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Ecclesiasticus 19: What the Passage Says

61 claims across 30 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Ecclesiasticus 19 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is a collection of short sayings. The first group deals with drink, with women, with despising small matters, and with repeating what has been told to you, and it says a fool cannot hold a word in. The second group tells the reader to take a matter up with a friend rather than believe every report, and it sets the fear of the Lord and the keeping of the law above both wickedness and clever skill. It closes with a picture of a man who looks downcast and deaf while he is full of deceit, and with the signs by which a person can be known: the face, the clothes, the laugh, and the walk.

Claim by Claim

  1. 19:1
    • A workman who is a drunkard will not become rich.
    • Whoever despises small things will fall little by little.
  2. 19:2
    • Wine and women make men of understanding fall away.
    • The man who attaches himself to prostitutes becomes more reckless.
  3. 19:3
    • Decay and worms will take him as their possession.
    • A reckless person will be taken away.
  4. 19:4
    • Whoever trusts too quickly is light of heart.
    • Whoever sins does wrong against his own soul.
  5. 19:5
    • Whoever takes pleasure in wickedness will be condemned.
    • Whoever resists pleasures crowns his own life.
  6. 19:6
    • Whoever controls his tongue will live without quarrelling.
    • Whoever hates talkativeness will suffer less evil.
  7. 19:7
    • Do not repeat to another what was told to you.
    • If you do not repeat it, you will be no worse off.
  8. 19:8
    • Do not talk about other people's lives, whether to a friend or to an enemy.
    • Do not reveal such things, unless not revealing them would be a wrong.
  9. 19:9
    • The one who told you listened to you and watched you.
    • In time he will hate you.
  10. 19:10
    • If you have heard a word, let it die with you.
    • Take courage: the word will not burst you.
  11. 19:11
    • A fool is in labour over a word, like a woman giving birth.
  12. 19:12
    • A word inside a fool's belly is like an arrow stuck in a thigh.
  13. 19:13
    • Reprove a friend.
    • It may be he did not do the thing.
    • If he did do it, reprove him so that he will not do it again.
  14. 19:14
    • Reprove your friend.
    • It may be he did not say the thing.
    • If he did say it, reprove him so that he will not say it again.
  15. 19:15
    • Reprove a friend.
    • Many times a thing reported is a slander.
    • Do not believe every report.
  16. 19:16
    • There is a person who slips in speech without meaning it in his heart.
    • No one has failed to offend with his tongue.
  17. 19:17
    • Reprove your neighbour before you threaten him.
    • Do this without anger.
    • Give place to the law of the Most High.
  18. 19:18
    • The fear of the Lord is the first step toward being accepted by him.
    • Wisdom obtains his love.
  19. 19:19
    • The knowledge of the Lord's commandments is the teaching of life.
    • Those who do what pleases him will receive the fruit of the tree of immortality.
  20. 19:20
    • All wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
    • In all wisdom there is the doing of the law.
    • In all wisdom there is the knowledge of his omnipotence.
  21. 19:21
    • A servant may say to his master, I will not do what pleases you.
    • Even if he does it afterward, he angers the one who feeds him.
  22. 19:22
    • Knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom.
    • The counsel of sinners is never prudence.
  23. 19:23
    • There is a cunning that is an abomination.
    • There is a fool who lacks wisdom.
  24. 19:24
    • A person of little understanding who fears God is better than one who has much wisdom and breaks the law of the Most High.
  25. 19:25
    • There is a precise cleverness that is unjust.
    • There is a person who distorts things in order to make a verdict appear.
    • There is a wise man who gives a just decision in judgment.
  26. 19:26
    • There is a wicked man who goes about with his head bowed in mourning.
    • Inwardly that man is full of deceit.
  27. 19:27
    • He lowers his face and pretends not to hear.
    • Where he is not recognized, he will get the better of you before you are aware.
  28. 19:28
    • If lack of power keeps him from sinning, he will still do evil when he finds an opportunity.
  29. 19:29
    • A man is recognized by his appearance.
    • A man of understanding is recognized by his face when you meet him.
  30. 19:30
    • A man's clothing, his excessive laughter, and his walk show what he is.

