The Book of Ecclesiastes

"Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes: vanity of vanities, and all is vanity" (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Ecclesiastes is not a book of despair but a king's examination of everything this world offers, carried out under the sun and in the shadow of death, which ends by sending man back to God and His judgment. It comes after Proverbs and before the Canticle of Canticles in the Catholic Bible, and all twelve chapters are given below, St Jerome's Latin Vulgate beside the Douay-Rheims; this guide introduces the whole.

The name is Greek, from the Septuagint: Ekklesiastes, one who speaks before the assembly. It renders the Hebrew Qoheleth, and St Jerome translated it Concionator, "the Preacher." Haydock notes that Qoheleth is a feminine noun, "to indicate the elegance of the discourse." In English the name is said "ih-klee-zee-AS-teez."

Authorship: King Solomon, son of David

The Church received Ecclesiastes as the work of King Solomon, son of David, and the book itself gives the reasons. It opens: "The words of Ecclesiastes, the son of David, king of Jerusalem" (1:1), and the author speaks as one: "I Ecclesiastes was king over Israel in Jerusalem" (1:12). Only one son of David reigned over all Israel from Jerusalem; as Haydock remarks after Calmet, "this was the case with none of Solomon's descendants." In chapter 2 he describes his houses, vineyards, gardens, pools, servants, singers, gold and silver, which is Solomon's glory as 3 Kings 10 records it. The epilogue says that he "taught the people... and seeking out, he set forth many parables" (12:9), as Scripture says Solomon "spoke three thousand parables" (3 Kings 4:32).

The Fathers agreed. St Gregory of Nyssa, St Jerome and St Gregory the Great all expound the book as Solomon's. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1909) defends this attribution: the alleged Aramaisms of the Hebrew can be explained, the oppression and disenchantment the book describes fit the end of Solomon's reign, and tradition should be followed. "It is most generally supposed that Solomon wrote this after his repentance," says Haydock, adding honestly, "but this is very uncertain."

St John Chrysostom, in a sermon read in the Roman Breviary, puts it this way: Solomon, given up to the lust of the world, built magnificent palaces and heaped up gold, "but when he came to himself again, and was once more able, as it were, out of that dark pit, to look upon the light of true wisdom, he uttered that saying, so high, so worthy of heaven: Vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

The principal Author, as of all Scripture, is the Holy Ghost. The Pontifical Biblical Commission issued no decision on Ecclesiastes. Many modern scholars hold that a later sage wrote in Solomon's person, after the Exile; the Church's tradition holds to Solomon.

Date of composition

On the traditional view, toward the end of Solomon's reign in the tenth century before Christ, when the judgments of God that followed his fall into idolatry (3 Kings 11) would explain the book's sombre tone, as the Catholic Encyclopedia observes. Critics who deny Solomon's authorship have proposed, in its words, "every period from Solomon to 200" before Christ, and some a later one still; the Church has fixed no date.

Summary of the Book of Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes asks one question: "What hath a man more of all his labour, that he taketh under the sun?" (1:3). "Under the sun" means this present life, seen by natural reason. The author tries every answer the world offers, and each time finds "vanity, and vexation of spirit": not that created things are evil, but that none of them can fill the heart or outlast death.

Prologue: all is vanity (chapter 1:1–11)

The book opens in chapter 1 with the theme and a picture of the endless round of nature: generations pass, the sun rises and sets, the rivers run into the sea "yet the sea doth not overflow." "Nothing under the sun is new" (1:10), and nothing is remembered.

Vanity in private life: wisdom, pleasure, labour (chapters 1:12–3:15)

In the rest of chapter 1 the king tells his own experiment. He sought wisdom and found that "in much wisdom there is much indignation: and he that addeth knowledge, addeth also labour" (1:18). In chapter 2 he tries pleasure and great works, refusing his eyes nothing, and finds "that nothing was lasting under the sun" (2:11). Wisdom excels folly, yet the wise man dies like the fool and leaves his labour to an heir who may squander it. The section closes in chapter 3 with the famous poem on the seasons, "All things have their season," and with God's order behind them: "He hath made all things good in their time" (3:11).

Vanity in civil life: injustice, riches, the uncertain end (chapters 3:16–7:30)

The Preacher turns to society: wickedness in the place of judgment, which God will judge (Ecclesiastes 3:16-17); the tears of the oppressed and the envy that drives men's work (chapter 4); the solitary miser who never asks, "For whom do I labour?" Chapter 5 teaches reverence in God's house, few words in prayer and the keeping of vows, and returns to riches: "A covetous man shall not be satisfied with money," and man goes back naked as he came. Chapter 6 shows the rich man who cannot enjoy what he has. Chapter 7 is a string of sayings: the day of death better than the day of birth, the house of mourning better than the house of feasting, and the confession that "there is no just man upon earth, that doth good, and sinneth not" (7:21). It ends: "God made man right, and he hath entangled himself with an infinity of questions" (7:30).

