According to Smith's “Dictionary of the Bible”: “Ecclesiastes is the great stumbling block of commentators" -- provoking "the widest possible divergence as to the plan and purpose of the whole book".

To resolve their confusion, the scholars invent all manner of theories as to its origin and authorship -- for example, that it is the work of four different people, that the primary author was merely pretending to be Solomon to lend authority to his work, and that the structure is supposedly illogical and confused because the loose pages of the original work somehow got mixed up and were put back together in the wrong order!

William Smith adds that: "The book is as far removed as possible from the character of a formal treatise" and that "the obscurity which had been a stumbling block to Jewish teachers was not removed by Christians".

Be that as it may be, the continual references made by Jesus, James and Paul to Solomon's mysterious work strongly suggest that Ecclesiastes is in fact one of the very most important books in the whole of the Hebrew Scripture now known to Christians as the Old Testament. Reasons for the apparently illogical structure will become clear later.

The Bible makes it clear that had the people of ancient Israel obeyed God, the course of world history could have been radically different, and I have little doubt that the very best of life-enhancing modern technology could and would have been developed several thousand years earlier. Perhaps Jesus was hinting at this possibility when he said, as he wept over the fate of Jerusalem and her people, Quote: “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37) – adding in another place, Quote: “If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong to your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:4-43).

I strongly suspect that had Israel responded to their divine calling and embraced the fabulous opportunity offered to them to become God’s chosen instrument to lead and educate and whole world, Solomon’s wisdom trilogy – Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs -- would have provided the core of a national curriculum in wisdom, leadership and creative excellence for them and then, in turn, for all other nations.

As a new young king, Solomon was blessed by God with great wisdom and the ability to teach and educated others the basic principles of worldly success, as expounded in his book of Proverbs, the first part of a wisdom trilogy. However, there seems little doubt that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes much later, as an older man looking back on his life, which had been one of immense success but also monumental failure, the life of a wise man who did stupid things, a brilliant genius who, despite his vast intelligence and knowledge of the ways of God and insight into humanity, was dragged down and defeated by his own personal weaknesses and desires.

As a result, here in Ecclesiastes, the second part of his wisdom trilogy, we find an older and even wiser Solomon addressing a more mature audience -- individuals who have probably experienced some personal success and perhaps also dismal failure and disillusionment, and who are ready now to review their lives and turn to a way of Greater Wisdom, serving their communities and the organizations to which they belong as leaders and managers.

Along the way, however, and putting these matters in their right context for those with ears to hear, the wisest man who ever lived also considers a common experience, the ultimate futility of worldly success, the frustrations of failure, the purpose of human existence, death as the ultimate destroyer of all human achievement, the warped and evil nature of the world in which we must live and work, the vagaries of chance and the hopelessness of the masses of mankind who are oppressed and hurt by corrupt and wicked ruling powers as well as by their own human weaknesses, fears and foolishness.

The meaning of many parts of the Old Testament is by no means self-evident, sometimes having a duality, a literal and a spiritual significance, an historic and a prophetic one, type and ante-type, as Paul points out on several occasions. Speaking of the two wives of Abraham, for example, their children and events that took place in their lives, Paul says, Quote: “These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants”, the Old and New, as he then goes on to explain (Galatians 4:2-28).

Even the physical regulations of the Law of Moses can convey broader principles, as Paul also illustrates when he cites the following verse to make a point about the financial remuneration of effective church elders, saying, Quote: “The Scripture says, Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain” (1 Timothy 5:17), a kind practice whereby oxen were allowed to eat some of the grain they were being used to thresh. On another occasion, Paul appears to imply that his spiritual interpretation, rather than the literal one, is actually the more important intent of the scripture, saying, Quote: “Is it about oxen that God is concerned? Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the ploughman ploughs and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest” (1 Corinthians 9:9-10).

“All scripture”, says Paul “is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good purpose” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) – a statement, as we shall see, that is especially true of the neglected book of Ecclesiastes.

When Jesus appeared to two of the disciples, after his resurrection, as they were walking along the road to the village of Emmaus, he explained to them what the scriptures said concerning himself, beginning with the books of Moses and all the Prophets. Later, when they reported the incident to the apostles, the two said that Jesus had “opened the scriptures” to them (Luke 24:25-34), scriptures with which they had probably been quite familiar since childhood, but had never understood.

In the same way today, the teachings of Jesus, and the words of the apostles Peter, Paul and James open the writings of Solomon in particular, and demonstrate their direct relevance to those pursuing a Christian calling and wishing to live wiser and more Godly lives.