Opening Matters: This opening section of the book of Ecclesiastes consists of three distinct segments. First, a superscription identifies the work but is not part of the book proper (1:1). The following verse provides a motto for the book (1:2). Closing the introductory section is a poem that incorporates many of the themes and much of the vocabulary to be developed in the remainder of the work (1:3–11).

Because this section functions as an introduction to the book as a whole, it is not surprising to find that it anticipates many of the major issues of the book. The motto in verse 2 raises the central problem by stating it as a conclusion rather than a question: all is meaningless. The poem that follows then specifies aspects of that lack of meaning that will be developed in the following c…