Écclésiaste 7:2

Louis Segond

Mieux vaut aller dans une maison de deuil que d'aller dans une maison de festin; car c'est là la fin de tout homme, et celui qui vit prend la chose à coeur.

Parallel Translations

La Bible David Martin (1744)
Il vaut mieux aller dans une maison de deuil, que d'aller dans une maison de festin; car en celle-là est la fin de tout homme, et le vivant met cela en son cœur.

La Bible Ostervald (1996)
Mieux vaut aller dans une maison de deuil, que d'aller dans une maison de festin; car là est la fin de tout homme, et celui qui vit met cela dans son cœur.

Darby's French Translation
Mieux vaut aller dans la maison de deuil, que d'aller dans la maison de festin, en ce que là est la fin de tout homme; et le vivant prend cela à coeur.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

better: Genesis 48:1-22, Genesis 49:2-33, Genesis 50:15-17, Job 1:4, Job 1:5, Isaiah 5:11, Isaiah 5:12, Isaiah 22:12-14, Amos 6:3-6, Matthew 5:4, Matthew 14:6-12, 1 Peter 4:3, 1 Peter 4:4

that: Numbers 23:10, Deuteronomy 32:29, Romans 6:21, Romans 6:22, Philippians 3:19, Hebrews 9:27

living: Deuteronomy 32:46, Isaiah 47:7, Haggai 1:5, *marg. Malachi 2:2

Reciprocal: Esther 1:10 - the heart Ecclesiastes 2:2 - It is Ecclesiastes 9:5 - the living Ecclesiastes 10:19 - feast Jeremiah 12:11 - layeth Jeremiah 16:8 - General Luke 6:21 - ye that weep John 11:19 - to comfort James 4:9 - afflicted 1 Peter 4:7 - the end

Gill's Notes on the Bible

[It is] better to go to the house of mourning,.... For deceased relations or friends, who either lie unburied, or have been lately inferred; for the Jews kept their mourning for their dead several days afterwards, when their friends visited them in order to comfort them, as the Jews did Martha and Mary, John 11:31. So the Targum here,

"it is better to go to a mourning man to comfort him;''

for at such times and places the conversation was serious and interesting, and turned upon the subjects of mortality and a future state, and preparation for it; from whence useful and instructive lessons are learned; and so it was much better to be there

than to go to the house of feasting: the Targum is,

"than to the house of a feast of wine of scorners;''

where there is nothing but noise and clamour, luxury and intemperance, carnal mirth and gaiety, vain and frothy conversation, idle talk and impure songs, and a jest made of true religion and godliness, death and another world;

for that [is] the end of all men; not the house of feasting, but the house of mourning; or mourning itself, as Jarchi; every man must expect to lose his relation and friend, and so come to the house of mourning; and must die himself, and be the occasion of mourning: death itself seems rather intended, which is the end of all men, the way of all flesh; for it is appointed for men to die; and so the Targum,

"seeing upon them all is decreed the decree of death;''

and the living will lay [it] to his heart; by going to the house of mourning, he will be put in mind of death, and will think of it seriously, and consider his latter end, how near it is; and that this must be his case shortly, as is the deceased's he comes to mourn for. So the Targum interprets it of words concerning death, or discourses of mortality he there hears, which he takes notice of and lays to his heart, and lays up in it. Jarchi's note is,

"their thought is of the way of death.''

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

That - Namely, what is seen in the house of mourning.

Lay it to his heart - Consider it attentively.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Ecclesiastes 7:2. It is better to go to the house of mourning — Birthdays were generally kept with great festivity, and to these the wise man most probably refers; but according to his maxim, the miseries of life were so many and so oppressive that the day of a man's death was to be preferred to the day of his birth. But, in dependently of the allusion, it is much more profitable to visit the house of mourning for the dead than the house of festivity. In the former we find occasion for serious and deeply edifying thoughts and reflections; from the latter we seldom return with one profitable thought or one solid impression.