Bible Commentaries

good name [is] better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.

A good name is better than precious ointment. — Yea, than great riches. See Trapp on " Proverbs 22:1 " The initial letter è Maiusculam. of the Hebrew word for "good" here is larger than ordinary, to show the more than ordinary excellence of a good name and fame among men. Hebrew Text Note If whatsoever David doeth doth please the people, if Mary Magdalen’s cost upon Christ be well spoken of in all the churches, if the Romans’ faith be famous throughout the whole world, Romans 1:8 if Demetrius have a good report of all good men, and St John set his seal to it, this must needs be better than precious ointments; the one being but a perfume of the nostrils, the other of the heart. Sweet ointment, olfactum afficit, spiritum reficit, cerebrum iuvat, affects the smell, refresheth the spirit, comforts the brain: a good name doth all this and more. For,

And the day of death, than the day of one’s birth. — The Greeks call a man’s birthday, γενεθλιον quasi γενεσιν αθλων ; the beginning of his nativity, they call the begetting of his misery. "Man that is born of a woman, is born to trouble," saith Job. Job 14:1 The word there rendered born , signifieth also generated or concieved; to note that man is miserable, even as soon as he is "warm in the womb," as David hath it. Psalms 51:5 If he lives to see the light, he comes crying into the world, a fletu vitam auspicatur, saith Seneca. Ad Mare., cap. 11. Insomuch as the lawyers define life by crying, and a stillborn child is all one as dead in law. Only Zoroaster is said to have been born laughing, but that laughter was both monstrous and ominous. Justin, lib. i. For he first found out the black art which yet profited him not so far as to the vain felicity of this present life. For being king of the Bactrians, he was overcome and slain in battle by Ninus, king of the Assyrians. Augustine, who relates this story, saith of man’s first entrance into the world, Nondum loquitur, et tamen prophetat, ere ever a child speaks, be prophesies, by his tears, of his ensuing sorrows. Nec prius natus, quam damnatus, no sooner is he born, but he is condemned to the mines or galleys, as it were, of sin and suffering. Hence Solomon here prefers his coffin before his cradle. And there was some truth in that saying of the heathen, Optimum est non nasci, proximum quam celerrime mori: For wicked men it had been best not to have been born, or being born, to die quickly; since by living long they heap up first sin, and then wrath against the day of wrath. As for good men, there is no doubt but the day of death is best to them, because it is the daybreak of eternal righteousness; and after a short brightness, as that martyr said, gives them, Malorum ademptionem, bonorum adeptionem, freedom from all evil, fruition of all good. Hence the ancient fathers called those days wherein the martyrs suffered their birthdays, because then they began to live indeed: since here to live is but to lie dying. Eternal life is the only true life, saith Augustine.

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[It is] better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that [is] the end of all men; and the living will lay [it] to his heart.

It is better to go to the house of mourning. — To the terming house, as they term it, where a dead corpse is laid forth for burial, and in that respect weeping and wailing, which is one of the dues of the dead, τα νομιζομενα whose bodies are sown in corruption, and watered usually with tears. It is better therefore to sort with such, to mingle with mourners, to follow the hearse, to weep with those that weep, to visit the heavy hearted, this being a special means of mortification, than to go to the house of feasting, where is nothing but joy and jollity, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine, yea, therefore eating and drinking, because tomorrow they shall die. Ede, bibe, lude, post mortem nulla voluptas. Sardanapali vox belluina. What good can be gotten among such swinish epicures? What sound remedy against life’s vanity? It is far better therefore to go to the house of mourning, where a man may be moved with compassion, with compunction, with due and deep consideration of his doleful and dying condition; where he may hear dead Abel by a dumb eloquence preaching and pressing this necessary but much neglected lesson, that "this is the end of all men, and the living should lay it to heart"; or, as the Hebrew hath it, "lay it upon his heart," work it upon his affections; inditurus est iliad animo suo, so Tremelius renders it, he will so mind it as to make his best use of it, so as to say with Job, "I know that thou wilt bring me unto death"; Job 30:23 and with David, "Behold, thou hast made my days as a span"; Psalms 39:4-5 and as Moses, who when he saw the people’s carcases fall so fast in the wilderness, "Lord, teach us," said he, "so to number our days, as to cause our hearts" (of themselves never a whit willing) "to come to wisdom." Psalms 90:12

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Sorrow [is] better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.

