We are at 7:15. The author says that in his meaningless life, he has seen righteous men perish and wicked men live long. Well, guess what Mr. Ecclesiastes, some wicked men perish and some righteous men live long. So. What. My guess is that he is peeved because he wants a guarantee for being righteous. He feels that life is not fair if your good behavior does not get you a pass. Has anyone ever done a scientific study on the odds of a long life if you adopt a "righteous" lifestyle? Then righteous behavior would have to be strictly defined and differentiated from wicked behavior. That's problematic. Often the same exact behaviors have been labelled righteous and wicked, depending on context. In the context of Ecclesiastes, I think righteous behavior would have been religiously adhering to the proscribed practices of the author's particular religion/god.
In verse 16, the author tells us to not be over righteous or over wise, or we might destroy ourselves. We should also not be foolish or wicked, or we will die before our time. "The man who fears god will avoid all extremes." That's downright fascinating. Yahweh himself seems pretty extreme. The modern world contains abundant religious extremism.
Just after telling us not to be too wise, in verse 19 the author says "One wise man is more powerful than ten rulers in a city." However, in verse 20, there isn't a single righteous man who never sins. I would actually agree with that, depending on your definition of sin. I would add that it often doesn't matter, there are so many petty sins on god's list.
Verses 21-22 Tell us not to pay attention to everything people say or you might hear your servant cursing you. (That is if you are rich enough to have servants.) Also, admit it, you know you have cursed other people too. (No, actually I haven't. I don't believe in cursing or blessing as real things. By the way, this is not talking about using swear words. It is about wishing magical harm will happen to someone else. For example just saying "Hell!" is not a curse. Saying "You go to Hell!" is. )
In verses 23-25 the author says he has tested all this stuff with all his wisdom and it was beyond him to understand what wisdom is. He also wanted to understand "the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly." In verses 27-29, he's still searching for the scheme of things. While he was searching, he couldn't find a single upright man or woman. He thinks god made men upright but went in search of many schemes and ruined all that.
Right smack in the middle of verses 23-29, we get verse 26, which goes on a rant about a woman who would trap a sinner with her heart and chain him with her hands, but "the man who pleases god will escape her." That seems to have come out of nowhere. I would suspect that it was inserted into the text by some woman hater.
The end of chapter seven appears to spill over into the beginning of chapter eight, which tells us wisdom makes a man attractive. It brightens his face and changes its hard appearance. Hmmm.
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