Ecclesiastes 7:5

[It is] better to hear the rebuke of the wise,.... To listen to it diligently, receive it cordially, and act according to it; though it may be disagreeable to the flesh, and give present pain, yet

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 ... - (Psalms 141:4-5.) Godly reproof offends the flesh, but benefits the spirit.

The rebuke of the wise, though it causeth some grief, yet frequently brings great benefit, even reformation and salvation, both from temporal and from eternal destruction, both which are the portion of impenitent sinners. The song; the flatteries, or other merry discourses, which are as pleasant to corrupt nature, as songs or music.

Ecclesiastes 7:5 [It is] better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.Ver. 5. 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." David was full glad of them; 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.

5. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise] The word for “rebuke” is characteristic of the sapiential books of the Old Testament (Proverbs 13:1; Proverbs 17:10). Here also the teacher finds the moral that “pain is gain.” The “rebuke” is not pleasant, but it acts with a power to heal. The “song of fools” points to the type of lyric poetry of which we have examples in Anacreon, perhaps to the more wanton and impure poems which entered so largely into Greek life, and are preserved in such abundance in the Anthologia Græca. The comic drinking songs of a people represent at all times the lowest form of its animal life, and with these also, either in his own country or in Greek-speaking lands, the writer of the book had become acquainted. Amos 6:5 indicates the existence of a like form of revelry in the older life of Israel. Such songs left a taint behind them and the man was permanently the worse for it. In Ephesians 5:4 we may probably trace a reference to the same form of literature.

5. Better… for a man — The transition is easy from the monitions of death to the counsels of the living. As the term man belongs to both clauses, it might more properly stand in the former. It is better for a man, etc.