1. (See on
Ec 6:12).
name--character; a godly mind and life; not mere
reputation with man, but what a man is in the eyes of
God, with whom the name and reality are one thing
(Isa 9:6).
This alone is "good," while all else is "vanity" when made the chief
end.
ointment--used lavishly at costly banquets and peculiarly
refreshing in the sultry East. The Hebrew for "name" and for
"ointment," have a happy paronomasia, Sheem and Shemen.
"Ointment" is fragrant only in the place where the person is whose head
and garment are scented, and only for a time. The "name" given by God
to His child
(Re 3:12)
is for ever and in all lands. So in the case of the woman who received
an everlasting name from Jesus Christ, in reward for her precious
ointment
(Isa 56:5;
Mr 14:3-9).
Jesus Christ Himself hath such a name, as the Messiah, equivalent to
Anointed
(So 1:3).
and the day of [his] death, &c.--not a general censure upon God
for creating man; but, connected with the previous clause, death is to
him, who hath a godly name, "better" than the day of his birth; "far
better," as
Php 1:23
has it.
JFB.
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