Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes is the most existentialist book in the Bible.
Read this if you…
- want the most existentialist book in the Bible — 'vanity of vanities, all is vanity'
- like a king who's tried everything (pleasure, wisdom, wealth, work) and concluded the whole thing's a chasing after wind
- care about the source of 'a time to be born, a time to die' — the chapter 3 list later turned into a Byrds song
Skip this if you…
- don't want to read explicitly religious/Christian texts
Why It Matters
Ecclesiastes is the most existentialist book in the Bible. It looks straight at death, futility, and how little we can actually know, and doesn't flinch. Its influence runs from Stoic philosophy through Shakespeare and into modern existentialism.
Where to go next
- Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville. Ecclesiastes shaped it. - Melville called it "the truest of all books" — and meant it as the spine of *Moby-Dick* - In the Try-Works chapter, Ishmael names *Ecclesiastes* "the fine hammered steel of woe," the standard against which all other grief is measured - The vanity, the wind-chasing, the wisdom-that-is-sorrow of Solomon becomes the whole metaphysical weather of the whaling voyage
- The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy. Ecclesiastes shaped it. - Tolstoy turned this book's verdict into a deathbed - He quoted Solomon's *vanity of vanities* at the heart of his own spiritual crisis in *A Confession* — and even faulted the English rendering, the mark of a man reading it closely - *The Death of Ivan Ilych* is that quarrel made into a story: a man who lived for the world's approvals discovering, too late, that all of it was vapor
- Praise of Folly by Erasmus. Ecclesiastes shaped it. - Erasmus made *Ecclesiastes* his chief witness — the one book of Scripture Folly can call to the stand - Folly opens her case for universal foolishness by quoting Solomon directly, including the Vulgate tag "stultorum infinitus est numerus" — "the number of fools is infinite" - The audacity is the point: she turns the Bible's own wisdom literature into testimony that folly rules the world, and that even King Solomon was a fool
- The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. Ecclesiastes shaped it. - Bunyan lifted his most famous episode straight from here — *The Pilgrim's Progress*'s Vanity Fair is named for Ecclesiastes' "vanity of vanities, all is vanity" - The Preacher's verdict on the emptiness of worldly things becomes a town the pilgrims have to pass through and resist - One verse, set as an epigraph in Bunyan's text, generated a whole allegorical set-piece
- Walden or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. Ecclesiastes shaped it. - One line surfaces in Thoreau's woods — *Ecclesiastes* 9:4, "a living dog is better than a dead lion," pressed into service to argue the living present beats a revered, dead past - A "time to reap, a time to sow" echo turns up too, though Thoreau favored Hindu and Persian scripture — the engagement is glancing, not structural
Depicted in Art
An elderly, meditative King Solomon sits enthroned at the center of his court, sharing weary wisdom with attendants who lean in to listen.
Isaak Asknaziy, 1900
A skull, a Japanese sword, a lute, a chronometer watch, a sea shell, a folio book, and an oil lamp pile against each other on a plain table, lit from the upper left.
Harmen Steenwyck, 1640
A woman seated at her vanity table admires herself in a large round mirror; pulled back, the entire composition resolves into the form of a human skull.
Charles Allan Gilbert, 1892
Three objects on a bare stone ledge: a tulip in a glass vase at left, a skull at center, an hourglass at right.
Philippe de Champaigne, 1646
A folio book titled 'Rekeningh' (Reckoning) lies beside a skull, an hourglass, a globe, a money bag, a glass flask, and a tall sunflower turning toward the light.
Maria van Oosterwijck, 1668
A draped table laden with a candlestick, a violin, a celestial and a terrestrial globe, open Dutch books, a writing set, and a fallen hourglass.
Edwaert Collier, 1662
Recommended Editions
King James Version
Cambridge University Press · 1611
The most influential and commonly quoted translation in English. The prose rhythm everyone else is responding to, even modern translations.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:”
More by Solomon
- Proverbs
c. 450 BCE · Wisdom
- Song of Solomon
c. 300 BCE · Lyric
- Wisdom of Solomon
c. 50 BCE · Wisdom