Ecclesiastes 7
v.2
It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.
Death is an evangelist. It helps us to see that there is a great gulf fixed between Creator and creature and places us in a position therefore truly to worship and to repent of our sins. In God’s grace death and illness offer us the gift of knowing the preciousness of mortal life, which must soon pass away, and therefore of knowing the important of not wasting time.
v.3
Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.
v.4
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.
This verse indicates that a life of enjoyment, does not mean the abandonment of ourselves to pleasures, but the thankful and sober use of the beautiful things which God gives us.
v.10
Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.
People have always looked back to the good old days. Even Christians sometimes overestimate the early church, the Reformation, or periods of revival. Wise people certainly learn from the past, but they live in the present with all its opportunities. Overmuch dwelling on the past can prevent us from overcoming the world, which often seems so much more wicked today than ever before.
v.13-14
Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked? 14When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.
The reference to God’s “making crooked” (GK 6430) stresses his sovereign control over all events. There are some things that we cannot alter. As children of God, we commonly experience both good and bad and may even thank God for allowing hardships rather than giving us an entirely smooth passage (cf. Mt 8:20; Lk 10:38; 2Co 1:4-7). Part of the life of faith is accepting prosperity and adversity from God’s hand without being able to explain just how everything will be worked out for the future (Ro 8:28).
v.16
Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself?
Being “overrighteous” is an obvious synonym for that type of Pharisaism that Christ warned against (Mt 5:20; 23:1-36). “Overwise” may be the subtle casuistry that such righteousness needs to support it (Mt 23:16-22), or it may be the substitute of a vast knowledge of facts for the knowledge needed for practical living (cf. 12:12).
While he agrees that people should avoid excessive foolishness and wickedness, since (in spite of acknowledged exceptions, v.15) this does represent a path to destruction (v.17), he is equally concerned that they should avoid excessive righteousness and wisdom (v.16). The dogged pursuit of the latter, just as much as the committed quest after the former, brings bad consequences, for both are incompatible with the fear of God (v.18). Both represent, in their own way, a refusal to accept the limitations God sets on mortal beings. Those who pursue wisdom or righteousness for “profit” in this sense (note that “neither be overwise” in v.16 is in Heb. w’al tithakam yoter; cf. the comments on yoter at 2:15; 6:8, 11; 7:11), hoping to gain an edge over God and force his hand, are in no different a position to those who pursue foolishness and wickedness. Both are guilty of hubris—the arrogant self-deification in which mortal beings so regularly indulge as they seek to fashion reality after their own liking. Both are guilty of sin. It is, indeed, self-delusional to think it possible to escape sin and become the kind of blameless person that verse 16 implies, as Qohelet will go on to argue (7:20, 27-29).
v.18
It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all [extremes].
Wisdom is not the knowledge of accumulated facts but the inner strength that comes from a God-instructed conscience. There is a link between the fear of God and the true wisdom that gives inner strength (v.10; cf. Pr 9:10), which is here contrasted with mere power.
v.29
This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.”
Universal corruption was that which met his wide investigations, but of one thing he was sure, which he proceeds to specify - he has learned to trace the degradation to its source, not in God’s agency, but in man’s perverse will. That God hath made man upright. Koheleth believes that man’s original constitution was yasbar, “straight,” “right,” “morally good,” and possessed of ability to choose and follow what was just and right (Genesis 1:26, etc.). Thus in the Book of Wisdom (2:23) we read, “God created man to be immortal, and made him an imago of his own nature (ἰιότητος). Nevertheless, through envy of the devil, came death into the world, and they that are his portion tempt it.” But they (men) have sought out many inventions (chishshebonoth); 2 Chronicles 26:15, where the term implies works of invention, and is translated “engines,” i.e. devices, ways of going astray and deviating from original righteousness. Man has thus abased his free-will, and employed the inventive faculty with which he was endowed in excoriating evil (Genesis 6:5). How this state of things came about, how the originally good man became thus wicked, the writer does not tell. He knows from revelation that God made him upright; he knows from experience that he is now evil; and he leaves the matter there.