ECBATANA.— See Achmetha.
ECCLESIASTES (n^np Kohehtk, LXX "EkkX.,*!- a<rri)t, Aq. KuW9).— 1,'Th'e TiTLK.— This pre.sents some difficulties, which have scarcely as yet been satisfactorily exjilained. The word is a fem. part. of the Qal conj. The verb is not found elsewhere in this conj. In the Hiph. the word means ' to call an a.-t-senibly together.' It is commonly held that here tlie Qal is u.sed with the force of the Hiph., and tliat ^oheleth means 'one who convenes an assembly.' There have been other interpretations, such as ' a collector of sayings,' or ' one who gathers wisdom from various quarters.' But since the verb is always used with ref. to persons and never with ref. to things, these are untenable. Tyler urges that the causative force cannot be put into the word, and he explains it to mean ' one wlio is an assembly.' Koheleth would thus be a personi- fication of ' an ideal a.ssembly of those Jewish
philosophers, Stoic, Epicurean, and others, whose opinions were influential at the time when the book was composed' (Tyler, Ec. 59). But this is too artificial to be probable, and it seems best to fall back on the common view, that K. means ' the convener of an assembly.' A greater difficulty is caused by the fem. form. This has been explained on the hypothesis that the speaker is Wisdom, impersonated in Solomon, and K. is fem. as agree- ing with the fem. word for Wisdom. This view has been taken by Ewald, Hitzi^, Ginsburg, and others. Against this, however, serious objections may be urged. It is strange that Wisdom should be no- where mentioned as the speaker. Further, it is barely conceivable that Wisdom should have used some of the language put into the mouth of K. (I"- " 7® etc.), or that Solomon should be regarded as her impersonation, considering the experiences through which the speaker says that he has passed. Again, the tone oi the discourses is so difl'erent from what we find in those passages where Wisdom is actually represented as speaking, that if the writer had intended to make Solomon the e;>okes- man of Wisdom he would have felt it necessary, in view of this striking difl'erence, to say so explicitly. It is also to be observed that the verb used with K. is masc, and on the view we are discussing it is explained by the theory that the fem. Wisdom speaks through the mtosc. Solomon. The objections already urged against the identifi- cation of K. with Wisdom have led to the view that we are to find in the fem. form, not a distinction of sex, but a variation in meaning. In other words, the Preacher is a male, but the fem. termination conveys a special shade of mean- ing. This gives a better account of the use of the masc. verb. The word may then mean ' one who holds the office of a teacher or preacher ' (Delitzsch, Nowack, Cheyne), or, if the fem. has an intensive force, 'the great orator' (W. Wriglit, RVm). Kuenen feels himself unable to decide between the view that K. is Wisdom and that the fem. does not express distinction of sex. The arguments for the latter view seem to be stronger, and we should probably interpret K. to mean ' one who holds the office of teacher.' The title Ecclesi- astes comes from the LXX.
That by K. the author means Solomon has been subject to dispute, but should admit of none. He is identified with 'the son of David, king in Jems.' (1'), and says of himself, ' I, If., was king over Israel in Jerusalem.' The son of David who was king is best explained strictly and not loosely to mean descendant. After the division of the king- dom a king could not have spoken of himself as reigning over Israel in Jerusalem. It is also clear that Solomon is the king whose varied experiences of wisdom and luxury are referred to in chs. 1 and 2.
2. AuTnOR-sniP and Datb.— The book was, till the period of critical investigation, almost univers- ally ascribed to Solomon. Some writers still sujijiort this view, though it is abandoned by all critics of eminence. The main reason is that Kuheleth speaks in the first person, and therefore if the author was not Solomon he would be deceiving his reatiers. This does not follow. The author of Jot u.ses the literary vehicle of a debate to reach the solution of his problem. Here the writer has chosen an autobiograpliical sketch of Solomon as his literary vehicle. And he has done so for reasons which are ciuite obvious. Solomon was the typical representative of Wisdom, and the author wished to set forth his conclusions as tlioae of a man wlio had brought the deepest and sanest rcMcction to boar upon life. But it was also im- portant that his ex|>cricncc sliould be wide, and his opportunities of testing the value of life in itt
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ECCLESIASTES
ECCLESIASTEiS
various forms of the fullest. Here Solomon admir- ably served his purpose. Not only was he the wise man, but he was a king whose magnificence has passed into a proverb, and who was able to gratify every wish. He was thus able to wring the most out of life, and from him the sentence ' All is v.anity ' would come with greater force tlian from any other. This is no proof that he is not the author, but it removes any antecedent prejudice ajjainst the denial of the Solomonic authorship, based on the statements of the book.