June 22, 2021

A fool doesn’t laugh long

An interesting comparison of foolish behavior to nature in our Ecclesiastes today

Ecc 7:6  A fool’s laughter is quickly gone, like thorns crackling in a fire. This also is meaningless. 

Thorns are known to make a lot of noise when you throw them on a fire, but beyond that, they don’t generate much heat.  They make a loud noise and burn out.

This metaphor applies to the laughter of fools.  

If you’ve ever heard someone drunk and their extreme laughter, during their drinking bender, their laugh can be loud enough to wake the dead, but when the drunk person wakes up the next day with a gigantic hangover and trying to remember what happened the night before, that laughter is the furthest thing from their minds and it is usually replaced with shame and embarrassment.  

Moral of the story is that like the short life of thorns on a fire, so is the laughter of fools, and ultimately meaningless.  Better to walk the narrow and wise path than the wide and foolish one.

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