The beginning of both books tell us that.
But what happened between the writing of those two
books?
Proverbs 1:1 The proverbs of
Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;
2 To know wisdom and
instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;
3 To receive the instruction of
wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;
4 To give subtilty to the
simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
Solomon began great, but by the time
he wrote Ecclesiastes, he sounded so depressed.
It was like he had thrown in the
towel, and had given up:
Ecclesiastes 1:1 The words of the
Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, saith the
Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is
vanity.
3 What profit hath a man of all
his labour which he taketh under the sun?
What happened to cause that change?
Could it be related to the following?
I Kings 11:1 But king Solomon
loved many strange women, together with the daughter of
Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites,
Zidonians, and Hittites;
2 Of the nations
concerning which the LORD said unto the children
of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall
they come in unto you: for surely they
will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon
clave unto these in love.
3 And he had seven hundred
wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his
wives turned away his heart.
4 For it came to pass, when
Solomon was old, that his wives turned
away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not
perfect with the LORD his God, as was
the heart of David his father.
5 For Solomon went after
Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom
the abomination of the Ammonites.
6 And Solomon did evil in the
sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as
did David his father.
7 Then did Solomon build an
high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the
hill that is before Jerusalem, and for
Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.
8 And likewise did he for all
his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed
unto their gods.
If so, then could it also be a warning
to us who are saved, if we sin and backslide?
If we are saved, and have the Holy
Ghost, and the mind of Christ:
I Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not
that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God,
and ye are not your own?
I Corinthians 2:16 For who hath known
the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we
have the mind of Christ.
Then, if we sin and backslide, what
kind of messed up, Romans 7 condition, are we in?
Is the book of Ecclesiastes, then,
kind of a picture of the mind of a backslider?
Will our thinking get as far away and
depressed as Solomon's did?