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Ecclesiastes Rabbah

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In the list of the old sedarim for the Bible, four sedarim are assigned to Ecclesiastes (beginning at 1:1, 3:13, 7:1, and 9:7); and Kohelet Rabbah was probably divided according to these sections. This appears from the phrase "Sidra tinyana" ("second seder") inserted between the comments to Ecclesiastes 6:12 and 7:1, and the phrase "Sidra telita'a" ("third seder") between the comments to Ecclesiastes 9:6 and 9:7. These phrases occur at the end of the second and third midrash sections, in the same way that "Selik sidra" indicates the end of sections in earlier editions of Ruth Rabbah and Esther Rabbah. The commentary to 3:12 having been lost, so is the phrase "first seder" that would likely have followed it. Nothing remains to indicate where one section ends and another begins, as there is no introductory remark to the commentary on 3:13. But an introduction is also lacking to the commentary on 7:1 and 9:7.

Adaptations from earlier Midrashim

The author - dated to between the 6th-8th centuries - confined himself chiefly to collecting and editing, and did not compose new introductions to the sections. However, he extensively used the introductions found either in the earlier midrashim—Bereshit Rabbah, Pesikta Rabbati, Lamentations Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, Shir haShirim Rabbah—or in the collections from which those midrashim were compiled. This shows the important role which the introductions to the earlier midrashim played in the later midrashim, in that they served either as sources or as component parts of the latter. For introductions to commentaries on the Bible text and for homilies on the sedarim and Pesikta cycle, it was customary to choose texts occurring not in the Pentateuch, but chiefly in the Hagiographa, including Ecclesiastes. This, even in very early times, gave rise to an aggadic treatment of numerous passages in Ecclesiastes, which in turn furnished rich material for the compilation of Kohelet Rabbah.

The longest passages in Kohelet Rabbah are the introductions to Pesikta Rabbati and Vayikra Rabbah, all of which the author used. Some introductions were abbreviated, and introductions from different midrashim were combined in a commentary on one passage of Ecclesiastes. For instance, the long passage on Ecclesiastes 12:1–7 is a combination of the introduction to Vayikra Rabbah 18:1 and the 23rd introduction in Lamentations Rabbah. Of the 96 columns which Kohelet Rabbah contains in the Venice edition, nearly twenty consist of expositions which the author took from introductions in Bereshit Rabbah, Pesikta Rabbati, Vayikra Rabbah, and Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah. Many other passages besides the introductions have been transferred from those sources to Kohelet Rabbah. Moreover, it contains several passages in common with Ruth Rabbah; compare especially the commentary on Ecclesiastes 7:8 (which includes the story of Rabbi Meir and his teacher Elisha ben Abuya) with Ruth Rabbah 6 (to Ruth 3:13), with which it agrees almost verbatim. In this case, the story was not taken directly from its source in the Yerushalmi.

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