Sorrow is better than laughter. — Here, as likewise in the two former verses, is a collation and prelation; "Sorrow," or indignation conceived for sin, "is better than laughter," - i.e., carnal and profane mirth. This is παραδοξον αλλ ου παραλογον , as Nazianzen speaks in another case, a paradox to the world, but such as may sooner and better be proven than those paradoxes of the ancient Stoics. The world is a perfect stranger to the truth of this sacred position, as being all set upon the merry pin, and having so far banished sadness, as that they are no less enemies to seriousness, than the old Romans were to the name of the Tarquins. These Philistines cannot see how "out of this eater can come meat, and out of this strong, sweet"; how any man should reasonably persuade them to "turn their laughter into mourning, and joy into heaviness." James 4:9 A pound of grief, say they, will not pay an ounce of debt; a little mirth is worth a great deal of sorrow; there is nothing better than for a man to eat and drink and laugh himself fat: spiritus Calvinianus, spiritus melancholicus - a Popish proverb - to be precise and godly is to bid adieu to all mirth and jollity, and to spend his days in heaviness and horror. This is the judgment of the mad world, ever beside itself in point of salvation. But what saith our Preacher, who had the experience of both, and could best tell? Sorrow is better, for it makes the heart better; it betters the better part, and is therefore compared to fire, that purgeth out the dross of sin, to water, that washeth out the dregs of sin, yea, to eye water, sharp, but sovereign. By washing in these troubled waters the conscience is cured, and God’s Naamans cleansed. By feeding upon this bitter sweet root, God’s penitentiaries are fenced against the temptations of Satan, the corruption of their own hearts, and the allurements of this present evil world. These tears drive away the devil much better than holy water, as they call it; they quench hell flames, and as April showers, they bring on in full force the May flowers both of grace 1 Peter 5:5 and of glory. Jeremiah 4:14 What an ill match therefore make our mirthmongers, that purchase laughter many times with shame, loss, misery, beggary, rottenness of body, distress, damnation, that hunt after it to hell, and light a candle at the devil for lightsomeness of heart, by haunting ale houses, brothel houses, conventicles of good fellowship, sinful and unseasonable sports, and other vain fooleries, in the froth whereof is bred and fed that worm that never dies? A man is nearest danger when he is most merry, said Mr Greenham. And God cast not man out of paradise, saith another reverend man, that he might here build him another, but that, as that bird of paradise, he might always be upon the wing, and if at any time taken, never leave groaning and grieving till he be delivered. This will bring him a paradise of sweetest peace, and make much for the lengthening of his tranquillity and consolation. Daniel 4:27 Oh, how sweet a thing is it at the feet of Jesus to stand weeping, to water them with tears, to dry them with sighs, and to kiss them with our mouths! Only those that have made their eyes a fountain to wash Christ’s feet in, may look to have Christ’s heart a fountain to bathe their souls in.

