Book Overview - Ecclesiastes

by James Gray

ECCLESIASTES INTRODUCTION

The ground for ascribing Ecclesiastes to Solomon is fourfold:

1. The indirect claim of the book as gathered from Ecclesiastes 1:1; Ecclesiastes 1:12; Ecclesiastes 2. the general opinion of Jews and Christians from the earliest times; 3. the fitness of Solomon to write it; 4. the lack of agreement among critics as to any other author or period. There are different plans or theories of the book, but to the compiler of this commentary it is a kind of biography of Solomon’s life, and yet one in which he not only records, but re-acts his search for happiness, making of it a kind of dramatic biography.

In other words, Solomon rehearses the various phases of his former self, having fits of study, luxury, misanthropy, etc., all ending in disappointment. It is important to note that “wisdom” in Ecclesiastes means “science,” while in Proverbs it means “piety.” In the same connection, “vanity” here means not merely foolish pride, but “the emptiness of the final result of life apart from God” (Romans 8:20-22).

They who hold this conception of the book are well represented by W. J. Erdman, in his concise work, entitled “Ecclesiastes,” on which we have permission to draw for what follows. He calls it The Book of the Natural Man, by which he means man as he is “under the sun,” compared with the man of Paul, whose “citizenship is in heaven.”