Charles Ellicott Commentary Ecclesiastes 9:14

"There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it." — Ecclesiastes 9:14 (ASV)

Idle attempts have been made to find a historical reference in this passage. What is told here is so like the story (2 Samuel 20:0) of the deliverance of Abel-beth-Maachah by a wise woman, whose name, nevertheless, has not been preserved, that we cannot even be sure that the writer had any other real history in his mind.