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The heart of the wise [is] in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools [is] in the house of mirth.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. — He gladly makes use of all good means of minding his mortality, and holds it a high point of heavenly wisdom so to do. Hence he frequents funerals, mingles with mourners, hears etiam muta clamare cadavers, makes every tomb a teacher, every monument a monitor, Monimenta, quasi mentem momentia. lays him down in his bed as in his grave, looks upon his sheets as his winding sheet. Ut somnus mortis, sic lectus imago sepulchri. If he hears but the clock strike, sees the glass run out, it is as a death’s head to preach memento mori to him; he remembers the days of darkness, as Solomon bids, Ecclesiastes 11:8 acts death aforehand, takes up many sad and serious thoughts of it, and makes it his continual practice so to do, as Job and David did. The wiser Jews digged their graves long before, as that old prophet; 1 Kings 13:30 Joseph of Arimathea had his in his garden to season his delights. John, Patriarch of Alexandria (surnamed Eleemosynarius, for his bounty to the poor), having his tomb in building, gave his people charge it should be left unfinished, and that every day one should put him in mind to perfect it, that he might remember his mortality. The Christians in some part of the primitive Church took the sacrament every day, because they looked to die every day. Augustine would not for the gain of a million of worlds be an atheist for half an hour, because he had no certainty of his life for so short a time. His mother, Monica, was heard oft to say, How is it that I am here still? Quid hic facio. - Aug. The women of the Isle of Man, saith Speed, Description of the Isle of Man, abridged. whensoever they go out of their doors, gird themselves about with the winding sheet that they purpose to be buried in, to show themselves mindful of their mortality. The philosopher Arist. affirms that man is therefore the wisest of creatures, because he alone can number, - Bruta non numerant; this is an essential difference, - but especially in that divine arithmetic of so "numbering his days as to apply his heart to wisdom." Psalms 90:12 This speaks him wise indeed, right in his judgment, right also in his affections. This will render him right in his practice too; as it did Waldus, the merchant of Lyons, who seeing one suddenly fall down dead before him, became a new man, and chief of those old Protestants, the poor men of Lyons, Pauperes de Lugduno. called also Waldenses from this Waldus.

But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. — See Trapp on " Ecclesiastes 7:3 " As the heart of the wicked is light and little worth, so it is their trade to hunt after lying vanities (as the child doth after butterflies), to "rejoice in a thing of nothing"; Amos 6:13 he wiles away his time, either in "weaving spiders’ webs or hatching cockatrice’ eggs"; Isaiah 59:5 froth or filth αφροσυνη , Mark 7:22 is their recreation. Sad and serious thoughts they banish, and therefore love not to be alone. They hate to hear of that terrible word death - as Louis XI of France commanded his servants not once to mention it to him, though he lay upon his deathbed. They live and laugh as if they were out of the reach of God’s rod, or as if their lives were riveted upon eternity, They can see death in other men’s brows and visages, not feel it in their own bowels and bosoms. When they behold any laid in their graves, they can shake their heads and say, This is what we must all come to; but after a while all is forgotten, - as water stirred with a stone cast into it hath circle upon circle on the surface for present, but by and by all is smooth as before. As chickens in a storm haste to be under the hen’s wing, but when that is a little over they lie dusting themselves in the sunshine; so it is here. Good thoughts fall upon evil hearts as sparks upon wet tinder; or if they kindle there, fools bring their buckets to quench them, run into merry company to drink, or otherwise drive away those troublesome heart qualms and melancholy dumps, as they call them. This is to excel in madness, … See Trapp on " Proverbs 10:23 "

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[It is] better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.

It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise. — Sharp truth takes better with an honest heart than a smooth supparasitation. Seneca compares flattery to a song or symphony; but it is a syren’s song, and our ears must be stopped to it; for like the poison of asps, it casts one into a sleep, but that sleep is deadly. Those that had the sudor Anglicus, or sweating sickness, died assuredly, if allowed to sleep; those, then, were their best friends that kept them waking, though haply they had no thank for it; so are wise and merciful reprovers. "Faithful are these wounds of a friend." Proverbs 27:6 See Trapp on " Proverbs 27:6 " David was full glad of them; Psalms 141:5 so was Gerson, who never took anything more kindly, saith he that writes his life, than to be plainly dealt with. The bee can suck sweet honey out of bitter thyme, yea, out of poisonous hemlock. So can a wise man make benefit of his friends, nay, of his enemies. It is good to have friends (as the orator said of judges), mode audeant quae sentiunt, so they dare deal freely. This an enemy will do for spite; and malice though it be an ill judge, yet is a good informer. Augustine, in an epistle to Jerome, approves well of him that said, There is more good to be gotten by enemies railing than friends flattering. These sing Satan’s lullaby, such as casts into a dead lethargy, and should therefore be served as Alexander the Great served a certain philosopher whom he chased out of his presence, and gave this reason, Because he had lived long with him, and never reproved any vice in him; or as the same Alexander dealt by Aristobulus, the false historian, who had written a book of his noble acts, and had magnified them beyond truth, hoping thereby to ingratiate and curry favour: Alexander having read the book, cast it into the River Hydaspes, and told the author it were a good deed to throw him after, Qui solus me sic pugnantem facis. Quint. Curt.

