Section 1. Vanity of striving for wisdom and knowledge.
I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. Koheleth relates his own experience as king, in accordance with his assumption of the person of Solomon. The use of the past tense in this verse is regarded by many as strong evidence against the Solomonic authorship of the book. "I have been king" (not "I have become king," as Gratz would translate) is a statement introducing the supposed speaker, not as a reigning monarch, but as one who, in time past, exercised sovereignty. Solomon is represented as speaking from the grave, and recalling the past for the instruction of his auditors. In a similar manner, the author of the Book of Wisdom (Esther 8:1-13) speaks in his impersonation of Solomon. That king himself, who reigned without interruption to his death, could not have spoken of himself in the terms used here. He lost neither his throne nor his power; and, therefore, the expression cannot be paralleled (as Mr. Bullock suggests) by the complaint of Louis XIV; unsuccessful in war and weary of rule, "When I was king." Solomon redivivus is introduced to give weight to the succeeding experiences. Here is one who had every and the most favorable opportunity of seeing the best side of things; and yet his testimony is that all is vanity. In the acquisition of wisdom, the contrast between the advantage of learned leisure and the interruptions of a laborious life is set forth in Ecclesiasticus 38:24, etc. King over Israel. The expression indicates a time before the division of the kingdom. We have it in 1 Samuel 15:26, and occasionally elsewhere. The usual phrase is "King of Israel." (For in Jerusalem, see on 1 Samuel 15:1.)