Ecclesiastes Chapter 1 verse 12 Holy Bible

ASV Ecclesiastes 1:12

I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
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BBE Ecclesiastes 1:12

I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
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DARBY Ecclesiastes 1:12

I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
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KJV Ecclesiastes 1:12

I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
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WBT Ecclesiastes 1:12


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WEB Ecclesiastes 1:12

I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
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YLT Ecclesiastes 1:12

I, a preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 12 - Ecclesiastes 6:12. - Division. I. PROOF OF THE VANITY OF EARTHLY THINGS FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND GENERAL OBSERVATION. Verses 12-18. - Section 1. Vanity of striving for wisdom and knowledge. Verse 12. - I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. Koheleth relates his own experience as king, in accordance with his assumption of the person of Solomon. The use of the past tense in this verse is regarded by many as strong evidence against the Solomonic authorship of the book. "I have been king" (not "I have become king," as Gratz would translate) is a statement introducing the supposed speaker, not as a reigning monarch, but as one who, in time past, exercised sovereignty. Solomon is represented as speaking from the grave, and recalling the past for the instruction of his auditors. In a similar manner, the author of the Book of Wisdom (8:1-13) speaks in his impersonation of Solomon. That king himself, who reigned without interruption to his death, could not have spoken of himself in the terms used here. He lost neither his throne nor his power; and, therefore, the expression cannot be paralleled (as Mr. Bullock suggests) by the complaint of Louis XIV., unsuccessful in war and weary of rule, "When I was king." Solomon redivivus is introduced to give weight to the succeeding experiences. Here is one who had every and the most favorable opportunity of seeing the best side of things; and yet his testimony is that all is vanity. In the acquisition of wisdom, the contrast between the advantage of learned leisure and the interruptions of a laborious life is set forth in Ecclus. 38:24, etc. King over Israel. The expression indicates a time before the division of the kingdom. We have it in 1 Samuel 15:26, and occasionally elsewhere. The usual phrase is "King of Israel." (For in Jerusalem, see on ver. 1.)

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English ReadersKOHELETH RELATES HIS OWN EXPERIENCE.(12) Having in the introductory verses stated the argument of the treatise, the writer proceeds to prove what he has asserted as to the vanity of earthly pursuits, by relating the failures of one who might be expected, if any one could, to bring such pursuits to a satisfactory result. Solomon, in this book called Koheleth, pre-eminent among Jewish sovereigns as well for wisdom as for temporal prosperity, speaking in the first person, tells how, with all his advantages, he could secure in this life no lasting or satisfying happiness. He relates first how he found no satisfaction from an enlightened survey of human life. He found (Ecclesiastes 1:14) that it presented a scene of laborious exertion empty of profitable results. His researches (Ecclesiastes 1:15) only brought to light errors and defects which it was impossible to remedy; so that (Ecclesiastes 1:18) the more thought a man bestowed on the subject, the greater his grief. On the name Koheleth, and the phrase "was king," see Introduction.Over Israel.--King of Israel is the usual phrase in the earlier books, but there are examples of that here employed (1Samuel 15:26; 2Samuel 19:23; 1Kings 11:37). . . .