Ecclesiastes 1 (KJV With Strong's)

• {Solomon's authorship} We expect evidences of so elevated a personality as the wise king of Israel, to show a fuller acquaintance with the language of his neighbors; and employ, when they best suited him, words from such vocabularies―words which would not come into general use for many a long day; indeed until sorrow, captivity, and shame, had done the same work for the mass, under the chastening Hand of God, as abundant natural gifts had done for our wise and glorious author....signs of its post-exile origin”―is really turned against himself. Were such Aramaisms altogether lacking, we might well question whether the writer were indeed that widely-read, eminently literary, gloriously intellectual individual of whom it is said, “his wisdom excelled the children of the East country and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all men.” Surely, that Solomon shows he was acquainted with words other than his own Hebrew, and made use of such words when they best suited his purpose, is only what commonsense would naturally look for.... the words, although not familiar in the Hebrew vernacular, were in widely-current use either in the neighboring Persian or in that family of languages―Syriac and Chaldaic―of which Hebrew was but a member. The verdict of impartiality must certainly be “not proven,” if indeed it be not stronger than that, to the attempt to deny to Solomon the authorship of Ecclesiastes based on the words used. (“Ecclesiastes: Preface” by F.C. Jennings)

• That very thing that is the heart and soul of the book: the weary, unsatisfied, empty heart of poor man looking backward or forward for the satisfaction that the present always fails to give “under the sun,” and which he, who was wiser than all who came before him, Solomon, warns his readers against! (“Ecclesiastes: Preface” by F.C. Jennings)

• From the evident purpose of the book, the divine purpose, no other than Solomon could be its author. He must be of a nation taken out of the darkness and abominations of heathendom;―there was only one such nation―he must then be an Israelite. He must live at an epoch when that nation is at the summit of its prosperity;―it never regained that epoch―he must then have lived when Solomon lived. He must, in his own person, by his riches, honor, wisdom, learning, freedom from external political fears, perfect capacity to drink of whatever cup this world can put into his hand to the full―represent the very top-stone of that glorious time; and not one amongst all the sons of men answers to all this but Solomon the son of David, king in Jerusalem. (“Ecclesiastes: Preface” by F.C. Jennings)

• First we find it in that group of books through which the voice of man is prominent―Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles. In these is heard the music of man’s soul. (“Ecclesiastes 1: Old Groans and New Songs” by F.C. Jennings)

• This, then, we may take it, is the object of the book, to show forth by its dark background the glory of the Lord, to bring into glorious relief against the black cloud of man’s need and ignorance the bright light of a perfect, holy, revelation; to let man tell out, in the person of his greatest and wisest, when he, too, is at the summit of his greatness, with the full advantage of his matured wisdom, the solemn questions of his inmost being; and show that greatness to be of no avail in solving them―that wisdom foiled in the search for their answers. (“Ecclesiastes 1: Old Groans and New Songs” by F.C. Jennings)

J. N. Darby Translation

The words of the Preachere, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

JND Translation Notes

Strictly, "a former of assemblies"; see for the sense, though not the same expression, ch. 12.11.