The words we are about to read are those of the Koheleth, who is immediately identified by the phrase "the son of David, king in Jerusalem" as being King Solomon of ancient Israel. But why has he adopted this odd title?

Ecclesiastes, the title of the book in English language Bibles, is simply the Greek translation of this ancient Hebrew word, Koheleth -- the precise meaning of which is now unknown, although it is thought to come from a root meaning to Assemble, Compile or Gather.

Some scholars think that Solomon's title of Koheleth refers to his role as a gatherer or compiler of the writings of the world's wisest men, a project referred to in the last few verses of the book (Ecclesiastes 12:9-11). Others suggest that, by implication, Koheleth might mean Speaker, Teacher, Preacher or Philosopher, in the sense of one who assembles people together to teach them, another of Solomon's functions also described near the end of the final chapter.

A much simpler and more obvious possibility, however, is that Koheleth does indeed mean the Accumulator, the Gatherer, or even the Getter, and by implication, perhaps, the Selfish One -- an appropriate description, perhaps, of Solomon's acquisitive character during his younger years and as king in Jerusalem – an appropriate title also for many human beings, whose major goal in life is to Acquire, Amass and Accumulate.

If this is true, then the reason for assuming this title may be that Ecclesiastes was actually written in retrospect by a different Solomon, so to speak, a repentant and even wiser person who had seen the error of his ways and finally turned back to God – so that Koheleth the Acquirer and Accumulator may finally have turned into Koheleth the Preacher and Teacher, a creative reversal that is characteristic of the wisdom writings of Solomon .

The process of Gathering in the harvest was vitally important in a rural economy -- and perhaps it is no accident that this word occurs several times in Jesus' parable of the rich but foolish man who built bigger and bigger barns in which to gather more and more goods for himself, yet took no account of his mortality and his spiritual poverty before God (Luke 12:16-21).

As we shall see in a moment, the Koheleth, like the rich fool, also sets his heart on the Gathering together of physical possessions, but ends up bemoaning his mortality and the fact that, precisely like the rich man in the parable, all he has gathered will one day be given to somebody else.

In another parable, Jesus opens up a new dimension of human destiny by directing our attention to the possibility of acquiring eternal riches, of which the physical riches of gold, silver and precious stones are apparently simply a type or shadow, when he says, Quote: “Store up for yourself treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also . . . You cannot serve God and Money” (Matthew 6:20-24).

Notice also the parable of the unjust steward and the message that if we cannot rightly manage the riches of this world, God will not entrust to us the True Riches of the world to come (Luke 16:1-13).

The ancient seers often used parables, riddles and "dark sayings" to impart understanding to those willing to listen and learn, as Solomon himself mentions at the start of Proverbs (Proverbs 1:6). Even Jesus, of whom Solomon was both a type and anti-type, sometimes makes statements that appear on the surface to be impossible, contradictory and sometimes even offensive to the hearer.

For example, after driving the moneylenders out of the Temple, he says, Quote: "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days" (John 2:19). For this, he was laughed to scorn, but later on his disciples came to understand that he was speaking about his death and resurrection, not the physical temple itself.

Other provocative statements include: "If you right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, and if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out!" (Matthew 5:29-30) -- or: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:24). Notice also, this paradox of reversal, Quote: "Whosoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).

Such statements demand a degree of thought and meditation for their understanding that only genuine seekers after Truth are willing to supply – and so it is with Ecclesiastes.

Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the commentators immediately find an apparent paradox in this very first line of Ecclesiastes -- the fact that Solomon has applied the feminine form of Koheleth to himself, rather than the masculine that would normally be expected.

This gender or role reversal is, I suspect, a deliberate creative twist applied by Solomon to provide us with a clue to the inspired intention of the book -- and to the role reversal that God requires of all of us, the need to turn from being a Koheleth or Gatherer, to repent (which literally means to turn around and go the other way) and become a Giver and Server instead. Like so many people, even the rich and successful, Solomon, in his Koheleth phase, lived his life backwards.

Many statements in the inspired writing of Solomon are grammatically engineered to be understandable on different levels and to be susceptible to a range of meanings, thereby making them appropriate to both young and old, those already wise and those not yet so wise – and, like a gold mine, to yield new nuggets of truth on each visit.