Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Ecclesiastes 1:1-3
Chapter 1 The Vainness and Meaninglessness of Life.
All Is Vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:1).
‘The words of the preacher (Qoheleth - assembly leader), the son of David, king in Jerusalem.'
The word ‘qoheleth' is a feminine singular participial form connected with the root ‘qahal' which means ‘to assemble'. Thus it signified one connected with an assembly either as speaker, leader or member, possibly of a group that met in the royal court to consider wisdom. So here Qoheleth is possibly to be seen as ‘the preacher' or ‘the speaker' or ‘the appointed leader' of a recognised group of seekers after wisdom.
He identifies himself as ‘the son of David and king in Jerusalem'. ‘Son of David' simply identifies him as being of the Davidic royal house. It does not mean that it was his direct heir. While Solomon is favoured by tradition, no doubt because of his fame as a wisdom teacher and because of his grand lifestyle, there are in fact a number of arguments which make this unlikely (see below). Alternatives would include the ‘good' kings' such as Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah or Josiah, or some other king, even one who ruled in Jerusalem after the Exile (this last would tie in with the apparently ‘late' grammar). But we know nothing else about the writer, except what was in his heart. He clearly does not want to be openly recognised. He rather wants to be known as ‘a wise man'.
The identity of the author is somewhat restricted by the following facts:
· 1). The author's name is nowhere mentioned. This militates against Solomon because he was so well known and so influential that had he written it his name would surely have been attached to it, as it was to other writings connected with him, such as the Song of Solomon and part of Proverbs.
· 2). The official title ‘king in Jerusalem' in Ecclesiastes 1:1 (see context) fits strangely with Solomon who is usually called ‘king of Israel'. It is true that in Ecclesiastes 1:12 the title is extended to ‘king over Israel in Jerusalem' but this only tends to emphasise the point. The ‘in Jerusalem' is clearly the main emphasis. It may indicate that there were rival kings (or a prince-regent who was also called king) at the time so that there was a king ‘in somewhere else', or that he was an under-king under an Overlord, but it does not indicate the all powerful, despotic ruler of a large empire like Solomon.
· 3). In Ecclesiastes 1:16 the author says that he ‘had increased in knowledge over all who were before him in Jerusalem'. If this refers to ‘all kings' then the writer could clearly not have been Solomon, for it is very unlikely that previous Canaanite kings were in mind. It is feasible that it refers to a group of wisdom teachers gathered by David. On the other hand we might well feel that the impression given is that the author was looking back on a longish tradition of wise men or wise kings.
· 4). In Ecclesiastes 1:12 the writer says, ‘I Qoheleth WAS (hayithi) king in Jerusalem.' That seems to suggest that he no longer was so. That is one reason why Uzziah has been mooted, for he became a leper and could therefore have been seen as ceasing to be king in Jerusalem as a result of his isolation. And his isolation could well have turned him to an expression of religious philosophy. It could also be seen as true of Manasseh for a period when he was carried off to Babylon. No doubt other kings could have fitted into the pattern. Alternatively it may simply indicate a period of retirement in old age when his son had been left to hold the reins of the kingdom, in which case the king is unidentifiable due to insufficient historical evidence. But it would appear to exclude Solomon, for there is no suggestion that his son was ever co-regent.
On the other hand it may simply mean that he did what he did while he was king, without necessarily signifying that he had now ceased to be king, with what had ceased being his search for truth, not his reign. In other words he had done it while he was king in Jerusalem, but had now ceased to do it.
· 5). More importantly the background of the book does not fit into the age of Solomon. It appears to have been written in a time of misery and vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2) when the splendour that was Solomon's had departed (Ecclesiastes 1:12 to Ecclesiastes 2:26). It appears to have in mind a dark period for Israel (Ecclesiastes 3:1), when injustice and violence were common and nothing was being done about it (Ecclesiastes 4:1). That seems to exclude the magnificence of the time of Solomon.
· 6). The Hebrew in which the book is written does not, in the view of many scholars, appear to favour the time of Solomon for it is seen to be of a later style, although the presence of Aramaisms is not to be seen as indicating a late date, as Aramaisms were present at Ugarit. The grammar would appear to be of a much later period than Solomon, and many examples are cited. Arguments from style are, however, notoriously equivocal and should be treated cautiously because of the limited material at our disposal.
All these reasons, and especially 3) and 5), appear to militate against Solomonic authorship. But it does not affect the importance and truth of what follows in the slightest.
The Meaninglessness Of What Man Seeks To Accomplish (Ecclesiastes 1:1).
‘Vanity of vanity,' says the preacher, ‘all is vanity. What profit does a man have of all his labour with which he labours under the sun?'
The writer begins his words with an eye-catching statement, (and ends them with the same in Ecclesiastes 12:8). All man's labour and toil is ‘vanity', indeed it is ‘vanity of vanities', total vanity (compare Ecclesiastes 12:8). The word for ‘vanity' (hebel) can mean a fleeting breath, a puff of wind. What he means by vanity is that it is spiritually and rationally profitless and meaningless, of no permanent worth, not worth the trouble except as a means of survival, not having deep significance and ultimate meaning, not contributing to the essence of life, not having lasting value. All that is connected with man's labour is transient and passing. See Psalms 39:5; Psalms 39:11; Psalms 94:11; Psalms 144:4; Isaiah 49:4; Jeremiah 16:19. For six days he labours, and on the seventh he rests. And then he begins to labour all over again. But it is all part of the earthly pattern ‘under the sun'. Apart from enabling him to survive it takes him nowhere. (Later we will learn that it is his attitude in his labouring, whether he does it before God, that is in fact important - Ecclesiastes 2:24; Ecclesiastes 5:18; Ecclesiastes 9:7; compare Ecclesiastes 8:13).
It is not without significance that the same phrase ends the main section of the work (Ecclesiastes 12:8), thus encapsulating the whole of his argument about the futility of things. But we must not overlook the fact that within that argument he constantly introduces flashes of inspiration which reach outside it, when he introduces God into the situation (Ecclesiastes 2:24; Ecclesiastes 3:10; Ecclesiastes 5:1; Ecclesiastes 5:18; Ecclesiastes 8:12; Ecclesiastes 9:1; Ecclesiastes 9:7; Ecclesiastes 11:9; Ecclesiastes 12:1; Ecclesiastes 12:7). And the whole is then capped off by the final conclusion in which awesome reverence and obedience towards God is required, followed by the warning of final judgment (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
The phrase ‘under the sun' is repeated throughout the book and is found elsewhere in Elamite and Phoenician inscriptions. Its main meaning is undoubtedly a reference to ‘everything that exists and functions on earth'. But we might also see in it a reference to the fact that it is the ‘greater light' of God's creative work (Genesis 1:14), which controls the earth system which He has created. This might be seen as confirmed by the fact that the writer unquestionably has Genesis 1 in mind elsewhere (Ecclesiastes 6:10). Furthermore its constant repetition in this book possibly also acts as a polemic against the idea of a sun-god. In those days, in a context like this, its constant repetition could hardly fail to be seen as an indictment of the sun, which could add no meaning to life. Other nations and people worshipped the sun, it was extremely prominent in Egyptian thought, (which had almost certainly influenced the writer) and everywhere popular, but under the sun (Shemesh), he stresses, was only long term uselessness and a failure to find anything meaningful. The noun was thus two-pronged. The sun was to be seen as being as transient and passing and as lacking in other-worldly influence as everything else.