For like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This too is futile.
Parallel translations
- WEB For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.
- KJV For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.
- NKJV For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, So is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.
- NASB For as the crackling of thorn bushes under a pot, So is the laughter of the fool; And this too is futility.
- NLT A fool’s laughter is quickly gone, like thorns crackling in a fire. This also is meaningless.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The laughter of fools is like crackling thorns under a pot: loud, brief, and empty. It matters because foolish mirth flares up and quickly burns out, accomplishing nothing.
Overview
The Preacher uses a vivid pun (in Hebrew, thorns and pot sound alike) to mock the fool's laughter: noisy and fleeting like burning brushwood. The image exposes the emptiness of shallow merriment, which he labels vanity. The verse commends substance over noise, directing the heart toward the lasting joy found in God rather than the crackle of fleeting amusement.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 58:9Before your pots can feel the burning thorns—whether green or dry—He will sweep them away.
- Ps 118:12They swarmed around me like bees, but they were extinguished like burning thorns; in the name of the LORD I cut them off.
- Eccl 2:2I said of laughter, “It is folly,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?”
- Luke 6:25Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
- 2 Pet 2:13–17The harm they will suffer is the wages of their wickedness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deception as they feast with you.
- Prov 29:9If a wise man goes to court with a fool, there will be raving and laughing with no resolution.
- Jude 1:12–13These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted.
- Amos 8:10I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.
- Luke 16:25But Abraham answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, while you are in agony.
- Isa 65:13–15Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: “My servants will eat, but you will go hungry; My servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; My servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The search that finds everything 'under the sun' to be vapor exposes the emptiness of life without God and drives us to the one who alone gives meaning, the resurrection that makes our labor not in vain.
How Ecclesiastes 7:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.