Ecclesiastes 1:12 to Ecclesiastes 2:26. Qoheleth's Investigations. Assuming the character of Solomon the writer tells of his search for happiness under many forms. The pursuit of wisdom (Ecclesiastes 2:12-18), absorption in pleasure (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11), the study of human nature (Ecclesiastes 2:12-17), the acquisition of wealth (Ecclesiastes 2:18-23), alike fail to yield satisfaction. After all his experience the only verdict he can reach is that there is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and enjoy life as well as he can while he has it (Ecclesiastes 2:24-26).
Ecclesiastes 2:1-11. The Epicurean mood is just as ineffective. Like Omar, he divorces barren reason and takes the daughter of the vine for spouse. Merriment, and the pleasures of the table (all by way of deliberate experiment, laying hold of folly with a spirit guided by wisdom; cf. Ecclesiastes 2:3,; wisdom cf. Ecclesiastes 2:9), the happy and healthy delights of a country gentleman's life when the king (like Edward VII at Sandringham) is a simple squire, are tried in turn. There is a last attempt here to keep up the part of Solomon, though the phrase all that were before me over Jerusalem (there was only David), as in Ecclesiastes 1:16, gives the disguise away. Nor were less innocent pleasures left unexplored; see mg. for the difficulty of the word rendered concubines, though this probably comes nearest to the meaning; there is a cognate Assyrian root which means to love. Thus gratifying every taste, Qoheleth for a while seemed to have found satisfaction (Ecclesiastes 2:10), but when mere absorption gave place to reflection he found that there was nothing substantial or abiding in all his labours and all his pleasures. Ecclesiastes 2:12 b, What can a man do. already been done (i.e. by the king) may perhaps have stood immediately after Ecclesiastes 2:11. Apparently the meaning is that where a Solomon has failed, though equipped with wisdom and wealth, no ordinary man has any chance.