“... Ecclesiastes 1:2 exudes the pessimistic nature of the book of Ecclesiastes. The midrashic passage, though, ventures to demonstrate the conceptual proximity between Ecclesiastes and Psalms. This is achieved through a fabricated textual dialogue where David’s thoughts are illumined by Solomon. The combined patterns of questions-answers, the arrangement of the biblical verses in the form of a dialogue, and the allegorical meaning of Ps 144:4 that matches conceptually to the contextual meaning of Eccl 1:2 create the dialectical-transformative intertextuality of the following passage. [...] The Rabbis noticed the semantic closeness between Ps 144:4 and Eccl 1:2 and claimed that David first had expressed the notion of futility through Ps 144:4. Solomon, though, explained the hidden meaning of Ps 144:4 by writing a treatise on futility, and in particular through Eccl 1:2. The midrashic text transmits the rabbinic understanding about man and his nature and achieves the longed-for connection between Eccl 1:2 and Ps 144:4 by explaining that just as man’s life is like breath, that is, is fleeting, so also the world is ephemeral and permeated with futility. The theme of futility thus changes from a controversial one to one descriptive of life. ...”