Ecclesiastes - Messianic Interpretation in Christianity

Messianic Interpretation in Christianity

Nicholas Perrin has suggested that the framing device of Ecclesiastes was used to point to the Messiah. The book is framed by two sets of verses: 1:1–11, and 12:9–14. Both these sets of verses contain messianic allusions, which makes the entire book a pronouncement of the sage Messiah. Ecclesiastes 1:1 reads "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem." This person has often been identified with Solomon, but Perrin finds this inapt. He points out that "son of David", by itself, is never used in the Hebrew Bible to denote Solomon; when Solomon is intended, he is named. Furthermore, calling him "king in Jerusalem", without a reference to his kingdom (e.g. Israel or Judah), is more typical in the Old Testament of the eschatological Jerusalem than of historical Davidic kings. This opens up the possibility of viewing the figure as the Messiah rather than as Solomon.

In the period Ecclesiastes was written, references to the Davidic Messiah were often found along with wisdom and Jerusalem. In the non-canonical Psalms of Solomon, the Messiah is associated with wisdom; and Ben Sira associates Wisdom with Jerusalem. So in Ecclesiastes 1:1 both the (wise) Preacher and Jerusalem are references to the Messiah. The very opening verse of the book presents to the reader a messianic figure.

The closing frame of Ecclesiastes again presents the Preacher, the messianic figure (12:9). The major messianic reference here is the "one shepherd" of verse 11. Most have interpreted the shepherd as God. This lends credence to the entire book, which is the aim of the epilogue. The authority of God and his Messiah are borrowed for the book of Ecclesiastes. The shepherd is also identified with the Messiah by Perrin. He shows that in the Hellenistic time of Ecclesiastes the "one shepherd" was a common messianic trope which is based on the Book of Ezekiel. In chapters 34 and 37, Ezekiel describes the Davidic Messiah as the "one shepherd": this wording is the same used in Ecclesiastes 12:11, and it is unique to these three passages. So the one shepherd is bound up with Nathan’s prophecy of the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7. Following the writing of Ezekiel, several works identified Davidic kings as being more than merely kings of Judah (e.g. 1 Chron 28:5) or as shepherd-Messiahs (Zech 11:7, 1 Enoch, Psalms of Solomon). 12:11 is one part of a messianic tradition spanning from Ezekiel up to 10:16: "And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd."

Though a number of early Christian and medieval commentators understood this the text to be essentially eschatological, a portrayal of the end time, this view has received virtually no support among modern critics. However, M.V. Fox has suggested that eschatological images may lie in the background of v. 2.