The end of a matter is better than the beginning, and a patient spirit is better than a proud one.
Solomon had often complained before of the oppressions which he saw under the sun, which gave occasion for many melancholy speculations and were a great discouragement to virtue and piety. Now here, I. He grants the temptation to be strong (Ecc 7:7): Surely it is often too true that oppression makes a wise man mad.
Commenting on Ecclesiastes 7:7-10
Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof,.... If the thing is good, other ways the end of it is worse; as the end of wickedness and wicked men, whose beginning is sweet, but the end bitter; yea, are the ways of death, Pro 5:4; and so the end of carnal professors and apostates, who begin in the Spirit, and end in...
connected with Ecc 7:7. Let the "wise" wait for "the end," and the "oppressions" which now (in "the beginning") perplex their faith, will be found by God's working to be overruled to their good. "Tribulation worketh patience" (Rom 5:3), which is infinitely better than "the proud spirit" that prosperity might have generated in them, as it has in fools (Psa 73:2-3, Psa 73:12-14, Psa 73:17-26; Jam 5:11).