“I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts.”
The Preacher's collection of silver, gold, treasures, and concubines represents the accumulation of wealth and pleasure in their most concentrated forms, the ultimate expression of royal power and indulgence. The addition of concubines—described in terms distinctly impersonal ("concubines, many")—suggests that even the intimacy of sexual pleasure becomes another commodity in the Preacher's collection, another form of possession. This dehumanizing language hints at the spiritual cost of treating everything, including other persons, as tools for the satisfaction of desire.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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