Why Does the Bible Say that Sorrow is Better than Laughter?
What does Ecclesiastes 7:3 mean when it says that “sorrow is better than laughter”?
Sorrow is better than laughter, for when a face is sad a heart may be happy. —Ecclesiastes 7:3 NASB
Not only does this seem counterintuitive, but it could also come across as insensitive—or maybe even downright offensive—to someone whose heart is hurting. “How could this sorrow I’m experiencing EVER be better than times of laughter??”
The very next verse starts to explain it when it says:
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure. (Ecc 7:4)
In other words, the laughter associated with pleasure only leads to foolishness while sorrow leads to wisdom.
That’s right: out of all the other possibilities, sorrow is the thing that leads to wisdom.
To be honest, my own experience kind of agrees with scripture’s claim. When I’m sad, I get a sense of deep heaviness that can’t be experienced any other way. The New Living Translation says that the reason why sorrow is better than laughter is because “sadness has a refining influence on us.” As unenjoyable as sorrow might be, it actually has the power to affect me in a profound, life-changing way that laughter has never been capable of doing.
The verse in Ecclesiastes right before these two actually says:
It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. (Ecc 7:2)
As grave as this verse sounds, enduring a period of sadness can actually remind me of how beautifully fragile this gift of life really is. It leaves me more in touch with the reality of how small I really am and how much I actually need God.
The Apostle Paul agrees that sorrow can be used to pull us back to God. He writes:
the kind of sorrow [that] God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance [turning toward God], results in spiritual death. (2 Cor 7:10)
Sorrow and/or depression can be a make-or-break moment for anyone’s faith. If I try to get through it without turning to God, it will only lead me to spiritual death, but if sorrow causes me to turn to God, then he will lead me deeper into the love, peace, and life that is himself.