Ecclesiasticus 27: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter gathers sayings about money and sin, and about how a person's speech and thinking show what he really is: the sieve, the furnace, and the fruit of a tree all test what is inside. It then turns to friendship, warning that giving away a friend's secrets ends the friendship for good, and describing the man who flatters you to your face and twists your words behind your back. It closes with sayings in which harm returns to the one who caused it, the stone thrown straight up, the pit dug, the trap set.

Claim by Claim

1. 27:1
   • Many people have sinned for the sake of a small or trifling gain.
   • The one who seeks to increase his wealth turns his eye away.
2. 27:2
   • A peg is fixed fast between the joinings of stones.
   • In the same way, sin wedges itself in between selling and buying.
3. 27:3
   • Unless a person holds on diligently in the fear of the Lord, his house will be overthrown quickly.
4. 27:4
   • When a sieve is shaken, the refuse remains in it.
   • In the same way, a man's filth remains in his reasoning.
   • The King James says the filth of man remains in his talk.
5. 27:5
   • The furnace tests the potter's vessels.
   • In the same way, the testing of a person is in his reasoning.
6. 27:6
   • The fruit of a tree discloses how the tree was cultivated.
   • In the same way, a person's speech discloses the thought of his heart.
7. 27:7
   • Do not praise a man before he has reasoned or spoken.
   • Such speech is the test of people.
8. 27:8
   • If you pursue what is right, you will obtain it.
   • You will put it on like a long robe of glory.
9. 27:9
   • Birds lodge with their own kind.
   • In the same way, truth returns to those who practice it.
10. 27:10
    • A lion lies in wait for its prey.
    • In the same way, sins lie in wait for those who do injustice.
11. 27:11
    • The discourse of a godly man is always wisdom.
    • The fool changes like the moon.
12. 27:12
    • Among people without understanding, limit your time.
    • Among a thoughtful person, spend time continually.
13. 27:13
    • The discourse of fools is an offense.
    • Their laughter is in the wantonness of sin.
14. 27:14
    • The talk of one who swears much makes the hair stand on end.
    • Their quarreling makes a person stop his ears.
15. 27:15
    • The strife of the proud leads to the shedding of blood.
    • Their reviling of one another is grievous to hear.
16. 27:16
    • Whoever reveals secrets destroys trust.
    • He will never find a friend close to his own soul.
17. 27:17
    • Love your friend.
    • Keep faith with him.
    • If you reveal his secrets, do not pursue after him.
18. 27:18
    • As a man destroys his enemy, so you have destroyed the friendship of your neighbor.
19. 27:19
    • As you released a bird out of your hand, so you have let your neighbor go.
    • You will not catch him again.
20. 27:20
    • Do not pursue him.
    • He has gone far away.
    • He has escaped like a gazelle out of a snare.
21. 27:21
    • A wound can be bound up.
    • After reviling there can be reconciliation.
    • The one who has revealed secrets is without hope.
22. 27:22
    • The one who winks with his eye contrives evil things.
    • No one will turn him away from it.
    • The King James says that he who knows him will depart from him.
23. 27:23
    • In your presence he will make his speech sweet.
    • In your presence he will express admiration at your words.
    • Afterward he will twist his mouth.
    • He will make your own words a cause of stumbling.
    • The King James says that at the last he will slander your sayings.
24. 27:24
    • The speaker says he has hated many things.
    • The speaker says he has likened nothing to such a man.
    • The Lord will hate such a man.
25. 27:25
    • Whoever throws a stone upward throws it on his own head.
    • A treacherous blow inflicts wounds.
26. 27:26
    • Whoever digs a pit will fall into it.
    • Whoever sets a snare will be caught in it.
27. 27:27
    • Whoever does evil things, those things will roll back upon him.
    • He will not know where they came upon him from.
28. 27:28
    • Mockery and reproach belong to the proud.
    • Vengeance will lie in wait for him like a lion.
29. 27:29
    • Those who rejoice at the fall of the godly will be caught in a snare.
    • Anguish will consume them before their death.
30. 27:30
    • Wrath and anger are abominations.
    • A sinful man will hold on to them.

Words Worth Explaining

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

27:1

"Turn his eyes away" is an idiom for deliberately not looking: the trader who wants a bigger profit avoids noticing how the profit is being made. Ben Sira, who wrote this book in Jerusalem around 180 BC, is addressing men who did business for a living, and the next two verses continue the subject.

