Volume II
The Book of Ecclesiastes
With John Brown’s marginal references, notes and reflections · Vol. II, p. 1116
To warn others, Solomon here (1) Represents the vanity and vexation which adhere to all created enjoyments; particularly to those in which men ordinarily look for happiness; as human learning and policy, sensual delights, honour, power, and riches, or an empty profession of religion, ch. i.-vi. (2) Prescribes remedies against that vanity and vexation which attend those things; viz. sitting loose to them; enjoying them moderately, but never expecting much from them; acquiescing in the will of God concerning us in every event; remembering God in the days of our youth; and continuing all our life in his fear and service, with an eye to the future judgment, ch. vii.-xii. But in both parts the demonstrations of the vanity of things, and the prescriptions of remedies, are somewhat mixed. [This book has been frequently represented as 'Solomon's penitential discourse, composed a little before his death; in which he recants and laments' his follies and departures from God. From whom, or at what time, this opinion originated in the Christian church, we are unable to say: nor is it of any importance to ascertain its origin. To say the least of it, it is altogether unsupported by any scriptural authority. It is also unsupported by any traditional Jewish authority. For the Talmudical writers ascribe the book, not to Solomon, but to Hezekiah; Kimchi, to the prophet Isaiah; while Grotius considers it to have been composed by order of Zerubbabel. Jahn refers it to a period posterior to the Babylonish captivity, and Zirkel to the times of Antiochus Epiphanes; and Jerome informs us, that, on account of some imaginary contradictions, the Jews, after the captivity, were averse to receiving it into the canon of Scripture, till more mature consideration convinced them of their error. That Solomon was the author, is apparent from internal evidence; especially from ch. 1. 12, 16; 2. 4, 6; 12. 9, 10. Of the Christian reader we ask specially that, when entering upon the study of it, he would lay aside all preconceived and unauthorized opinions about the date and object of the book, and come to examine it in a prayerful and teachable spirit. And this matter is more peculiarly necessary than may at first sight appear: for as he that views a landscape through a coloured glass, sees every object tinged with some colour that belongs not to the object, but to the glass; so he that commences the study of this book, under the impression that it is a record of Solomon's personal experience, retractation, and penitence—nay more, a kind of death-bed renunciation of the follies by which his wisdom had been stained—comes with a principle of interpretation that he brings to no other book; that is, an unauthorized determination about what the writer must intend, and not a simple inquiry into the meaning of what he actually says. In humbly entering upon the interpretation of this book, we therefore cast away every opinion, however current and however supported, about the date and object of this book; and, by the grace of God, seek to ascertain the mind of the Spirit as revealed in its contents. C.]