[1][2] The book contains philosophical speeches by a character called 'Qoheleth' ("the Teacher"; Koheleth or Kohelet), composed probably between the fifth and second centuries BC.

Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus (B;

[8] The NewCity Editor's Letter cites these verses as "one of the world’s earlier and best-known poems".

[8] Verses 2–8 give a list of times for major activities, according to God's plan.

[8] God who made everything suitable for its time is also the one placing a sense of past and future (lit.

[18] American theologian Albert Barnes notes the difficulty in reading the King James Version's text: That which hath been is now ..., which he attributes to the word "is" being "erroneously printed" in Roman characters, as it does not appear in the Hebrew: it should have been italicised as an added word, and "now" would have read better as "already",[21] as in several more recent translations such as the New King James Version show above.