Ecclesiasticus 12: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter gives advice about who should receive your help and who should not: give to the godly and the lowly, and do not help the sinner or the ungodly. It then turns to enemies, saying that good times hide who is a real friend while hard times expose an enemy, and that an enemy is never to be trusted, however humble he acts. It warns against giving such a person a place beside you, and describes how he speaks sweetly, waits for trouble to come on you, and shows himself by his gestures.

Claim by Claim

1. 12:1
   • If you do good, know to whom you are doing it.
   • Good deeds done with such knowledge will meet with thanks.
2. 12:2
   • Do good to the godly man.
   • One who does good to the godly man will find a recompense.
   • If the recompense does not come from the godly man himself, it will come from the Most High.
3. 12:3
   • No good comes to the man who persists continually in evil.
   • No good comes to the man who gives no alms.
4. 12:4
   • Give to the godly man.
   • Do not help the sinner.
5. 12:5
   • Do good to the lowly man.
   • Do not give to the ungodly man.
   • Hold back your bread from the ungodly man.
   • Do not give your bread to him.
   • The reason for withholding is that he may otherwise gain mastery over you by means of it.
   • You will receive twice as much evil in return for all the good you do to him.
6. 12:6
   • The Most High hates sinners.
   • The Most High will repay vengeance to the ungodly.
   • He keeps them for the mighty day of their punishment.
7. 12:7
   • Give to the good man.
   • Do not help the sinner.
8. 12:8
   • A friend is not put to the proof in times of prosperity.
   • An enemy cannot stay hidden in times of adversity.
9. 12:9
   • When a man prospers, his enemies are grieved.
   • When a man meets adversity, even his friend departs from him.
10. 12:10
    • Never trust your enemy.
    • His wickedness is like the corrosion that eats into copper.
11. 12:11
    • Your enemy may humble himself and walk bent over.
    • Even so, be on your guard and beware of him.
    • You will be to him as one who has polished a mirror.
    • You will know that his corrosion has not been wholly removed.
12. 12:12
    • Do not set your enemy beside you.
    • If you do, he may overthrow you and stand in your place.
    • Do not seat him at your right hand.
    • If you do, he may seek your seat.
    • In the end you will recognize the truth of my words.
    • You will be stung by my sayings.
13. 12:13
    • No one will pity a snake-charmer who is bitten by a snake.
    • No one will pity those who go near wild beasts.
14. 12:14
    • So it is with the man who keeps company with a sinner.
    • So it is with the man who becomes entangled in the sinner's sins.
    • No one will pity such a man.
15. 12:15
    • The enemy will stay with you for a time.
    • If you begin to slip, he will not stand by you.
16. 12:16
    • An enemy speaks sweetly with his lips.
    • In his heart the enemy plans to throw you into a pit.
    • An enemy will weep with his eyes.
    • If the enemy finds his opportunity, he will not have his fill of blood.
17. 12:17
    • If adversity comes upon you, you will find the enemy there ahead of you.
    • Pretending to help you, he will trip your heel.
18. 12:18
    • He will shake his head.
    • He will clap his hands.
    • He will whisper much.
    • He will change the look of his face.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

12:1

In 1611 "benefits" meant the good turns you do for somebody, the favors you hand out, not advantages you receive. The verse is about your own giving, not about what you get.

12:2

"Godly" and "ungodly" translate a pair of Greek words (eusebes, asebes) that describe a person's stance toward God as shown in how he lives, one who gives God the reverence owed him and one who does not. They are not words about feelings. "The most High" is a standing title for God, Greek hypsistos, behind it the Hebrew Elyon; this book uses it constantly where other writers would say the Lord.

12:3

"Alms" is the old English word for gifts of money or food to the poor. In the Judaism this writer belonged to, Jerusalem around 180 BC, such giving was a standing obligation rather than an optional kindness, and the Hebrew word for it overlaps with the word for righteousness.

12:4

A sinner here means someone who keeps choosing to do wrong.

12:5

"Hold back thy bread" uses bread for food in general, and so for the basic support a person needs to live. "Lest he overmaster thee thereby" means: so that he does not use the very thing you gave him to get the upper hand over you.

12:6

"Repay vengeance" means pay back what is owed in punishment, settle the account, not fly into a rage. The closing clause about keeping them for the day of punishment is absent from many Greek manuscripts. Sirach survives in a shorter and a longer Greek form, and the King James follows the longer one, which is why this chapter carries lines that modern translations made from the shorter text leave out.

12:7

This repeats verse 4 almost word for word. The repetition is deliberate: teachers in this tradition often closed a section by restating the line that opened it, as a way of marking where the unit ends.

12:8

This does not mean you cannot recognize a friend while things go well. The Greek verb is about testing or proving something: a friend is never put to the test in good times, so his worth has not yet been shown.

12:9

"Grieved" in 1611 covered being vexed, galled, put out. The enemies are not sorry for the man; they are irritated that he is doing well.

12:10

The Greek says copper or bronze corrodes, not iron; the King James translators swapped in the metal familiar to their own readers. The Greek word for that corrosion, ios, also means venom, which is part of why snakes appear a few lines later.

12:11

"Lookingglass" is the old word for a mirror. Mirrors then were sheets of polished bronze, not glass, and they tarnished constantly, so keeping one usable meant rubbing it again and again. The picture is genuinely obscure in the Greek and translators divide over it: either you should watch him as closely as a man inspecting a mirror he has just wiped, or your watching is itself the wiping, which reveals that the tarnish has not gone. "Go crouching" means walk stooped low, the posture of a man making a show of submission.

12:12

"Set him not by thee" means do not give him the seat next to yours. The place at a host's or a ruler's right hand was the position of highest honor, so the warning is about advancement as much as nearness. "Be pricked therewith" means stung or pierced by the words when you finally recall them. The "my" is the author of the book, a Jerusalem teacher called Jesus son of Sirach, who writes throughout as a master speaking to a pupil.

12:13

A "charmer" here is a snake charmer, a man whose trade was handling snakes and chanting over them. "Come nigh" simply means come near.

12:14

"Defiled with him in his sins" borrows the vocabulary of ritual uncleanness, the kind a person caught by contact, as touching a corpse or a diseased person made someone unclean under the Law. The point of the word is contamination by association.

12:15

It is not certain in the Greek whether "he" is the sinner you attached yourself to in the verse before, or the false friend described in the verses that follow. The sentence sits on the hinge between the two halves of the chapter and can be read either way.

12:16

"He will not be satisfied with blood" does not mean blood would content him. The sense is that he will not get his fill of it, that he will not stop short of it. The pit is the standard image of a covered trap dug for animals, and so of a concealed plot.

12:17

"Undermine" was a literal word in 1611: to dig away the earth or the foundation under something so that it collapses. The Greek verb is closer to hooking a man's heel from behind to trip him.

12:18

None of these are friendly gestures. Shaking the head, clapping the hands, hissing or whispering, and pulling a face were all recognized signs of mockery and contempt in the ancient Near East, the standard behavior of onlookers at someone's ruin. The same cluster of gestures appears in Lamentations and the Psalms.