Ecclesiastes Chapter Seven, Rebuking Folly

Ecclesiastes 7:5 It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. [6] For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.

Continuing to another contrast and comparison, the preacher evaluates the rebuke of the wise and the song of fools. Oxford defines rebuke as "criticize or reprimand someone sharply.” Why is rebuke better? The context suggests someone slipped into error, and someone else, wanting to address and correct the error, brought it to the fore.

One cannot understand the magnitude of what has gone wrong sometimes, until a third party comes along to illuminate what is wrong, and why. When we do wrong, we are aware of what we have done when we do it with deliberation. There is wrongdoing done in ignorance, which while still needing to be addressed and corrected, carries less severity to it due to the nature of the individual simply not knowing that what they had done was wrong. Deliberate evil, however, is another matter. The wise, and Solomon himself defined the wise as God fearing persons, address the wrongdoing from holy fear, to change the course of the person involved from evil, leading to death, to good, leading to life. Not that doing good grants life but doing good after coming to the knowledge of God reveals an awareness that we agree with God, that doing good and doing His will are synonymous. One cannot truly do good by God’s standard, in fact, without being in God’s will, which means being born again through faith in Jesus Christ.

The preacher notes that hearing the rebuke of the wise is better than hearing the song of fools. If only his son would have listened to this counsel. We read of Rehoboam and his disastrous first proclamation as king, “Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who stood before his father Solomon while he still lived, and he said, “How do you advise me to answer these people?” And they spoke to him, saying, “If you will be a servant to these people today, and serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever,” 1 Kings 12:6, 7. Of course we know the result, “But he rejected the advice which the elders had given him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him,” 1 Kings 12:8. The wise counseled humility and charity; the youth counseled that Rehoboam demonstrate the power of his rule by answering roughly, essentially trying to frighten or coerce the people into compliance. But Rehoboam learned the painful lesson that day that a king’s power extends only as far as the border of his people; and that border dramatically shrank when ten tribes abandoned him because of his pride, arrogance and ego.

The preacher likens a fool’s laughter to crackling thorns under a food pot. The thorns are gathered to burn, because their only practical use was for fuel in the fire. The thorns are barbed and easily harm those that attempt to handle them; so too may it be said concerning the fool. His words and ways are frivolous and volatile. They produce no fruit, they are good for nothing medicinal; they cannot be used for clothing or shelter. Thorns are, in fact, a reflection or reminder of the curse God placed upon the earth in the time of Adam, Genesis 3:18. Thorns were produced the day Adam chose foolishness over wisdom. There is something of a corollary here. A fool’s laughter bites like those barbs, and often he will laugh at matters that should not be found amusing. Our culture has descended into this frivolous and debased pursuit of amusement by making marriage, sex, violence, and even faith something to be pointed at and laughed about. The fool and his barbs cling to everyone that brushes against them, and removing them hurts, but only when they are removed can healing commence. I pray the Lord that we, one and all, consider wisdom and foolishness, and discern unanimously that wisdom is better than folly.