Wisdom, Pleasures, and Toil Are Meaningless (1:12–2:26)

Great projects (2:4). Today, this section is widely regarded as an example of “fictional royal autobiography,” that is, of a genre in which a writer fictively assumes the identity of a long-dead king.16 Several examples of this genre are found in the Akkadian texts; a few of the more complete such texts are the Sargon Birth Legend, Idrimi, Kurigalzu, and the Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin.17 In the case of Ecclesiastes 2, the assumption is that the anonymous author of Ecclesiastes has taken on the identity of Solomon in order to speak as though he had been fabulously rich and thus to lend authority to his words when speaking on the subject of wealth.

One of the great royal projects known from the ancient world was the palace Sargon II built at Khorsabad.

Mary Evans Picture Library

This assumption is open to challenge, however. Known examples of fictional autobiography bear little resemblance to 1:12–2:11. First, Akkadian fictional autobiography tends to be propagandistic in nature. That is, the story serves to promote some political or cultic program. The Sargon Legend was apparently composed in order to legitimate the accession to the throne of its namesake, Sargon II (who may have been a usurper). Kurigalzu is a donation text; it claims that the king made donations to shrines and concludes with a curse on whoever undoes his work. Its obvious function is to legitimate a shrine by claiming ancient, royal authority for it. The Naram-Sin text draws lessons from the king’s story to make the political point that later rulers should focus on domestic issues and turn away from imperialistic adventures. A few texts give putative prophecies that attempt to legitimate either a royal policy or a shrine. The moral ruminations of Ecclesiastes 2 can hardly be described as “propagandistic” after the manner of the above Akkadian texts.

Second, fictional autobiography tends to be narrative; that is, it tells a story and thus is truly autobiography-like (pseudo-donation texts and prophecies lack narrative structure, but they should probably not be called “autobiographies”). For example, the Sargon legend contains a brief narrative of how Sargon’s mother, a high priestess, became pregnant, bore him in secret, put him in a reed basket, and set him adrift on a river. A water-drawer found him and adopted him. The Idrimi text includes an extensive history of the wars of the king. The Naram-Sin text likewise contains accounts of the battles of the king, his commands to his soldiers, and the taking of omens. By contrast, Ecclesiastes 2 is not narrative; “I built houses” does not tell a story; it is merely an assertion that the author was rich. In short, although many scholars use the Akkadian texts to identify the genre of 1:12–2:11, there are reasons to consider this inappropriate.18

I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun (2:18). Ecclesiastes laments that the wealth people acquire in their lifetime of hard labor is simply passed on to others, who may be incompetent or unworthy of the bequest (2:18–26). This idea also has parallels in the Egyptian Harpers’ Songs, where it is said, “Their property has been given to others. They are gone.”19 A common claim about ancient Near Eastern culture is that they believed that one in some sense lived on in the lives of their children and that thus to die childless was considered a great calamity. There is some truth in this, as indicated by the Israelite concern to keep real property within a single family line, but one should not assume that ancient peoples were unable to reflect critically on such notions.