While some have attempted to
deny the Solomonic authorship of this book, the present writer, having seen no
convincing evidence to support this contention, accepts the view that Solomon
was indeed the writer, and that the time of writing was the 10th
century B.C.
The word Ecclesiastes
has the general meaning of calling an assembly together, and very clearly this
is a call to men to come together to consider what Solomon had learned
empirically, i.e., by observation and experience: the vanity, emptiness,
worthlessness of everything under the sun, of all the things upon which men
set a high value, but which yield no lasting satisfaction. It is the view of
things from the perspective of the unconverted man, who leaves God out of the
picture, though this may not be taken to imply that Solomon was such a man.
He wasn’t. On the contrary, there is every reason to accept the fact that he
was a believer.
The Scofield Bible
declares that, “The mood of the book is generally one of sadness: ‘labor’
occurs 23 times; ‘evil,’ 22 times; ‘vexation of spirit,’ 9 times; and such
words as ‘oppression,’ ‘grief,’ and ‘mourning’ are prominent.’” It could
hardly be otherwise, for with God ignored, man’s eternal prospects are
terrible to contemplate. Having wasted the years of time occupied only with
the things that pertain to earth, he must go out into an eternity of torment,
first in hell, and then for ever in the terrible lake of fire, see Revelation
20:11-15.