Ecclesiasticus 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter warns against close company with the proud and the powerful, and describes how a rich man uses a person while there is profit in it and drops him when there is not. It gives rules for how to act when a powerful man invites you, and then says that each kind keeps to its own kind, listing pairs that do not go together: wolf and lamb, sinner and godly, rich and poor. It closes with lines on how people treat the rich and the poor when they fall or speak, and on the face showing what is in the heart.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • Whoever touches pitch is defiled by it.
   • Whoever keeps company with an arrogant man becomes like him.
2. 13:2
   • Do not take up a burden beyond your own strength.
   • Do not keep company with one mightier and richer than yourself.
   • A clay pot and a metal cauldron have nothing in common.
   • If the one is struck against the other, the clay pot will be broken.
3. 13:3
   • The rich man has done wrong, and on top of it he threatens.
   • The poor man has been wronged, and on top of it he must beg.
4. 13:4
   • If you are of use to him, he will exploit you.
   • If you have nothing, he will abandon you.
5. 13:5
   • If you have possessions, he will live alongside you.
   • He will strip you bare.
   • He will feel no grief about it.
6. 13:6
   • If he needs you, he will deceive you.
   • He will smile at you.
   • He will give you hope.
   • He will speak pleasantly to you.
   • He will ask you what you need.
7. 13:7
   • He will shame you with his feasts.
   • He will do this until he has drained you dry two or three times.
   • In the end he will mock you.
   • Afterward, when he sees you, he will abandon you.
   • He will shake his head at you.
8. 13:8
   • Take care not to be deceived.
   • Take care not to be brought low in your merrymaking.
9. 13:9
   • If a powerful man invites you, hold back.
   • Holding back will make him invite you all the more.
10. 13:10
    • Do not push yourself forward on him, or you will be pushed back.
    • Do not keep too far away, or you will be forgotten.
11. 13:11
    • Do not presume to speak with him as an equal.
    • Do not believe his many words.
    • By much talking he will be testing you.
    • While smiling at you he will draw out your secrets.
12. 13:12
    • He will store up your words without mercy.
    • He will not hold back from harming you.
    • He will not hold back from imprisoning you.
13. 13:13
    • Be watchful and take careful heed.
    • You are walking in danger of your own downfall.
    • When you hear these things, stay awake in your sleep.
14. 13:14
    • Love the Lord your whole life.
    • Call on him for your deliverance.
15. 13:15
    • Every living creature loves its own kind.
    • Every man loves his neighbor.
16. 13:16
    • All flesh keeps company according to its kind.
    • A man will attach himself to one like himself.
17. 13:17
    • The wolf has no fellowship with the lamb.
    • The sinner likewise has no fellowship with the godly.
18. 13:18
    • There is no agreement between a hyena and a dog.
    • There is no peace between the rich and the poor.
19. 13:19
    • Wild asses are the prey of lions in the wilderness.
    • In the same way the rich devour the poor.
20. 13:20
    • Humility is detestable to the proud.
    • In the same way the poor man is detestable to the rich.
21. 13:21
    • A rich man who begins to fall is held up by his friends.
    • A poor man who has fallen is pushed away by his friends.
22. 13:22
    • When a rich man falls, he has many who help him.
    • He says things that ought not to be said, and men declare him right.
    • When a poor man slips, they rebuke him as well.
    • The poor man spoke sensibly, and was given no hearing.
23. 13:23
    • When a rich man speaks, everyone falls silent.
    • They exalt what he says to the clouds.
    • When a poor man speaks, they ask who this fellow is.
    • If the poor man stumbles, they help to knock him down.
24. 13:24
    • Wealth is good for the one who has no sin.
    • Poverty is evil in the mouth of the ungodly.
25. 13:25
    • A man's heart alters his face, whether toward good or toward evil.
    • A glad heart makes a cheerful face.
26. 13:26
    • A cheerful face is a sign of a heart that is doing well.
    • Devising proverbs is exhausting labor of the mind.

