Ecclesiastes 1:16 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

I communed with mine own heart; I considered within myself in what condition I was, and what degrees of knowledge I had gained, and whether it was not my ignorance that made me unable to rectify those errors, and supply those wants, and wiser men could do it, though I could not. I am come to great estate, Heb. I am grown great, to wit, in wisdom; or, I have magnified, or greatly enlarged. Have gotten, Heb. have added. As I had a large stock of wisdom infused into me by God, 1 Kings 3:12, 1 Kings 4:29, so I have greatly improved it by conversation, and study, and experience. More wisdom than all they that have been before me, whether governors, or priests, or private persons; which was no vain boast, but a known and confessed truth, and profession hereof was necessary to demonstrate his assertion. In Jerusalem; which was then the most eminent place in the world for wisdom and knowledge. Had great experience, Heb. had seen much; which intimates that his knowledge was clear, and certain, and experimental, as that is which we have from our own eyesight. Wisdom and knowledge; two words signifying the same thing, as may be gathered from Ecclesiastes 1:18, and from the promiscuous use of them in this book, and in the Proverbs, and elsewhere, and implying all manner of knowledge, Divine or human, speculative or practical, political or philosophical.