Among all the books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes appears to come closest to the tragic wisdom of the ancients. But this is an illusion. Solomon warns that it is folly to say that the old days were better than the present (7:10), and encourages patience because “the end of the matter is better than its beginning” (7:8). According to Seow, this is the point of the obscure little parable at the end of chapter 4: “The young commoner (apparently a poor person) was in prison but went on to become king. By contrast, the king was born into the royal family but became impoverished. And the former situation is judged to be ‘better’ – that is, it is better to start poor but end up well, than to start well and end up poor.”
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