Ecclesiasticus 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is advice to someone who is starting out to serve the Lord: get ready for testing, hold on, stay patient, and do not rush when trouble comes. It compares tested people to gold in a furnace, calls on those who fear the Lord to wait for his mercy, and points back to earlier generations who trusted him. It then pronounces woes on fearful hearts, on the person who gives up believing, and on those who lose patience, and it closes with those who fear the Lord humbling themselves and saying they will fall into the Lord's hands and not into human hands.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • A father addresses his son.
   • The son may come to serve the Lord God.
   • If the son comes to serve the Lord, he is told to prepare his soul for testing.
2. 2:2
   • The son is told to set his heart straight.
   • The son is told to endure steadfastly.
   • The son is told not to act hastily in a time of trouble.
3. 2:3
   • The son is told to cling to the Lord.
   • The son is told not to depart from the Lord.
   • Clinging to the Lord is so that the son may be increased at his end.
4. 2:4
   • The son is told to accept whatever is brought upon him.
   • The son is told to be patient when he is brought low.
5. 2:5
   • Gold is tested in fire.
   • Acceptable men are tested in the furnace of humiliation.
6. 2:6
   • The son is told to believe in the Lord.
   • The Lord will help him.
   • The son is told to make his ways straight.
   • The son is told to set his hope on the Lord.
7. 2:7
   • Those who fear the Lord are told to wait for his mercy.
   • Those who fear the Lord are told not to turn aside.
   • Turning aside would result in falling.
8. 2:8
   • Those who fear the Lord are told to believe him.
   • The reward of those who fear the Lord will not fail.
9. 2:9
   • Those who fear the Lord are told to hope for good.
   • Those who fear the Lord are told to hope for everlasting joy and mercy.
10. 2:10
    • The hearers are told to look at the generations of old.
    • The hearers are told to see.
    • It is asked whether anyone ever trusted in the Lord and was put to shame.
    • It is asked whether anyone ever remained in the fear of the Lord and was forsaken.
    • It is asked whether the Lord ever despised anyone who called upon him.
11. 2:11
    • The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
    • The Lord is longsuffering.
    • The Lord is very pitiful.
    • The Lord forgives sins.
    • The Lord saves in a time of affliction.
12. 2:12
    • Woe is pronounced on fearful hearts.
    • Woe is pronounced on faint hands.
    • Woe is pronounced on the sinner who walks two paths.
13. 2:13
    • Woe is pronounced on the fainthearted person.
    • The fainthearted person does not believe.
    • Because he does not believe, he will not be protected.
14. 2:14
    • Woe is pronounced on those who have lost patience.
    • Those who have lost patience are asked what they will do when the Lord visits them.
15. 2:15
    • Those who fear the Lord will not disobey his word.
    • Those who love the Lord will keep his ways.
16. 2:16
    • Those who fear the Lord will seek what is pleasing to him.
    • Those who love the Lord will be filled with the law.
17. 2:17
    • Those who fear the Lord will prepare their hearts.
    • Those who fear the Lord will humble their souls in his sight.
18. 2:18
    • Those who fear the Lord say this.
    • They say they will fall into the hands of the Lord.
    • They say they will not fall into the hands of men.
    • The Lord's mercy is as great as his majesty.

Words Worth Explaining

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

2:1

"My son" is the standard address of a wisdom teacher to his student, not necessarily a father to his child; the book is a collection of a teacher's instruction. "Temptation" in 1611 English meant a trial or a test, anything that puts a person under strain: illness, poverty, pressure from others. It did not mean an enticement to do wrong, which is what the word suggests today.

2:2

"Make not haste" is not about walking or working quickly. The Greek verb covers being thrown into confusion and acting in a panic, so the warning is against rash moves made under pressure.

2:3

"Cleave" in 1611 English meant to stick fast to something, to cling. It is the opposite of the other modern sense of cleave, to split apart. "Thy last end" translates a word for a person's final state or the outcome of a life, what a man comes to at the close.

2:4

"Changed to a low estate" renders a Greek word for being brought down in status. It covers losing money, position, health or standing, the public fall as much as the private loss.

2:5

Gold was refined by heating crushed ore in a furnace until the metal separated from the impurities, which were skimmed or burned off. A metalworker judged the purity of the result by eye and by weight, so "tried" here means tested for quality, and "acceptable men" are those who pass the assay.

2:6

"Order thy way aright" uses the image of a road: making a path straight and level rather than crooked and broken, so that travel along it is possible.

2:7

"Fear the Lord" is a fixed Hebrew phrase that runs through this whole book. It means reverence and awe held together with practical loyalty, the attitude of someone who takes God seriously enough to order his life by it. It does not mean being frightened.

2:8

The word behind "reward" is the ordinary term for a laborer's wages, the pay owed at the end of a job.

2:9

Sirach comes down to us in more than one form: Hebrew fragments, a Greek translation made by the author's grandson, and a longer Greek and Latin text carrying extra lines. Wording and verse numbering can differ between editions, so another Bible may read a little differently here.

2:10

"Confounded" in 1611 English meant put to shame or publicly disappointed, left standing there having trusted for nothing. It did not mean confused. "The generations of old" points the reader back to the stories of Israel's ancestors as a body of evidence to be examined.

2:11

Two words have shifted since 1611. "Longsuffering" means slow to anger, putting up with provocation over a long stretch. "Pitiful" meant full of pity, compassionate; today it means contemptible, the near opposite.

2:12

"Woe" is a formal cry of lament used by the prophets to announce coming disaster. It is closer to a funeral wail said in advance than to a curse. "Faint hands" is body language: hands that drop to the sides from exhaustion or fear, the posture of someone giving up. "Goeth two ways" describes a man walking two roads at once, keeping both options open rather than committing to either.

2:14

To "visit" in older English meant to come and inspect, to arrive and settle accounts. A visitation could bring rescue or reckoning, but either way it was the moment when the matter was decided.

2:16

The comma in "seek that which is well, pleasing unto him" is a printing quirk of the King James edition; the sense is "seek what is well-pleasing to him." "The law" is the Torah, the five books of Moses, understood as instruction and teaching as well as legislation. Sirach repeatedly treats wisdom and that instruction as the same thing.

2:17

"Humble their souls" is an idiom with a physical side. In Jewish practice it commonly meant fasting and going without, the self denial commanded for the Day of Atonement, not merely a modest frame of mind.

2:18

"Fall into the hands of" means to be put entirely at someone's mercy, with no power left to resist. The phrase echoes King David's choice in 2 Samuel 24, where, offered a penalty, he asked to be dealt with by God rather than handed over to human enemies.