For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.
As the crackling of thorns ... The "crackling" answering to the loud merriment of fools. It is the very fire consuming them which produces the seeming merry noise (Joel 2:5). Their light soon goes out in the black darkness. There is a paronomasia in the Hebrew ciyriym (H5518) (thorns) ... ciyr (H5518) (pot). The wicked are often compared to "thorns" (2 Samuel 23:6; Nahum 1:10). Dried cow dung was the common fuel in Palestine; its slowness in burning makes the quickness of a blazing fire of thorns the more graphic, as an image of the sudden end of fools (Psalms 118:12).