Ecclesiastes

“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”

— Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (ESV)

Overview

Ecclesiastes belongs to the Old Testament’s wisdom literature, alongside Job and Proverbs.¹ Its Hebrew title, Koheleth, is rendered by the Greek Septuagint as Ecclesiastes, “one who gathers or addresses an assembly,” and in English as “the Preacher”; because the Hebrew word takes a feminine form, it more precisely names Wisdom herself as a preacher, with Solomon cast as her spokesman.¹ The book records his search for lasting good in wealth, pleasure, and learning, and the conclusion he reaches after that search fails: to enjoy God’s gifts in the fear of God, in view of a coming judgment (Eccl. 12:13-14).¹

Author and Date

Jewish and Christian tradition ascribed the book to Solomon, written in his old age after his repentance for the idolatry into which his foreign wives had drawn him (1 Kings 11:1-8).² Edward Leigh reported that “many of the Hebrews say, that this Book was written by Salomon to testifie his repentance of his ill led life.”² Benedict Pictet likewise held Solomon as author, adding that the book, rightly read, confirms rather than denies the soul’s immortality.³ Elijah Porter Barrows called this Solomonic authorship “the uniform belief of the ancient church.”¹

Some evangelical scholars have read the book’s opening differently. Barrows noted that conservative interpreters including Hengstenberg and Keil held that the author wrote in Solomon’s name, adopting his character as the Hebrew embodiment of wisdom, rather than that Solomon penned it himself.¹ Their reasons were chiefly two: the book’s dark, disillusioned tone does not suit the prosperous years of Solomon’s own reign, and its Hebrew differs markedly from the Hebrew of Proverbs and the Song of Solomon.¹ Barrows judged that the book’s canonical authority stands regardless of which view is taken; it held a settled place in the Hebrew canon and was already read as Scripture in the days of Christ and the apostles.¹

Historical and Literary Context

The book presents itself as the reflection of “the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (Eccl. 1:1), a man who had tried the world in every form open to a king: honor, wealth, pleasure, and the pursuit of speculative wisdom, and found each one only “vanity and vexation of spirit” when sought as life’s supreme good.¹ Its setting is therefore retrospective, the verdict of a life already lived rather than counsel offered in advance of it, matching the tradition that it records an old man’s repentance for the years his own folly had cost him.²

Structure

Leigh summarized the book’s own scope, stated in its closing verses, as having two principal parts: the first exposing the vanity of the world’s concerns and pursuits, the second commending the stability and profit of godliness and the fear of God.² Barrows, following the same division, located the turn between the two roughly at the book’s midpoint: the first six chapters press the search for happiness to its failure, interspersing counsel on how its vexations may be lessened; the remaining six chapters unfold where happiness can actually be found, how to live usefully and contentedly under unavoidable evil, and how to make right use of outward things without demanding of them a satisfaction they cannot give.⁴

Major Themes

Vanity (Hevel)

The Preacher’s refrain is that life’s ordinary goods, pursued as ends in themselves, are vanity: Barrows described his verdict on honor, wealth, pleasure, and speculative wisdom alike as “vanity and vexation of spirit” once any of them is sought as the supreme good.¹ Leigh summarized the same conclusion as the book’s own stated scope: “all things in the world are vain.”²

Life Under the Sun

Ecclesiastes surveys human toil and gain as they appear “under the sun,” without reference to a fuller revelation of eternity than the Old Testament writers yet possessed. Bavinck cited the book directly for the Old Testament portrait of the dead in Sheol as excluded from any further part “in all that happens under the sun” (Eccl. 9:5-6, 10), a picture formed entirely from the vantage point of earthly life and its enjoyments.⁵ Barrows made a parallel point about the book’s own horizon: its outlook, that “the night cometh, when no man can work,” does not deny a future life but reflects “a less full revelation of it than is given in the New Testament.”¹

Fear God and Keep His Commandments

The book resolves its own argument in this charge (Eccl. 12:13-14). Leigh identified it as the “summe and scope of the whole Book,” explained in the closing chapter: because all things are vain, “nothing is more profitable and necessary then to fear God and keep his Commandments.”² Barrows likewise found the Preacher’s counsel throughout to be that enjoyment of God’s gifts must be taken “in the fear of God, who will bring all our works into judgment,” since he “explicitly asserts a judgment to come.”⁴

Related Doctrines

References

Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), 290-291. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰
Edward Leigh, A Systeme or Body of Divinity (London: A. M. for William Lee, 1654), 36. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1845), 31. ↩
Barrows, 291-292. ↩ ↩²
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 23, “The Intermediate State.” ↩