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Ecclesiasticus 14: What the Passage Says

54 claims across 27 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Ecclesiasticus 14 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter begins with two blessings, on the man who has not slipped in what he says and on the man whose conscience does not condemn him, and then describes the stingy and envious man, who piles up goods for others and takes no pleasure in them. It tells the reader to be good to himself, to give the Lord his offering, and to do good to his friend before he dies, since death does not delay, all flesh wears out like clothing, and one generation ends as another is born. It closes with a blessing on the man who thinks about wisdom, and pictures him tracking her, watching at her windows, camping beside her house, and living under her branches.

Claim by Claim

  1. 14:1
    • Blessed is the man who has not slipped with his mouth.
    • Blessed is the man who has not been stung with pain by the multitude of sins.
  2. 14:2
    • Blessed is the man whose conscience has not condemned him.
    • Blessed is the man who has not fallen from his hope in the Lord.
  3. 14:3
    • Riches are not fitting for a stingy man.
    • Money is of no use to a grudging, envious man.
  4. 14:4
    • The man who gathers wealth by depriving himself is gathering it for other people.
    • Others will live luxuriously on his goods.
  5. 14:5
    • A man who is mean to himself will not be good to anyone else.
    • Such a man will take no pleasure in his own goods.
  6. 14:6
    • No one is worse than the man who grudges himself.
    • His grudging toward himself is the repayment of his own wickedness.
  7. 14:7
    • If such a man does good, he does it unwillingly.
    • In the end he makes his wickedness plain.
  8. 14:8
    • The grudging man has an evil eye.
    • He turns his face away.
    • He despises other people.
  9. 14:9
    • A greedy man's eye is not satisfied with his portion.
    • Wicked injustice dries up a man's soul.
  10. 14:10
    • An evil eye begrudges bread.
    • Such a man is stingy at his own table.
  11. 14:11
    • My son, treat yourself well according to what you have.
    • Bring the Lord offerings that are worthy.
  12. 14:12
    • Death will not delay.
    • The covenant of the grave has not been shown to you.
  13. 14:13
    • Do good to your friend before you die.
    • According to your strength, reach out and give to him.
  14. 14:14
    • Do not deprive yourself of a good day.
    • Do not let your share of a good desire pass you by.
  15. 14:15
    • You will leave your labors to someone else.
    • Your toils will be divided by lot.
  16. 14:16
    • Give and receive.
    • Sanctify your soul.
    • There is no seeking of pleasure in the grave.
  17. 14:17
    • All flesh grows old like a garment.
    • The covenant from of old is that you shall surely die.
  18. 14:18
    • On a leafy tree some leaves fall and others grow.
    • The generation of flesh and blood is like those leaves.
    • One generation comes to an end and another is born.
  19. 14:19
    • Every work rots and passes away.
    • The one who made it departs along with it.
  20. 14:20
    • Blessed is the man who meditates on good things in wisdom.
    • Blessed is the man who reasons of holy things by his understanding.
  21. 14:21
    • The man who considers wisdom's ways in his heart will also have understanding of her secrets.
  22. 14:22
    • Go after wisdom like a tracker.
    • Lie in wait along her paths.
  23. 14:23
    • The man who peers in at wisdom's windows will also listen at her doors.
  24. 14:24
    • The man who lodges near wisdom's house will also drive a peg into her walls.
  25. 14:25
    • He will pitch his tent close beside wisdom.
    • He will lodge in a lodging of good things.
  26. 14:26
    • He will place his children under wisdom's shelter.
    • He will lodge under her branches.
  27. 14:27
    • Wisdom will shelter him from heat.
    • He will dwell in her glory.

Words Worth Explaining

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

14:1
"Blessed" here renders a Greek word closer to "fortunate" or "happy": it congratulates a man on the state he is in rather than pronouncing a blessing over him. "Pricked" in 1611 English means stung or pierced, as by a thorn.
14:2
Your conscience is the sense inside you that tells you when you have done wrong.
14:3
"Niggard" is an old English word for a miser or tight-fisted person. It is unrelated in origin to the modern racial slur it resembles, and had no such association in 1611.
14:4
"His own soul" in the King James means simply himself, his own life; the man short-changes himself to build the pile. "Riotously" means wastefully and extravagantly, not violently.
14:6
"Envieth himself" is old usage: in 1611 "envy" could mean to grudge or begrudge, and a man could begrudge himself. The sense is that he denies himself what he has.
14:7
The Greek copies differ here. Some read "unwillingly," as the King James has it; others read "without realizing it," that is, he does good only by accident. "Declare his wickedness" means his real character finally comes out.
14:8
"A wicked eye" and "an evil eye" are a fixed Hebrew and Greek idiom for stinginess: the grudging, calculating look of a man who resents what he must give. It has nothing to do with casting a curse or a magical gaze. The opposite idiom, a "good eye" or "single eye," means generosity.
14:9
"Soul" in these verses means a person's whole self: his life, his hunger, his energy. It does not mean a ghost inside him.
14:10
The same idiom as in verse 8: an "evil eye" is a grudging one. The picture is of a host who counts what his guests eat.
14:11
"The Lord his due offering" means the fixed portions of produce, livestock and money that the law set aside for the temple in Jerusalem and the priests who served it. These were obligations with set amounts, not free gifts.
14:12
"The covenant of the grave" means the fixed terms on which death comes: the appointment is certain, but its date has not been disclosed to you. "The grave" here translates Hades, the Greek word used for the Hebrew Sheol, the shadowy place where all the dead go. In this book it is not a place of punishment but simply the state of the dead, where nothing more is enjoyed or done.
14:14
"The part of a good desire" means the share or portion of some good thing that has fallen to you. "Overpass thee" means pass you by while you hesitate.
14:15
"Travails" and "labours" here mean not the work itself but what the work produced, the estate left behind. "Divided by lot" refers to settling an inheritance by drawing lots, a common way of splitting property among heirs so that no one could claim the division was rigged.
14:16
"Sanctify thy soul" is the King James reading of a Greek verb that most now take to mean indulge or treat yourself well, which is why the plain rendering has "treat yourself well." "Dainties" means choice or luxurious food. "The grave" again translates Hades, the place of the dead.
14:17
"Waxeth old" means grows old. "The covenant from the beginning" points back to the sentence passed in the garden in Genesis. "Thou shalt die the death" copies a Hebrew construction that doubles the verb for emphasis, meaning "you will certainly die."
14:19
"Shall go withal" means goes along with it: the maker perishes as surely as the thing he made.
14:20
Holy things are things that belong to God.
14:21
"Her" is Wisdom. From verse 20 to the end of the chapter Wisdom is spoken of as a woman, a way of writing that runs through this book and the book of Proverbs. The verses that follow picture a man courting her, then moving in next door, then living in her house.
14:22
"As one that traceth" means like a hunter or tracker following a trail, reading the signs an animal has left. The second half continues the image: lying in wait where the quarry passes.
14:23
Peering in at the windows and listening at the doors is the behavior of a suitor hanging around the house of the woman he is courting. The point of the image is persistence, not stealth.
14:24
"Fasten a pin in her walls" means driving in a tent peg or a wall peg. Either way it marks a move from passing by to settling down permanently beside her.
14:25
To pitch a tent means to put one up and live in it.
14:26
The image shifts here from a house to a tree: Wisdom becomes shelter and branches. Both pictures say the same thing, that a man can live under her protection.
14:27
"Covered from heat" would strike a reader in that climate as an obvious image of safety and relief. Shade was the standard picture of protection, the way shelter from storm is in colder countries.

Read Ecclesiasticus 14