Place Written: Jerusalem

Writing Completed: Before 1000 B.C.E.

5. Where and when must Ecclesiastes have been written?

⁵ The book identifies Jerusalem as the place of writing in saying that the congregator was king “in Jerusalem.” The time must have been before the year 1000 B.C.E., well along in Solomon’s 40-year reign, after he had engaged in the numerous pursuits referred to in the book but before his fall into idolatry. By then he would have gained extensive knowledge of this world’s occupations and its striving after material gains. At the time he would still have been in God’s favor and under His inspiration.