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For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so [is] the laughter of the fool: this also [is] vanity.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot. — Much noise, little fire; much light, little heat. So here is much mirth, little cause; a blaze it may yield, but is suddenly extinct; this blaze is also under a pot; the gallantry of it is checked with troubles and terrors; it is insincere many times; it is but the "hypocrisy of mirth," as one calls it. It is truly and trimly here compared to a handful of brushwood, or sear thorn, under the pot. Ecquando vidisti flammam stipula exortam, claro strepitu, largo fulgore, cito incremento, sed enim materia levi, caduco incendio, nullis reliquiis, saith Apuleius - a very dainty description of carnal joy, and agreeable to this text. And herewith also very well suits that of the Psalmist, "Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath." Psalms 58:9 Fools themselves are but thorns twisted and folded together; Nahum 1:10 "briars"; Micah 7:4 "brambles." Judges 9:14 Their laughter is also fitly compared to thorns, because it chokes good motions, scratcheth the conscience, harbours the vermin of base and baggage lusts. And as themselves, like thorns, shall be thrust away and utterly burnt with fire in the same place, 2 Samuel 23:6-7 so their joy soon expireth, and proves to be rather desolation than consolation - as lightning is followed with rending and roaring, as comets outblaze the very stars, but when their exhaled matter is wasted, they vanish and fill the air with pestilent vapours. The prophet Amos telleth the wicked that "their sun shall go down at noonday." Amos 8:9 Surely as metals are then nearest melting when they shine brightest in the fire, and as the fishes swim merrily down the silver streams of Jordan till they suddenly fall into the Dead Sea, where presently they perish, so it fares with these merry Greeks that fleer To laugh in a coarse, impudent, or unbecoming manner. when they should fear, and laugh when they should lament. "Woe to you that laugh," Luke 6:25 saith Christ; how suddenly are they put out as the fire of thorns! Psalms 118:12

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Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.

Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad, — viz., Till such time as he hath recollected himself, and summoned the sobriety of his senses before his own judgment - till he hath reasoned himself and prayed himself out of his distemper, as David [Asaph.] did in Psalms 73:16-17 Anger is a short madness, fury a frenzy; and who so apprehensive of an injury as the wise man? and who so wise as not sometimes to be overcarried by his passion to his cost? Oppression may express that from the meekest Moses which he may sorely repent, but knows not how to remedy. Anger displays reason in the wisest sometimes, and especially in case of calumny - for the eye and the good name will bear no jests, as the proverb hath it. A man can better bear a thong on the back than a touch on the eye. You shall find some, saith Erasmus, that if death be threatened, can despise it, but to be belied they cannot brook, nor from revenge contain themselves. How could we digest that calumny (might Erasmus well think then) that he basely casts upon our profession in his epistle to Bilibaldus? Ubicunque regnat Lutherus, ibi literarum est interitus: duo tantum quaerunt, censum, et uxorem: Wheresoever Luther prevails, learning goes down; wealth and wives is all they look after. How ill himself, with all his wisdom, could endure this kind of oppression, appears by his Hyperaspistes, and many other his apologies - for by his playing on both hands, Nec evangelicorum vitavit censuras, nec apud episcopos et monachos gratiam inivit, Amama in Antibarb. Praefat. he was beaten on both sides, which made him little less than mad; and it was but just upon him. David’s grief was that his enemies traduced and abused him without cause. Job and Jeremiah make the same complaint, and were much troubled. Defamations, they knew well, do usually leave a kind of lower estimation many times, even where they are not believed. Calamniare audacter, aliquid saltem adhaerebit. Hence Paul’s apologies and self-commendation, even to suspicion of madness almost. Hence Basil, in an epistle ad Bosphorum Episcop: Quo putas animum meum dolore affecit fama calumniae illius quam mihi offuderunt quidam, non metuentes Iudicem perditurum omnes loquentes mendacium? Tanto videlicet ut prope totam noctem insomnem duxerim: With what grief dost thou think, saith he, did that calumny oppress my mind, which some (not fearing the Judge that shall destroy all them that speak lies) did cast upon me? Even so much that I slept not almost all the night; so had the apprehended sadness possessed the secrets of mine heart.

