Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
(Ecc. 7:1-29)
(See on Ecclesiastes 6:12).
name--character; a godly mind and life; not mere reputation with man, but what a man is in the eyes of God, with whom the name and reality are one thing (Isaiah 9:6). This alone is "good," while all else is "vanity" when made the chief end.
ointment--used lavishly at costly banquets and peculiarly refreshing in the sultry East. The Hebrew for "name" and for "ointment," have a happy paronomasia, Sheem and Shemen. "Ointment" is fragrant only in the place where the person is whose head and garment are scented, and only for a time. The "name" given by God to His child (Revelation 3:12) is for ever and in all lands. So in the case of the woman who received an everlasting name from Jesus Christ, in reward for her precious ointment (Isaiah 56:5; Mark 14:3-9). Jesus Christ Himself hath such a name, as the Messiah, equivalent to Anointed (Song of Solomon 1:3).
and the day of [his] death, etc.--not a general censure upon God for creating man; but, connected with the previous clause, death is to him, who hath a godly name, "better" than the day of his birth; "far better," as Philippians 1:23 has it.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Proverbs 22:1
Ecclesiastes 4:2
Ecclesiastes 9:5
Ecclesiastes 9:8
Ecclesiastes 10:1
Song of Solomon 1:3
Luke 7:4
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