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Josephus (Antt. xii. 1. 1) says directly, that Ptolemy Lagus did this with reference to the fidelity with which the Jews had kept to Alexander the Macedonian the oath of allegiance they had sworn to Darius, which he particularly describes, Antt. xi. 8. 3; besides, the covenant, e.g., 2Sa 5:3, concluded in the presence of Jahve with their own native kings included in it the oath of allegiance, and the oath of vassalage which, e.g., Zedekiah swore to Nebuchadnezzar, 2Ch 36:13, cf. Eze 17:13-19, had at the same time binding force on the citizens of the state that was in subjection. Also that “the oath of God” must mean the oath of allegiance sworn to a foreign ruler, and not that sworn to a native ruler, which would rather be called “the oath of Jahve,” does not stand the test: the author of the Book of Koheleth drives the cosmopolitism of the Chokma so far, that he does not at all make use of the national name of God connected with the history of redemption, and Nehemiah also, Neh 13:25, uses an oath “of God” where one would have expected an oath “of Jahve.” The first link of Hitzig's chain of proof, then, shows itself on all sides to be worthless. The author says, Ecc 8:2, substantially the same as Paul, Rom 13:5, that one ought to be subject to the king, not only from fear of punishment, but for conscience' sake.
Thus, then, Ecc 8:10 will also stand without reference to the carrying away of the Jews captive by Ptolemy Lagus, especially since the subject there is by no means that of a mass-deportation; and, besides, those who were carried into Egypt by Lagus were partly from the regions round about Jerusalem, and partly from the holy city itself (Joseph. Antt. 12. 1. 1). And the old better times, Ecc 7:10, were not those of the first three Ptolemies, especially since there are always men, and even in the best and most prosperous times, who praise the old times at the expense of the new. And also women who were a misfortune to their husbands or lovers there have always been, so that in Ecc 7:26 one does not need to think of that Agathoclea who ruled over Ptolemy Philopator, and even had in her hands the power of life and death.
Passages such as Ecc 7:10 and Ecc 7:26 afford no help in reference to the chronology. On the other hand, the author in Ecc 9:13-16 relates, to all appearance, what he himself experienced. But the little city is certainly not the fortified town of Dora, on the sea-coast to the west of Carmel, which was besieged by Antiochus the Great (Polybius, v. 66) in the year 218, as at a later period, in the year 138, it was by Antiochus VII, Sidetes (Joseph. Bell. i. 2. 2); for this Dora was not then saved by a poor wise man within it, - of whom Polybius knows