The title “Ecclesiastes” comes from a Greek word indicating a person who calls an assembly, so it makes sense that the author identified himself in the kick-off verse by the Hebrew word qoheleth, translated as “Preacher.” The “Preacher” goes on to call himself “the son of David, king in Jerusalem,” one who has increased in “wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me,” and “one who has collected many proverbs.” It has to be King Solomon.

Solomon followed David on the throne in Jerusalem as the only Davidic son to rule over all Israel from that city. He was “the wisest man in the world” during…