Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes is the Bible's most unsettling and honest book, the record of a brilliant man's experiment with everything life offers. The Preacher tries pleasure, wealth, work, and wisdom, and finds each one hevel, vapor, a breath that slips through the fingers. Death levels the wise and the fool; injustice thrives; times and seasons roll on beyond our control. Yet this is no counsel of despair. Precisely because life is fleeting, the Preacher urges us to eat our bread with joy, work heartily, love faithfully, and fear God, receiving each ordinary day as a gift from his hand.
"The Preacher, son of David"; traditionally Solomon, though the book leaves him unnamed.
Traditionally Solomon's era, c. 940 BC; many date it later.
Thoughtful readers confronting mortality, futility, and the search for meaning.
To expose the futility of life pursued apart from God, and to commend reverent joy in his everyday gifts.