Chapter 7
Section title is The Contrast of Wisdom and Folly. In hindsight, I think it's a poor choice.
2021 - I note that in both NASB and ESV the first 13 verses of this chapter are set off in what I call "prose format". They are not blocks, but lines, offset and punctuated. First of all, where did that come from? Is it present in the oldest scrolls available? (I did a quick search, but didn't find any answers even to how old the oldest copy of Ecclesiastes might be. I have done a little search like this several times, and I am surprised that the only copies of the Bible that we have are not all that old. They found some scripture on some silver bracelets/necklaces in Jerusalem from the 6th or 7th Century BC. They have the same words as Numbers 6 - the Lord bless thee and keep thee verses. These verses were surely copied from a text of the time. So there was an OT at that time - or at least there was a Pentateuch. NT scriptures only go back to 120-140 AD. The complete Masoretic text is around 1000 AD - this is the one that put in all the vowel and inflection marks so there would be no ambiguous words. The first Quran was put together in about 651 AD, but I don't know if we still have any that old.
So. A pretty long rabbit trail, but no answer to why we have this different format in Ecc 7:1-13. They look more like Proverbs than anything else.
Some interesting comparisons:
1 ... the day of death than the day of birth. [Ecc 7:1 ESV]
2021 - MSB says this means that a good man may well be honored at his death for the things he has done, but not so much on the day of birth. Jesus would be an exception.
2021 - MSB also says vss 2-6 are saying that we learn more from trial and adversity than we do from good times. That's just how life works. The end of vs 6, where this is called vanity, shows that Solomon would rather it wasn't that way.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. [Ecc 7:3 ESV]
2021 - This verse:
[Ecc 7:7 ESV] Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart.
What in the world does this mean? MSB doesn't even have a comment. Maybe that oppression squelches the freedom of mind of the wise? Being unable to express their learning, their thoughts, their ideas - unless they conform with what the oppressors want - drives them mad? Could be that I guess.
8 Better is the end of a thing than its beginning... [Ecc 7:8 ESV]
MSB says these verses are showing that more is learned of wisdom from times of adversity than from pleasure.
2024 -
[10] Do not say, “Why is it that the former days were better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask about this. Ecclesiastes 7:10 NASB1995.
I can never find this one when I look for it. I want it to start Ask not thou wherefore the former days...but no version but the one in my head seems to phrase it that way. But now when I search, it'll be here.
These "proverbs", if that is what they really are, seem to be of a different quality than those in the 31 chapters of Proverbs. These seem deeper, more complex, more "packed up". A person could spend a lot of time unraveling these. And isn't it interesting that they show up in Chapter 7. Wonder who decided on that?
This one is difficult:
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. 16 Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? [Ecc 7:15-16 ESV]
Makes no sense to me. MSB says this is about being overly "self-righteous" and "Pharisaical". But that would only apply to 16. Doesn't help me with 15. MSB implies that they are unconnected verses.
2021 -
[Ecc 7:13 ESV] Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? Perhaps instead of the last "proverb", this is the opening of the next section?
Solomon may be saying that God is so far above us that He has concealed ultimate truth and meaning within the convolutions of everyday life. Truth and meaning may only be discoverable as infinites. That is to say, God pre-existed all that is, and he especially pre-existed "time". There was no such thing as time until God created orbits to mark its passing, right? Well perhaps what is ultimate can only be know in a "place" without time, and God created man as mortal and imprisoned by time so that we could never unravel the deepest things of God. That is reserved for eternity. So start this section with that - The universe in which God placed man has different "metaphysics" (this definition of metaphysics - a study of what is outside objective experience) than the place where God abides. The rules of God's place cannot be translated into our place.
Next verse seems to go ahead and run with that, with the fact that we won't be able to understand God, because we are not where He is:
[Ecc 7:14 ESV] 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. Again, the observation that God made both prosperity and adversity - complete opposites - and we cannot discover the cause and effect of either. No theory works to discover why some have it good, some have it bad, and so on. We don't know, we cannot find out. If we cannot determine this causal, driving factor of our universe, then we cannot predict what is to come next. Therefore, we cannot produce anything eternal. Eternity/infinity is exclusively the realm of God. And our universe only makes sense when viewed from eternity! Oh my, that's a good sentence!!!
I do wish I could get this in shape for a FB post...but I'm not sure I (got it done in 2023.)
Then we launch into vss 15-19:
Is he saying that neither pristine righteousness of mind and person nor unchecked wickedness and non-compliance, nor unbridled foolishness of behavior will have any effect on the ultimate end of a man? Because some evil men get rich and live long lives. Just about as many good people spend their lives poor, sick and downtrodden. There is no explaining this, no understanding this. So don't spend your life ascetically that you may be purer, nor aggressively that you may be powerful. Just live, the best you can, with the circumstances in which you find yourself. I think that's what he means. It is not about blowing off being good. It's about living the life you can, because it is going to be short and full of trouble no matter what you do. And that last verse, 18, seems to say that God-fearing men can arise from either path also. That matters.
2021 - Vss 14-18 seem to be a kind of "moderation in all things" speech. It starts with more "vanity"...no wait. We might need to back up even more. Look at vs 13:
Be righteous - but don't be pure as the driven snow. But that doesn't seem like good advice.
2024 - This one:
Ecclesiastes 7:24 NASB1995
[24] What has been is remote and exceedingly mysterious. Who can discover it?
Like creation details? The fossil record? All that?
This verse:
26 And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. [Ecc 7:26 ESV]
Many proverbs talk about this kind of woman and her aims and ambitions, which are for no one but herself. I think this statement, this attitude is a reference to the fact that Solomon was led astray by his "willingness" to let his wives sacrifice to false gods, perhaps even participating and assisting in these rituals. Instead of loving him and adopting his religion, they seductively, with snares and nets and traps, held to their own sins, and pulled Solomon in with them. These women - beautiful certainly, many in number - were NOT sent to give him pleasure, but were sent by Satan to entrap and destroy.