27:2

Stone walls in the ancient world were commonly laid dry, block on block, without mortar. A nail or metal wedge hammered into the seam between two stones becomes almost impossible to pull out. That is the force of the image: sin does not sit loosely on top of buying and selling, it drives itself into the join between the two parties and stays there.

27:3

"The fear of the Lord" is the standard phrase of Hebrew wisdom writing for a reverent, obedient awe of God, closer to taking God seriously than to being frightened of him. "His house" means the whole household and its standing: the family, the property, the line that carries the name, not the building.

27:4

A sieve was shaken so that the fine flour or clean grain fell through and the husks, grit and small stones stayed in the mesh. The reader is meant to picture what is left lying in the sieve after the shaking stops.

27:5

Pottery was shaped from clay and then fired in a kiln. Badly prepared clay, or a pot with air trapped in the wall, cracks or bursts in the heat, so the firing was the moment that showed whether the potter's work was sound. The point of comparison is the test, not the punishment.

27:6

"If the tree have been dressed" means whether it has been tended: pruned, dug around, manured. "Conceit" in 1611 English meant simply a thought or an idea forming in the mind, with none of the modern sense of vanity.

27:8

"Her" is not a person. Righteousness is a feminine noun in the Greek of this book, so English of 1611 refers back to it as "her," as it also does with wisdom. The long robe was formal dress, the garment of someone with rank or office, so the image is of a quality worn publicly where everyone can see it.

27:11

The moon looks different every night. Sometimes it is round, sometimes just a sliver.

27:12

The Greek can be read two ways and the rendering keeps both open. "Observe the time" may mean watch the clock and keep the visit short, or watch for the right moment to get away. Either way the advice is to ration your time with such people, not to enjoy it.

27:13

"Wantonness" in 1611 meant unrestrained self-indulgence, behavior with no brake on it. It did not carry the modern sense of deliberate cruelty.

27:14

This is not coarse language in the modern sense. To swear was to call God or holy things as witness to back up what you were saying, and a man who did it constantly in ordinary conversation was treating God's name as small change. "Maketh the hair stand upright" is the same idiom as the modern one for horror.

27:15

"Revilings" means verbal abuse, insults thrown in a quarrel. "Bloodshedding" is meant literally: among proud men who cannot back down, the quarrel ends in someone being killed.

27:16

"Loseth his credit" means loses his credibility, the trust other people were willing to extend to him; it has nothing to do with money owed. "A friend to his mind" means a friend who suits him, one after his own heart.

27:18

"Neighbour" here, and in the next two verses, translates a Greek word for the person close at hand, the companion or friend, not simply whoever lives nearby. The comparison is blunt: a man deliberately destroys an enemy, and you have done the same amount of damage to a friendship, only by accident.

27:20

"Roe" is the King James word for a roe deer, standing in for the gazelle of the Greek text: a small, extremely fast animal that was hunted with snares. Once it has pulled free of the trap there is no catching it on foot.

27:21

Long ago people wrapped a cut in strips of cloth. That helped it heal.

27:22

Winking here is a conspirator's signal, a flick of the eye to an accomplice while a third person is being cheated or set up. It carried nothing of the friendly or flirtatious sense the gesture has now, and elsewhere in the wisdom books it is a standard mark of the sly man.

27:23

"Writhe his mouth" means twist the mouth into a sneer, the face pulled sideways in mockery once your back is turned. The second half of the verse is where the King James and the older Greek manuscripts part company: the Greek says he will set a trap out of the words you yourself spoke, while the King James translators read a text that said he will slander what you said.

27:25

"A deceitful stroke" is a blow struck by treachery, from behind or under cover of friendship. The Greek is ambiguous about who is cut open by it, and the line sits between two proverbs about a trap closing on the person who set it.

27:26

Long ago people dug deep holes to catch wild animals. They covered the hole with branches so the animal fell in.

27:28

Payback means the trouble a person gets back for the harm he did.

27:30

"Abomination" is the vocabulary of the Law of Moses, used there for what is utterly repugnant and unfit to be brought anywhere near God. Applying it to ordinary bad temper is the deliberate shock of the line. "Shall have them both" means will keep hold of them, will be the owner of them.