Ecclesiastes 7:1-15
A good name is better than precious ointment,
and the day of death than the day of birth.
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.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter,
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
5 It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise
than to hear the song of fools.
6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
so is the laughter of the fools;
this also is vanity.
7 Surely oppression drives the wise into madness,
and a bribe corrupts 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 Be not quick in your spirit to become angry,
for anger lodges in the heart of fools.
10 Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”
For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
11 Wisdom is good with an inheritance,
an advantage to those who see the sun.
12 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.
13 Consider the work of God:
who can make straight what he has made crooked? 14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. 15 In my vain] life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.
What was Hamlet saying in his immortal soliloquy?
“To be, or not to be—that is the question:
whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing them. To die, to sleep…no more…and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep…
To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.
Must give us pause…
Shakespeare gives a nearly perfect expression of the mind of man, under the sun, in the face of death. Hamlet sees what Solomon is describing so well, that life is filled with vanity and miseries. He thinks about killing himself, but he doesn’t know what death will bring. But Solomon is clear…we DO know what death will bring…and because of the supernatural power of God, death no longer has its sting!
Trying to understand this we can quickly leap in the NT and say with Paul that to live is Christ and to die is gain…or where he says he desires to depart from this life and to be with Christ which is far better; And this is true. Death has been conquered, it is not the conqueror, and for those who live above the sun, death now ushers us into the presence of God…it brings us to glory.
I do not think I am going too far to say that few Christians, few of us, if truth be told, share Solomon’s perspective that the day of death is better than the day of birth. Nor do we share Paul’s sentiment that to depart from this life is better. Our lives are so full of what we can see, hear and touch, our faith is so weak and our sight of the unseen so dim. We have invested far too much of ourselves and our hopes in this life and that is why when we read Solomon here in Ecclesiastes we don’t really know what he is talking about.
And the reason we don’t have Solomon or Paul’s perspective on death is because we do not have their perspective on life. If to live really was Christ, then of course death will be gain, because of Christ’s work, at death we get more of Christ, and after all, He IS life. We tip our hat at verses like that, but our Savior is not teaching us to tip our hat, he is teaching us to embrace its truth as the banner of our lives.
The end of this verse does shed a bit more light on Solomon’s point, “…and the living will take it to heart…” But of course, that is in the context of him saying that it is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting…and we again say, what in the world are you talking about?He is telling us that the day of death has more to teach us that the day of birth, its lessons are more practical and more a necessity. At birth and on the days of feasting and celebration, we give little thought to life’s brevity and our own limitations as human beings.We are more sobered and reality is more vivid when staring at death than at birth, the burning questions are inevitable, inescapable. At the house of mourning, thoughts, minds, and hearts are more thoughtful and it could be that we face facts in such places that we will not face up to anywhere else.Yes, people die. That is real and after that, eternity. What are you going to do with that? What does that make you think regarding your purpose in this life and the end that you hope to achieve?Are you going to ask that question at the party, or in the face of life’s reality and sin’s curse?
Psalm 90, “Teach us to number our days SO THAT we may get a heart of wisdom.” Where is it that we will number our days more, in feasting or in mourning? In which case will there be a greater opportunity to finally, “get it”? But, and here is the key, death will not serve us nor will the house of mourning, if we are not asking the right questions, if there is no wisdom…or if we are bound to seek the answers, under the sun.
Prayer: Father, I confess that I lack true wisdom. I am too bound to view things from my own experiences and draw conclusions that do not take the unseen world into view. I would ask You to help me to say, ‘for me to live is Christ’ would be comprehensively true. I want to walk in your favor, love all Your words and even in the darkness of my own heart, You would be my light. Through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Stay with Me
