For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, So is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.
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.
- BSB For like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This too is futile.
- 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 heat of the thorns, he will sweep away the green and the burning alike.
- Ps 118:12They surrounded me like bees. They are quenched like the burning thorns. In Yahweh’s name I cut them off.
- Eccl 2:2I said of laughter, “It is foolishness”; and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?”
- Luke 6:25Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
- 2 Pet 2:13–17receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and defects, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you;
- Prov 29:9If a wise man goes to court with a foolish man, the fool rages or scoffs, and there is no peace.
- Jude 1:12–13These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
- Amos 8:10I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.
- Luke 16:25“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish.
- Isa 65:13–15Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Behold, my servants will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. Behold, my servants will rejoice, but you will be disappointed;
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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.