New Century Bible Commentary: Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes is at once a strange book and a modern one, at once enigmatic and curiously familiar. Here we find a man detached from the world and yet intensely aware of it, setting down in writing his thoughts about human life. Yet from the very first his readers have been unable to agree about his basic attitude to life. Whybray sorts through the options by asking questions regarding the author, his times, his language and his ideas.