and art, the picture of his own manner of thought. Thus, e.g., the drawling tautologies in Ecc 8:14; Ecc 9:9, certainly do not escape from him against his will. And as was rightly remarked under Gen 2:1-3, that the discourse there is extended, and forms itself into a picture of rest after the work of the creation, so Koheleth, in Ecc 1:4-11 and Ecc 12:2-7, shows himself a master of eloquence; for in the former passage he imitates in his style the everlasting unity of the course of the world, and in the latter he paints the exhausted and finally shattered life of man.
Not only, however, by the character of its thought and language and manner of representation, but also by other characteristic features, the book openly acknowledges that it was not written by Solomon himself, but by a Jewish thinker of a much later age, who sought to conceive of himself as in Solomon's position, and clothed his own life-experiences in the confessions of Solomon. The very title of the book does not leave us in doubt as to this. It is in these words: The words of Koheleth, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. The apposition, “king in Jerusalem,” appertains, like e.g., 2Ch 35:3, to the name of the speaker who is introduced; for nothing is here said as to the place in life held by David, but to that held by him who is thus figuratively named. The indeterminate “king” of itself would be untenable, as at Pro 31:1. As there the words “king of Massa” are to be taken together, so here “king” is determined by “in Jerusalem” added to it, so far that it is said what kind of king Koheleth was. That by this name Solomon is meant, follows, apart from Ecc 1:12., from this, that David had only one son who was king, viz., Solomon. The opinion of Krochmal, that a later David, perhaps a governor of Jerusalem during the Persian domination, is meant,[1] is one of the many superfluities of this learned author. Koheleth is Solomon, but he who calls him “king in Jerusalem” is not Solomon himself. Solomon is called “king of Israel,” e.g., 2Ki 23:13; and as in Ecc 1:12 he names himself “king over Israel,” so, Neh 13:26, he is called “king of Israel,” and along with this designation, “king over all Israel;” but the title, “king in Jerusalem,” nowhere else occurs. We read that Solomon “reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel,” 1Ki 11:42, cf. 1Ki 14:21; the title, “king in Jerusalem,” is quite peculiar to the title of the book before us. Eichhorn supposes that it corresponds to the time subsequent to the division of the kingdom, when there were two different royal residences;
- ↑ Vid., Kerem chemed v. 89, and his More necobhe ha-seman (Director errnatium nostrae aetatis), edited by Zunz, 1851, 4.
