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epilogue, can in all particulars be supported from the book itself. In “fear God,” Ecc 12:13, the saying in Ecc 5:6, which is similarly formed, is repeated; and “this is the whole of man,” Ecc 12:13, a thought written as it were more in cipher than in extenso, is in the same style as Ecc 6:10. The word יותר (“moreover”), frequently used by the author and בעל, used in the formation of attributive names, Ecc 10:11, Ecc 10:20; Ecc 5:10, Ecc 5:12; Ecc 8:8, we meet with also here. And as at Ecc 12:9-11 a third idea connected ἀσυνδέτως follows two ideas connected by vav, so also at Ecc 1:7; Ecc 6:5. But if this epilogue is the product of the author's own hand, then, in meaning and aim, it presents itself as its sequel. The author says that the Koheleth who appears in this book as “wise” is the same who composed the beautiful people's-book Mishle; that he sought out not only words of a pleasing form, but also all words of truth; that the words of the wise are like goads and nails which stand in collected rows and numbers - they are given from one Shepherd. The author of the book thereby denotes that the sentences therein collected, even though they are not wholly, as they lie before us, the words of Solomon, yet that, with the Proverbs of Solomon, and of the wise men generally, they go back to one giver and original author. The epilogue thus, by its historic reference to Solomon, recognises the fiction, and gives the reader to understand that the book loses nothing in its value from its not having been immediately composed by Solomon.
Of untruthfulness, of a so-called pia fraus, we cannot therefore speak. From early times, within the sphere of the most ancient Israelitish authorship, it was regarded as a justifiable undertaking for an author to reproduce in a rhetorical or poetical form the thoughts and feelings of memorable personages on special occasions. The Psalter contains not a few psalms bearing the superscription le-David, which were composed not by David himself, but by unknown poets, placing themselves, as it were, in David's position, and representing him, such e.g., as 144, which in the lxx excellently bears the superscription pro's to'n Golia'd. The chronicler, when he seeks to give the reader an idea of the music at the festival of the consecration of the tabernacle and then of the completed temple, allows himself so great freedom, that he puts into the mouth of David the Beracha of the fourth book of the Psalms (Psa 106:48), along with the preceding verse of Ps 106 (1Ch 16:35.), and into Solomon's mouth verses of Ps 132 (2Ch 6:41.). And the prophetical discourses communicated in the O.T. historical books are certainly partly of this sort, that they either may be regarded as original, as e.g., 1Sa 2:27., or must be so regarded, as 2 Kings 18-20;