Words Worth Explaining

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

19:1
A "labouring man" here is a day laborer, paid for the day and living on what he earns that day, with no margin for drink to eat into. "Contemneth" in the King James means despises or thinks nothing of.
19:2
"Impudent" in 1611 meant shameless, having lost the capacity for shame altogether; it is much stronger than the modern sense of cheeky.
19:3
"Have him to heritage" means inherit him. The picture is of a body in the grave, with moths and worms taking possession of what is left. The "bold man" is the shameless man of the line before, bold in the bad sense: reckless, past caring.
19:4
"Hasty to give credit" means quick to believe what he is told, not quick to lend money. "Lightminded" means shallow or frivolous, not cheerful.
19:5
"Crowneth his life" points to the wreath placed on the head of the winner of a race or contest; holding out against one's appetites is treated as the win.
19:6
Ruling your tongue means choosing carefully what you say.
19:7
"Rehearse" in 1611 English meant to repeat something aloud, not to practice.
19:10
The image behind "it will not burst thee" is of an unspoken word swelling inside a person until he splits open. The advice is that no one has ever burst from keeping quiet.
19:11
Birth pangs are the image: once labor starts it cannot be held back, and a fool can no more hold in a word he has heard.
19:12
An arrow lodged in the fleshy part of the thigh is painful without being fatal; what it does is make the man frantic to get it out. That is how a piece of news sits inside a fool until he blurts it.
19:13
"Admonish" here means to put the matter to the person directly, face to face. These lines follow the warnings about gossip: the alternative to repeating a story about someone is going and asking him about it. The same instruction is repeated in the next two verses, a common pattern in this book.
19:15
"Slander" here covers any untrue report, whether it was invented out of malice or simply passed along by mistake.
19:17
This picks up the law in Leviticus 19:17 to 18, which requires rebuking your neighbor plainly instead of nursing hatred or taking revenge. "Give place to the law of the most High" is read in more than one way: either yield to what God's law lays down for such cases, or stand back and leave room for God to settle it rather than settling it yourself in anger. "The most High" is a title for God used often in this book.
19:18
"The fear of the Lord" runs through this whole book and means awe and serious regard, taking God into account, rather than being frightened of him. Verses 18 and 19 are missing from the oldest Greek manuscripts of Ecclesiasticus; they belong to a longer edition that circulated later, and the King James translates that longer text.
19:19
"The tree of immortality" recalls the tree of life in the garden in Genesis 2 and 3, whose fruit gave unending life.
19:20
"The law" means the law of Moses, the commandments of the Hebrew scriptures; for this writer wisdom and that law are one thing. "Omnipotency" is older English for having all power.
19:21
This verse, like 18 and 19, is absent from the oldest Greek manuscripts. The "servant" is a household slave, housed and fed by his master, which is the force of "him that nourisheth him": refusing an order is biting the hand that feeds.
19:23
"Abomination" translates the word used in the Greek Old Testament for what is loathsome and not to be tolerated, especially in matters of religion. The verse sets two things side by side, a cleverness that is wicked and a plain lack of wisdom, and the next verse says which of the two is worse.
19:25
"Exquisite subtilty" is 1611 English for finely worked out shrewdness; "subtilty" then meant cleverness or craft, without the modern sense of delicacy. The middle clause is obscure in the Greek and is taken in opposite ways: either a man who twists things to produce the verdict he wants, or a man who bends the usual course of things in order to bring the true verdict out.
19:26
A bowed head and lowered face were the recognized posture of mourning and of humility. The man is wearing the look as a disguise.
19:30
Dress, laughter and the way a man walks were the standard signs by which ancient moral teachers claimed to read a person's character. Loud or unrestrained laughter in particular was taken as the mark of a man with no self control.

Read Ecclesiasticus 19