Ecclesiastes or the Preacher

The name is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew, Qoheleth, which means “one who convenes or speaks in an assembly.” Hence the name: the Preacher. By a literary device the book is ascribed to Solomon, but in fact it was written after the Exile, probably in the third century b.c. There is no knowledge in the book of any idea of rewards and punishments after this life, thus much the same problem is met with here as in the book of Job. Why do the good suffer and the wicked flourish? Belief and experience do not harmonize. Ecclesiastes has to insist on God’s goodness and power and providence even though experience seems at times to show the contrary. He has no solution to offer other than faith in God and trust that he will, in his own way and time, punish evil and reward good; cf. 3:17; 8:12–13. He constantly emphasizes the vanity of created things, which can never satisfy the heart of man. Thus he gives us something more than an unsolved problem and stimulates faith and trust in God in spite of appearances which might influence us to the contrary.