And a gift destroyeth the heart, — i.e., Corrupts it, makes it blind, and so destroys it; as the eagle lights upon the hart’s horns, flutters dust in his eyes, and so by blinding him brings him to destruction. Pliny. See Deuteronomy 16:19 . See Trapp on " Deuteronomy 16:19 " Let a judge be both wise (for his understanding) and righteous (for his will), a gift will mar all, as it is there: it dazzleth the eyes, and maketh a wise man mad.

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Better [is] the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: [and] the patient in spirit [is] better than the proud in spirit.

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning. — No right judgment can be made of anything unless we can see the end of it. God seems oft to go a contrary way to work, but by that time both ends be brought together, all is as it should be, and it appears that he doth all things in number, weight, and measure. We may learn (saith Mr Hooper, Acts and Mon., fol. 1377. martyr, in a certain letter exhorting to patience) by things that nourish and maintain us, both meat and drink, what loathsome and abhorring they come unto, before they work their perfection in us: from life they are brought to the fire, and clean altered from what they were when they were alive; from the fire to the trencher and knife, and all to be hacked; from the trencher to the mouth, and as small ground as the teeth can grind them; from the mouth into the stomach, and there so boiled and digested before they nourish, that whosoever saw the same would loathe and abhor his own nourishment, till it come to perfection. But as a man looketh for the nourishment of his meat when it is full digested, and not before, so must he look for deliverance when he hath suffered much trouble, and for salvation when he hath passed through the strait gate, … Let the wise man look to the end, and to the right which in the end God will do him, in the destruction of his oppressors; and this will patient his heart and heal his distemper. We "have heard of the patience of Job, and what end the Lord made with him. Be ye also patient," you shall shortly have help if ye hold out waiting. "Mark the upright man, and behold the just, for" - whatsoever his beginning or his middle be - "the end of that man is peace." Psalms 37:37 Only he must hold out faith and patience, and not fall off from good beginnings; for as the evening crowneth the day, and as the grace of an interlude is in the last scene, so it is constancy that crowneth all graces, and he only that "continueth to the end that shall he saved." Laban was very kind at first, but he showed himself at parting. Saul’s three first years were good. Judas carried himself fair, usque ad loculorum officium, saith Tertullian, till the bag was committed to him. Many set out for heaven with as much seeming resolution as Lot’s wife did out of Sodom, as Orphah did out of Moab, as the young man in the Gospel came to Christ; but after a while they fall away, they stumble at the cross, and fall backwards. Now to such it may well be said, The end is better than the beginning. Better it had been for such never to have known the way of God, … Christ loves no lookers back. See how he thunders against them. Hebrews 10:26-27 ; Hebrews 10:38-39 So doth St Paul against the Galatians, because they "did run well," but, lying down in that heat, they caught a surfeit, and fell into a consumption.

And the patient in spirit is better than the proud, … — Pride is the mother of impatience, as infidelity is of pride. "The just shall live by faith" Habakkuk 2:4 - live upon promises, reversions, hopes - wait deliverance or want it, if God will have it so. "But his soul, which," for want of faith to ballast it, "is lifted up," and so presumes to set God a time wherein to come or never come, 2 Kings 6:33 "is not upright in him." Some things he doth, as it were a madman, not knowing or greatly caring what he doth, saith Gregory. Greg. Pastor. He frets at God and rails at men - lays about him on all hands, and never ceaseth, till in that distemperature he depart the world, which so oftentimes himself had distempered, as the chronicler Daniel. concludes the life of our Henry II.

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