Better Is the End

Ecclesiastes 7 opens with a cluster of ‘better than’ comparisons in the Proverbs style: a good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death is better than the day of birth. 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. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

The chapter moves through practical wisdom on bribes, anger, the past and the present (‘say not, Why were the former days better than these, for it is not from wisdom that you ask this’), and then to the limits of the wisdom enterprise itself. 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. Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? This is Qoheleth's most unsettling practical counsel: excessive righteousness is as dangerous as excessive wickedness.

The chapter closes with the famous search: among a thousand I found one man upright, but a woman among all these I have not found. God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. This passage has generated centuries of commentary on Qoheleth's attitude toward women; the most defensible reading is that it reflects the limited social world of his observation, not a theological claim about female nature.