Ver. 1. A good name is better than precious ointment.] Yea, than great riches. [See Trapp on “Pr 22:1”] The initial letter of the Hebrew word for “good” here is larger than ordinary, to show the more than ordinary excellence of a good name and fame among men. [Hebrew Text Note] If whatsoever David doeth doth please the people, if Mary Magdalen’s cost upon Christ be well spoken of in all the churches, if the Romans’ faith be famous throughout the whole world, (Romans 1:8) if Demetrius have a good report of all good men, and St John set his seal to it, this must needs be better than precious ointments; the one being but a perfume of the nostrils, the other of the heart. Sweet ointment, olfactum afficit, spiritum reficit, cerebrum iuvat, affects the smell, refresheth the spirit, comforts the brain: a good name doth all this and more. For, First, As a fragrant scent, it affects the soul, amidst the stench of evil courses and companies. It is as a fresh gale of sweet air to him that lives, as Noah did, among such as are no better than walking dunghills, and living sepulchres of themselves, stinking much more worse than Lazarus did, after he had lain four days in the grave. A good name preserveth the soul as a pomander; and refresheth it more than musk or civit doth the body. Secondly, It comforts the conscience, and exhilarates the heart; cheers up the mind amidst all discouragements, and fatteth the bones, (Proverbs 15:30) doing a man good, like a medicine. And whereas sweet ointments may be corrupted by dead flies, a good name, proceeding from a good conscience, cannot be so. Fly blown it may be for a season, and somewhat obscured; but as the moon wades out of a cloud, so shall the saints’ innocence break forth as the light, and their righteousness as the noonday. (Psalms 37:6) Buried it may be in the open sepulchres of evil throats, but it shall surely rise again: a resurrection there shall be of names, as well as of bodies, at the last day, at utmost. But usually a good name comforts a Christian at his death, and continues after it. For though the name of the wicked shall rot, his lamp shall be put out in obscurity, and leave a vile snuff behind it, yet “the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance”; they shall leave their names for a blessing. (Isaiah 65:15) And the day of death, than the day of one’s birth.] The Greeks call a man’s birthday, γενεθλιον quasi γενεσιν αθλων; the beginning of his nativity, they call the begetting of his misery. “Man that is born of a woman, is born to trouble,” saith Job. (Job 14:1) The word there rendered born, signifieth also generated or concieved; to note that man is miserable, even as soon as he is “warm in the womb,” as David hath it. (Psalms 51:5) If he lives to see the light, he comes crying into the world, a fletu vitam auspicatur, saith Seneca. Insomuch as the lawyers define life by crying, and a stillborn child is all one as dead in law. Only Zoroaster is said to have been born laughing, but that laughter was both monstrous and ominous. For he first found out the black art which yet profited him not so far as to the vain felicity of this present life. For being king of the Bactrians, he was overcome and slain in battle by Ninus, king of the Assyrians. Augustine, who relates this story, saith of man’s first entrance into the world, Nondum loquitur, et tamen prophetat, ere ever a child speaks, be prophesies, by his tears, of his ensuing sorrows. Nec prius natus, quam damnatus, no sooner is he born, but he is condemned to the mines or galleys, as it were, of sin and suffering. Hence Solomon here prefers his coffin before his cradle. And there was some truth in that saying of the heathen, Optimum est non nasci, proximum quam celerrime mori: For wicked men it had been best not to have been born, or being born, to die quickly; since by living long they heap up first sin, and then wrath against the day of wrath. As for good men, there is no doubt but the day of death is best to them, because it is the daybreak of eternal righteousness; and after a short brightness, as that martyr said, gives them, Malorum ademptionem, bonorum adeptionem, freedom from all evil, fruition of all good. Hence the ancient fathers called those days wherein the martyrs suffered their birthdays, because then they began to live indeed: since here to live is but to lie dying. Eternal life is the only true life, saith Augustine. ט Maiusculam. Ad Mare., cap. 11. Justin, lib. i.
Ver. 2. It is better to go to the house of mourning.] To the terming house, as they term it, where a dead corpse is laid forth for burial, and in that respect weeping and wailing, which is one of the dues of the dead, whose bodies are sown in corruption, and watered usually with tears. It is better therefore to sort with such, to mingle with mourners, to follow the hearse, to weep with those that weep, to visit the heavy hearted, this being a special means of mortification, than to go to the house of feasting, where is nothing but joy and jollity, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine, yea, therefore eating and drinking, because tomorrow they shall die. Ede, bibe, lude, post mortem nulla voluptas. What good can be gotten among such swinish epicures? What sound remedy against life’s vanity? It is far better therefore to go to the house of mourning, where a man may be moved with compassion, with compunction, with due and deep consideration of his doleful and dying condition; where he may hear dead Abel by a dumb eloquence preaching and pressing this necessary but much neglected lesson, that “this is the end of all men, and the living should lay it to heart”; or, as the Hebrew hath it, “lay it upon his heart,” work it upon his affections; inditurus est iliad animo suo, so Tremelius renders it, he will so mind it as to make his best use of it, so as to say with Job, “I know that thou wilt bring me unto death”; (Job 30:23) and with David, “Behold, thou hast made my days as a span”; (Psalms 39:4,5) and as Moses, who when he saw the people’s carcases fall so fast in the wilderness, “Lord, teach us,” said he, “so to number our days, as to cause our hearts” (of themselves never a whit willing) “to come to wisdom.” (Psalms 90:12) τα νομιζομενα Sardanapali vox belluina.