Rules for life: fear God, work, rejoice, remember (chapters 8–12:8)

The last part gives counsel. In chapter 8 the Preacher bids obedience to the king and trust in God's justice, though sentence is delayed: "I know from thence that it shall be well with them that fear God" (8:12). Chapter 9 faces death squarely, the same end for just and wicked, and answers with diligence: "Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly." Chapter 10 contrasts the wise and the fool in speech and government. Chapter 11 urges generous almsgiving, "Cast thy bread upon the running waters," and warns the young man that "for all these God will bring thee into judgment." Chapter 12 opens with "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth" and a long allegory of old age, ending with the dust returning to the earth "and the spirit return to God, who gave it."

Epilogue: the conclusion of the discourse (chapter 12:9–14)

The closing verses of chapter 12 commend the Preacher's words as "goads" and "nails deeply fastened in," and gives its whole teaching: "Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is all man: and all things that are done, God will bring into judgment" (12:13-14).

Themes and the Catholic reading

Vanity and the right use of creatures. Creatures are good, the gifts of God (3:13; 5:18), but passing, and a heart that rests in them is cheated. St Paul uses the same word of the Septuagint when he writes that "the creature was made subject to vanity... in hope" (Romans 8:20). The Church's ascetic tradition took the book's first line for its programme: The Imitation of Christ opens, "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity, except to love God and to serve Him alone." St Jerome first read Ecclesiastes with Blesilla, daughter of St Paula, at Rome, as his preface records, to move her to the contempt of the world.

Death and the life to come. Readers stumble on "the death of man, and of beasts is one" (3:19) and "the dead know nothing more" (9:5). St Gregory the Great answers in his Dialogues (Book IV): the Preacher, as his name implies, gathers an assembly and voices the thoughts of carnal men in order to answer them. The final call, "Let us all hear together the conclusion of the discourse," shows that the book speaks in many voices before giving its own verdict.

That verdict affirms the spiritual soul, "the spirit return to God, who gave it" (12:7) (compare Genesis 2:7), and the judgment of every work (3:17; 11:9; 12:14). Challoner explains 9:5 as meaning that the dead have no power now "of doing any thing to secure their eternal state," which is the Catholic doctrine on what happens after death.

The tree that falls. "If the tree fall to the south, or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be" (11:3). Challoner reads it of the soul at death: "The state of the soul is unchangeable, when once she comes to heaven or hell"; yet this "does not exclude a place of temporal punishments" for souls that die in grace but not entirely pure, who "shall be saved, indeed, yet so as by fire," the doctrine of purgatory. "After death, none can merit," adds Worthington in Haydock's notes. It is a text for meditation on the Four Last Things.

Work, money and joy. Ecclesiastes is no enemy of honest labour or of simple joys received from God: "Go then, and eat thy bread with joy... because thy works please God" (9:7). What it condemns is avarice and toil without end. The rich fool of Luke 12, who tells his soul to "eat, drink, make good cheer," is Ecclesiastes' lesson put in a parable.

The three books of Solomon. Origen, in the prologue to his commentary on the Canticle, saw in Solomon's three books three stages of the soul: Proverbs teaches right conduct, Ecclesiastes the true worth of natural things, the Canticle union with God. Ecclesiastes is the middle step, detachment, and the King it points to is "a greater than Solomon" (Matthew 12:42).

Famous verses from Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 9-10: vanity, and nothing new under the sun. "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity"; "What is it that hath been? the same thing that shall be... Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new" (Ecclesiastes 1).

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: a time for everything. "All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted... A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance... A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time of love, and a time of hatred. A time of war, and a time of peace" (Ecclesiastes 3). It is often read at funerals.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12: a threefold cord. "It is better therefore that two should be together, than one... woe to him that is alone, for when he falleth, he hath none to lift him up... a threefold cord is not easily broken" (Ecclesiastes 4). Often chosen for weddings, it is commonly read of husband, wife and God, the bond of Christian marriage.

Ecclesiastes 7:2-3. "A good name is better than precious ointments: and the day of death than the day of one's birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting" (Ecclesiastes 7). In Hebrew-based Bibles this is 7:1-2.

Ecclesiastes 9:10-11. "Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly"; "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong... but time and chance in all" (Ecclesiastes 9).

Ecclesiastes 11:1. "Cast thy bread upon the running waters: for after a long time thou shalt find it again" (Ecclesiastes 11), traditionally read of almsgiving.

Ecclesiastes 12:1, 7, 12-13. "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth"; "the dust return into its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit return to God, who gave it"; "Of making many books there is no end"; "Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is all man" (Ecclesiastes 12). Verse 7 is a classic among the Bible verses for funerals.

Ecclesiastes in the canon and in the liturgy

Ecclesiastes is a protocanonical book of the Old Testament, found in Catholic and Protestant Bibles alike, and one of the Writings of the Hebrew Bible. Some rabbis once questioned it, but, as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, the school of Hillel "decided definitely for its canonicity and inspiration." In the Church its inspiration was attacked by Theodore of Mopsuestia and solemnly reaffirmed against him at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople II, 553); the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) counted it among the "five books of Solomon," and the Council of Trent (Session IV, 8 April 1546) named it among the sacred and canonical books. It belongs to the seven Wisdom books with Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, the Canticle, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus.

Its near namesake Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) is a different book, one of the deuterocanonical books. St Jerome translated Ecclesiastes from the Hebrew for the Latin Vulgate, and the Douay-Rheims Bible follows the Vulgate's division: it has 12 chapters and 222 verses, but from chapter 4 to chapter 7 the verse numbers differ slightly from the King James and other Hebrew-based Bibles (the Douay's 4:17 is their 5:1).

In the Roman Breviary, Ecclesiastes is read at Matins during the second week of August, after Proverbs and before Wisdom. On its first Sunday the lessons give chapter 1 and the sermon of St John Chrysostom quoted above. Pray the Hours in our Breviary and follow the season in the liturgical calendar.

How to read Ecclesiastes

Read it first at one sitting, since the book must be judged by its end; then reread it a chapter a day, asking whether the Preacher gives his own verdict or the voice of the man "under the sun" he answers. Keep 3 Kings 3–11 at hand for Solomon's life, follow Origen's order of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticle, and for a commentary turn to St Jerome, St Bonaventure or Cornelius a Lapide. Close each reading with a prayer for wisdom, and return to our Catholic Bible for the next book.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes?

The Church has received Ecclesiastes as the work of King Solomon, son of David. The book calls its author "the son of David, king of Jerusalem" and "king over Israel in Jerusalem" (1:1, 12), describes Solomon's wisdom and riches, and says he "set forth many parables" (12:9). The Fathers read it as Solomon's; many modern scholars ascribe it to a later sage writing in his person. The principal Author is the Holy Ghost.

Did King Solomon write Proverbs and Ecclesiastes?

Yes, according to Tradition, Solomon wrote three books of Scripture: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Canticle of Canticles. Origen saw in them three stages of the spiritual life: right conduct, detachment from the world, and union with God. The book of Wisdom is written in Solomon's person but was composed later, in Greek.

When was the Book of Ecclesiastes written?

On the traditional view, near the end of Solomon's reign in the tenth century before Christ, perhaps after his repentance, though Haydock calls that opinion "very uncertain." Scholars who deny Solomon's authorship place it later, most often after the Exile, and some as late as the second or first century before Christ. The Church has defined no date.

What is the Book of Ecclesiastes about?

It is a king's search for what lasts. He tries wisdom, pleasure, great works, riches and labour, and finds each "vanity" under the sun, since none satisfies the heart and death takes all. Between these trials he gives practical counsel, and he concludes: "Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is all man," because God will judge every work. Begin with Ecclesiastes 1.

What does "vanity of vanities" mean?

"Vanity" translates a Hebrew word meaning breath or vapour: something empty and passing. "Vanity of vanities" is the Hebrew way of saying "the utmost vanity," as "Canticle of Canticles" means the greatest song. Ecclesiastes does not call creation evil; it says that nothing earthly can be man's last end, which is God.

How many chapters are in the Book of Ecclesiastes?

Ecclesiastes has 12 chapters and 222 verses. In the Douay-Rheims and the Vulgate the verse numbers of chapters 4 to 7 differ slightly from those of the King James Version, though the text is the same in substance. It is a book of the Old Testament, found in Catholic and Protestant Bibles alike.

What is the difference between Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus?

They are two different books. Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, is Solomon's short book of 12 chapters on the vanity of the world. Ecclesiasticus, also called Sirach, is a longer book of 51 chapters by Jesus the son of Sirach, written about two centuries before Christ; it is deuterocanonical, so it is missing from Protestant Bibles. Read it on our page for Ecclesiasticus (Sirach).

Does Ecclesiastes teach that there is no life after death?

No. Verses such as "the dead know nothing more" (9:5) speak of this life "under the sun," or voice the doubts of carnal men which the Preacher answers, as St Gregory the Great explains in his Dialogues. The book itself teaches that at death "the spirit return to God, who gave it" (12:7) and that "God will bring into judgment" every work (12:14).

Read the whole Book of Ecclesiastes verse by verse, Latin and English, in the Iter Fidei Catholic Bible app.

Sources. The Book of Ecclesiastes, Latin Vulgate and Douay-Rheims (Challoner revision, 1749-1752), with Challoner's notes; Haydock, Catholic Bible Commentary (1811-1814); 3 Kings 4, 10 and 11; Romans 8; St Jerome, Preface to the Commentary on Ecclesiastes and Preface to the Books of Solomon; Origen, Prologue to the Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles; St Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on Ecclesiastes; St Gregory the Great, Dialogues, Book IV; St John Chrysostom, sermon read in the Roman Breviary, Second Sunday of August; Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, I, 1; Worthington's notes as given in Haydock; Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397); Second Council of Constantinople (553); Council of Trent, Session IV, Decree on the Canonical Scriptures (1546); The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Ecclesiastes" (vol. V, 1909); Breviarium Romanum (1962).