About This Book

Ecclesiastes gives voice to the Preacher who surveys life under the sun and repeatedly declares it to be vanity, a vapour, elusive and passing. Wealth, pleasure, wisdom, toil, and achievement are all tested and found unable to secure lasting gain.

The book does not promote despair. It strips away illusion. In a fallen world marked by frustration and death, human effort cannot control outcomes or guarantee permanence. Yet woven through the realism are quiet refrains of gratitude. Enjoy your food, your work, your relationships, as gifts from the hand of God. The Preacher drives us to the end of ourselves so that we learn to live humbly before our Creator. The closing call gathers it all together, fear God and keep his commandments, for God will bring every deed into judgment.

Ecclesiastes dismantles false hopes so that true reverence and quiet joy before God might take root.

Preach this book with pastoral sensitivity. Let its tensions be felt. Do not rush to flatten its questions. Allow its realism to prepare the ground for the fuller light of Christ.

Structure of the Book

The structure moves in cycles of reflection rather than a simple linear argument, returning to key refrains about vanity, toil, and enjoyment.

1. Introduction and theme
   The declaration of vanity and the weariness of life’s cycles, ch.1
2. The search for meaning
   Wisdom, pleasure, work, and achievement tested and found wanting, chs.1 to 2
3. Time and providence
   A time for every matter and the limits of human control, ch.3
4. Oppression, wealth, and ambition
   The burdens and rivalries that mark life under the sun, chs.4 to 6
5. Wisdom in a fragile world
6. Death and daily enjoyment
7. Remember your Creator

Key Themes

• Vanity, life under the sun is fleeting and resistant to human mastery.
• The limits of wisdom, insight cannot remove the curse or prevent death.
• The certainty of death, mortality levels human distinctions and humbles pride.
• Enjoyment as gift, simple pleasures are to be received gratefully from God’s hand.
• Fear of God, reverent obedience is the fitting response in a perplexing world.
• Divine judgment, hidden deeds will be brought to light, grounding accountability.

Recommended Commentaries

Recommendations are grouped to help you build a working shelf. A top choice serves as your main guide through the book’s structure and theology. A strong recommendation offers complementary help with literary flow and pastoral tone. A useful supplement assists with difficult interpretive cruxes.

Choose one volume that keeps the book’s tension intact, then consult a second where the argument feels elusive or repetitive.

• Ecclesiastesby Douglas Sean O'Donnell, Score: 8.7

  A strong mid level expositional guide that helps us preach Ecclesiastes with clarity, warmth, and faithful application.

• Ecclesiastesby Iain M. Duguid, Score: 8.4

  A strong mid level Ecclesiastes commentary that helps us preach the book’s searching realism with reverence and hope.

• Ecclesiastesby Knut Martin Heim, Score: 8.4

  A weighty, clear technical guide that helps us preach Ecclesiastes with integrity, realism, and reverent hope.

Browse all Ecclesiastes reviews

Additional help is often most valuable in ch.3 on time and providence, ch.7 with its difficult sayings, and ch.12 where the poetic imagery of decline requires careful explanation.

Preaching and Teaching Helps

Ecclesiastes demands honesty. It speaks to weariness, disappointment, and the apparent randomness of life.

• Explain “under the sun”, this phrase frames the book’s perspective on life in a fallen order.
• Let the questions breathe, avoid forcing quick resolutions where the text lingers in tension.
• Highlight the gift refrains, moments of enjoyment are theological anchors, not side notes.
• Address modern idols, success, productivity, and self fulfilment echo the Preacher’s experiments.
• Lead to Christ carefully, show how the longing for permanence and justice finds fulfilment beyond the sun.

This Book in the Story of Scripture

Ecclesiastes stands within the wisdom tradition, yet its realism intensifies the sense of longing for something more than life under the curse. It exposes the ache of a creation subjected to futility.

In Christ, the one greater than Solomon, wisdom is embodied and resurrection hope answers the riddle of death. The final judgment announced at the book’s close is not the last word of dread for believers, but a reminder that history moves toward accountability and renewal.

In a world of vapour and shadow, fear God, receive his gifts with gratitude, and await the day when what is crooked will finally be made straight.