1 A good name is better than fine perfume; and the day of death better than the day of one's birth.
A good name is more desirable than great riches, And loving favor is better than silver and gold.
Therefore I praised the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive.
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will bring fruit from my work; yet I don't make known what I will choose. But I am in a dilemma between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
We are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.
After supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,
These all, having had testimony given to them through their faith, didn't receive the promise,
For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.
Nevertheless, don't rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."
To them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.
Dead flies cause the oil of the perfumer to send forth an evil odor; so does a little folly outweigh wisdom and honor.
The light of the eyes rejoices the heart. Good news gives health to the bones.
There the wicked cease from troubling; There the weary 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,