Words Worth Explaining

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

13:1

Pitch is a thick black tar, used in the ancient world for waterproofing boats, jars and roofs. It sticks to skin and cannot be wiped clean, which is the whole force of the comparison. The King James "defiled" here carries no ritual or religious sense; it means smeared and blackened.

13:2

The King James "kettle" is not a tea kettle but a large cooking pot of bronze or iron. Beside a pot of fired clay it is the far harder vessel, so if the two knock together the clay one shatters and the metal one is unmarked. The proverb is about mismatched strength, not about cookware.

13:3

Beg here means plead. The poor man was the one who was wronged, yet he still had to ask for mercy.

13:5

"Live with you" means stay in your house as a guest, eating your food and using up what you own.

13:6

In 1611 English, "What wantest thou?" meant "What do you lack?" rather than "What would you like?" The rich man is presenting himself as the one who can supply a need.

13:7

"Meats" in the King James means food of any kind, not flesh alone. The shaming happens through hospitality: he serves meals far beyond what his guest could ever return, so the guest is put permanently in his debt. Shaking the head at someone was a recognized gesture of mockery and dismissal, the equivalent of a public sneer.

13:8

"Jollity" is the King James word for festive high spirits, the pleasure of the banquet just described. The warning is that the good cheer is the trap.

13:9

An invitation from a powerful man was not simple hospitality. It created a relationship of obligation between a patron and his dependent, and the whole passage is advice on how to survive one. Holding back from the invitation is a calculated move: eagerness is read as need, and need lowers your price.

13:11

"Affect" in the King James means to aim at or aspire to, not to pretend. The advice is not to reach for the footing of an equal in conversation with him.

13:12

Words spoken in private could be produced later as evidence. A wealthy man had the standing to press a charge and the resources to pursue it, and a man of small means, particularly one in debt, could be held in custody, so the mention of prison is a practical risk rather than a figure of speech.

13:13

The last clause is obscure in the Greek and the King James renders it word for word. It is usually taken to mean something like "stay awake even in your sleep," that is, never let your guard down; a few readings take it as "wake up, you who are asleep." The ambiguity is in the text itself.

13:14

Salvation here means rescue. It is asking God to keep you safe from harm and trouble.

13:15

Neighbor here means his own people, the ones who are like him, not only the family living next door.

13:16

"All flesh" in the King James means every living creature, not bodies or bodily appetites. "Consorteth" means keeps company.

13:17

Godly means a person who lives the way God asks. Wolves hunt lambs, so the two can never be friends.

13:18

The hyena and the dog were both scavengers around human settlements and competitors for the same carrion, and were proverbially at each other's throats. Dogs in this world were not pets but half-wild animals living at the edges of a town.

13:19

The wild ass is the untamed desert donkey, a fast, solitary animal of the wilderness, not a farm beast. It was a standard example of prey for lions. "Eat up the poor" is a stock phrase for consuming someone's whole livelihood.

13:20

Humility means not thinking you are better than other people.

13:22

"Given no place" means no one made room for him or listened, even though what he said was wise.

13:23

"Extol it to the clouds" is an idiom of the period meaning to praise something to the skies. The rendering keeps the image the King James uses.

13:24

This verse is genuinely ambiguous and both halves have been read more than one way. The first line may mean that wealth is a good thing when it is held by someone who has not sinned to get it. The second may mean that the ungodly are the ones who call poverty an evil, or that poverty produces ungodly talk in the mouth of the person suffering it. The Greek allows both.

13:25

"Countenance" simply means the face or the expression on it. In this literature the "heart" is the seat of thought, intention and judgment, not only of feeling, so the saying is that what a person is inwardly working out shows on the outside.

13:26

"Parables" here translates a Greek word meaning proverbs, riddles and compressed wise sayings, not the story-parables of the Gospels. "The finding out of parables" is the work of composing them or of cracking their meaning, which is the trade this whole book is written in.