14).

Without further trying to explain the mystery of the כי , we translate this verse: “... For oppression maketh wise men mad, and corruption destroyeth the understanding.” From the lost first half of the verse, it appears that the subject here treated of is the duties of a judge, including those of a ruler into whose hands his subjects, with their property and life, are given. The second half is like an echo of Exodus 23:8; Deuteronomy 16:19. That which שׁחד there means is here, as at Proverbs 15:27, denoted by מתּנה ; and עשׁק is accordingly oppression as it is exercised by one who constrains others who need legal aid and help generally to purchase it by means of presents. Such oppression for the sake of gain, even if it does not proceed to the perversion of justice, but only aims at courting and paying for favour, makes a wise man mad ( הולל , as at Job 12:17; Isaiah 44:25), i.e. , it hurries him forth, since the greed of gold increases more and more, to the most blinding immorality and regardlessness; and such presents for the purpose of swaying the judgment, and of bribery, destroys the heart, i.e. , the understanding (cf. Hosea 4:11, Bereschith rabba , chap. lvi.), for they obscure the judgment, blunt the conscience, and make a man the slave of his passion. The conjecture העשׁר (riches) instead of the word העשׁק (Burger, as earlier Ewald) is accordingly unnecessary; it has the parallelism against it, and thus generally used gives an untrue thought. The word הולל does not mean “gives lustre” (Desvoeux), or “makes shine forth = makes manifest” (Tyler); thus also nothing is gained for a better connection of Ecclesiastes 7:7 and Ecclesiastes 7:6. The Venet. excellently: ἐκστήσει . Aben Ezra supposes that מתנה is here = דּבר מת ; Mendelssohn repeats it, although otherwise the consciousness of the syntactical rule, Gesen. §147 a , does not fail him.

There now follows a fourth, or, taking into account the mutilated one, a fifth proverb of that which is better: “Better the end of a thing than its beginning; better one who forbears than one who is haughty. Hasten thyself not in thy spirit to become angry: for anger lieth down in the bosom of fools.” The clause 8 a is first thus to be objectively understood as it stands. It is not without limitation true; for of a matter in itself evil, the very contrary is true, Proverbs 5:4; Proverbs 23:32. But if a thing is not in itself evil, the end of its progress, the reaching to its goal, the completion of its destination, is always better than its beginning, which leaves it uncertain whether it will lead to a prosperous issue. An example of this is Solon's saying to Croesus, that only he is to be pronounced happy whose good fortune it is to end his life well in the possession of his wealth ( Herod . i. 32).

The proverb Ecclesiastes 7:8 will stand in some kind of connection with 8 a , since what it says is further continued in Ecclesiastes 7:9. In itself, the frequently long and tedious development between the beginning and the end of a thing requires expectant patience. But if it is in the interest of a man to see the matter brought to an issue, an ארך אףּ will, notwithstanding, wait with self-control in all quietness for the end; while it lies in the nature of the רוּח גּבהּ , the haughty, to fret at the delay, and to seek to reach the end by violent means; for the haughty man thinks that everything must at once be subservient to his wish, and he measures what others should do by his own measureless self-complacency. We may with Hitzig translate: “Better is patience ( ארך = ארך ) than haughtiness” ( גּבהּ , inf ., as שׁפל , Ecclesiastes 12:4; Proverbs 16:19). But there exists no reason for this; גּבהּ is not to be held, as at Proverbs 16:5, and elsewhere generally, as the connecting form of גּבהּ , and so ארך for that of ארך ; it amounts to the same thing whether the two properties (characters) or the persons possessing them are compared.

In this verse the author warns against this pride which, when everything does not go according to its mind, falls into passionate excitement, and thoughtlessly judges, or with a violent rude hand anticipates the end. אל־תּב : do not overturn, hasten not, rush not, as at Ecclesiastes 5:1. Why the word בּרוּחך , and not בנפשך or בלבך , is used, vid ., Psychol . pp. 197-199: passionate excitements overcome a man according to the biblical representation of his spirit, Proverbs 25:28, and in the proving of the spirit that which is in the heart comes forth in the mood and disposition, Proverbs 15:13. כּעוס is an infin., like ישׁון , Ecclesiastes 5:11. The warning has its reason in this, that anger or ( כעס , taken more potentially than actually) fretfulness rests in the bosom of fools, i.e. , is cherished and nourished, and thus is at home, and, as it were (thought of personally, as if it were a wicked demon), feels itself at home ( ינוּח , as at Proverbs 14:33). The haughty impetuous person, and one speaking out rashly, thus acts like a fool. In fact, it is folly to let oneself be impelled by contradictions to anger, which disturbs the brightness of the soul, takes away the considerateness of judgment, and undermines the health, instead of maintaining oneself with equanimity, i.e. , without stormy excitement, and losing the equilibrium of the soul under every opposition to our wish.

From this point the proverb loses the form “better than,” but tov still remains the catchword of the following proverbs. The proverb here first following is so far cogn., as it is directed against a particular kind of ka'as (anger), viz., discontentment with the present.

“Say not: How comes it that the former times were better than these now? for thou dost not, from wisdom, ask after this.” Cf. these lines from Horace ( Poet . 173, 4):

“Difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti

Se puero, censor castigatorque minorum.”