Ecclesiastes Chapter Seven, What's In A Name?

 Ecclesiastes 7:1 A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth; [2] 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 take it to heart.

A good name in this instance would be a good reputation. Referring back to Ecclesiastes 6:4, the preacher, mentioning the stillborn baby, says that its name is covered in darkness. The Tanakh, in a footnote for Ecclesiastes, records that stillborn babies were cast into pits or hidden in the ground in unrecognizable graves. This takes the verse from Ecclesiastes chapter 6 to morbid new heights.

The good name then is the reputation that follows one in life, and is spoken of at death. At birth one’s name is meaningless in the sense that the child has done nothing good or evil to speak of, to associate with the name in question. Romans 9:11 indicates that Jacob and Esau were chosen for the respective positions by God out of His plan for the given nations, not because of anything the unborn children had or had not done. In fact, this verse is a strong argument against anyone using Scripture to teach reincarnation, since the Bible just declared that the unborn children were not being born into favorable or unfavorable positions due to past karma, but God’s election. Another example would be King David. We read, “And David made himself a name when he returned from killing eighteen thousand Syrians in the Valley of Salt,” 2 Samuel 8:13. His name, in this instance, represents his exploits, what David has done and is capable of. David’s name, as it were, was synonymous with being a powerful warrior king, defender of his people and a terror upon his adversaries.

Back to the point, a good name was better than precious ointment, or fragrant oil (Tanakh rendering). We know from the Gospel that this is the type of fragrant oil used for funerary purposes, Matthew 26:7. The preacher claims that the name of good repute was better than being honored with expensive oil.

He contrasts this with the day of one’s birth, and the day of their death, stating that the day of death was better. Remember, the preacher’s thoughts on this matter were rather grim: “Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead, more than the living who are still alive,” Ecclesiastes 4:2 In this extremely morbid analysis, the preacher commends the dead man for having something to teach, whereas the living do not. What is that? The living go to the house of feasting to celebrate. In American culture the living celebrate rather anything, and by celebrate that tends to mean excess drinking and debauchery.

Rather, the preacher commends the house of mourning. The dead are delivered to the grave while the living look on, reminding those that remain that this is their ultimate destiny. Moses wrote of man’s finiteness, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” Psalm 90:12. Earlier in the Psalm Moses laments of the short length of days man possesses, and the suddenness and permanence of his departure. Celebration dies in the face of this insurmountable truth; an awful and foreboding, inescapable truth that every person on earth must grapple with.

So what does the dead man teach, specifically? Like Moses’ lesson, that the living may see the ultimate end of man and take it to heart. What do we fill our lives with, and what will it mean on the day of our death? What comfort do we have in this life, or hope in the next, if there even is one? The house of feasting, whatever it imparts, does not give wisdom; this much the preacher wants us to understand. Wisdom begins with God, and our search for God can begin when we have our first real brush with death. When we are standing at the casket of a friend or relative as they are ushered to the cemetery to be committed to the earth we should, each of us, deeply ponder where they have gone, and what becomes of us when we join them in death. If you do not have answers, I pray the Lord that right now you consider Jesus Christ and His gospel, and believe in Him for eternal life. Life indeed is short, and we are not promised the seventy or eighty years Moses speaks of in his Psalm. As for my fellow saints, rejoice with James, as he reminds us that we who belong to Christ have been given a “noble name,” James 2:7. It is the only name that truly matters pertaining to life and godliness in this life and the next.