gathered their disciples together, and such an able teacher as Koheleth would fain gather all who have ears to hear around his seat. But Koheleth is also Solomon (though only for a short time—the author did not, I suppose, live long enough thoroughly to fuse the conceptions of king and philosopher[1]). The wise king is to be imagined standing on the brink of the grave, and casting the clear-sighted glance of a dying man on past life, somewhat as Moses in parts of Deuteronomy or David in 2 Sam. xxii., xxiii. 1-7. A subtle and poetic view of Solomon's career is thus opened before us. He is not here represented in his political relation, but as a specimen of the highest type of human being, with a boundless appetite for pleasure and every means of gratifying it. But even such a man's deliberate verdict on all forms of pleasure is that they are utterly unsubstantial, mere vanity (lit. a vapour—Aquila, [Greek: atmis]; comp. James iv. 14). Neither pure speculation (i. 13-18), nor riotous mirth (ii. 1, 2), nor even the refined voluptuousness consistent with the free play of the intellect[2] (ii. 3), could satisfy his longing, or enable him, with Goethe's Faust, to say to the flying moment, 'Ah! linger yet, thou art so fair.' It is true that wisdom is after all better than folly; Solomon from his 'specular mount' could 'see' this to be a truth (ii. 13); but in the end he found it as resultless as 'the walking in darkness' of the fool.
'And I myself perceived that one fate befalleth them all. And
I said in my heart, As the fate of the fool will be the fate which shall
befall me, even me; and why have I then been exceeding wise? and
- [Footnote: view that the book embodies the inward debates of a Jewish philosopher may be
to a great extent true, but for all that Koheleth is throughout represented as speaking alone and with authority. On the philological explanation of the word, see Appendix.]are interpolations (made presumably to facilitate the recognition of the book as canonical). Observe however that the (fictitious) author is nowhere declared to be Solomon, but only ben-David (i. 1). He claims attention merely as a private person, as an interpreter of the complaints of humanity. Though he does once expressly refer to his royal state (i. 12), it is only to suggest to his readers what ample opportunities he has enjoyed of learning the vanity of earthly grandeur. So, very plausibly, Bloch (Ursprung des Kohelet, p. 17).]
