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Ecclesiastes 7 · a question people ask

"Why were the former days better than these?" (7:10). Is it wrong to miss the past?

In the text

The verse is about saying that question. It opens "Don’t say" (7:10), gives the question, and then its reason: "For you do not ask wisely about this" (7:10). In Hebrew wisely is chokhmah, the word the WEB gives as wisdom in the next two verses: "Wisdom is as good as an inheritance" (7:11), and "For wisdom is a defense" (7:12). Former is the word of the book's first chapter, "There is no memory of the former" (1:11). The verse doesn't say whether the former days were better or worse, and it doesn't speak of remembering them; it speaks of asking why they were better. Two verses earlier the Preacher says, "Better is the end of a thing than its beginning" (7:8). These notes add nothing to the verse.

The verses

“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning. The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
Ecclesiastes 7:8 · World English Bible
“Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For you do not ask wisely about this. Wisdom is as good as an inheritance. Yes, it is more excellent for those who see the sun. For wisdom is a defense, even as money is a defense; but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.”
Ecclesiastes 7:10-12 · World English Bible
“There is no memory of the former; neither shall there be any memory of the latter that are to come, among those that shall come after.”
Ecclesiastes 1:11 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Ecclesiastes 7

Ecclesiastes 7: Better is the end of a thing

Find is this chapter's word: every find and found in it is one Hebrew verb, nine of the book's seventeen. After all his seeking the Preacher says, "Behold, I have only found this: that God made mankind upright; but they search for many inventions" (7:29), and search for is the verb of his own seeking (7:25, 7:28).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions