Ecclesiastes 1:12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

I the Preacher was king Having asserted the vanity of all things in the general, he now comes to prove his assertion in those particulars wherein men commonly seek, and with the greatest probability expect to find, true happiness. He begins with secular wisdom. And to show how competent a judge he was of this matter, he lays down this character, that he was the Preacher, which implies eminent knowledge; and a king, who therefore had all imaginable opportunities and advantages for the attainment of happiness, and particularly for the getting of wisdom, by consulting all sorts of books and men, by trying all manner of experiments; and no ordinary king, but king over Israel God's own people, a wise and a happy people, whose king he was by God's special appointment, and furnished by God with singular wisdom for that great trust; and whose abode was in Jerusalem Where were the house of God, and the most wise and learned of the priests attending upon it, and the seats of justice, and colleges, or assemblies of the wisest men of their nation. All these concurring in him, which rarely do in any other man, make the argument, drawn from his experience, more convincing.

Ecclesiastes 1:12

12 I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.