Ecclesiasticus 28: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter opens with the warning that the one who takes revenge will find vengeance from the Lord, and it ties forgiving a neighbor to having one's own sins forgiven when one prays. It then urges the reader to remember death and the commandments, to stay out of quarrels, and it compares anger to a fire that burns according to its fuel. The second half is about the tongue: the whisperer and the slanderer have wrecked cities and the households of great men, and the chapter closes with instructions to weigh your words and put a door and a bar on your mouth.

Claim by Claim

1. 28:1
   • He who takes vengeance will find vengeance from the Lord.
   • The Lord will surely keep that man's sins firmly in remembrance.
2. 28:2
   • Forgive your neighbour the wrong he has done to you.
   • If you do, your own sins will be forgiven when you pray.
3. 28:3
   • One man keeps up anger against another man.
   • That same man seeks healing from the Lord.
   • The verse asks whether such a man can expect to receive it.
4. 28:4
   • He shows no mercy to a man who is like himself.
   • The verse asks whether he then makes supplication about his own sins.
5. 28:5
   • He himself is only flesh.
   • He nourishes wrath.
   • The verse asks who will make atonement for his sins.
6. 28:6
   • Remember your end.
   • Cease from enmity.
   • Remember corruption and death.
   • Abide in the commandments.
7. 28:7
   • Remember the commandments.
   • Bear no anger against your neighbour.
   • Remember the covenant of the Most High.
   • Overlook ignorance.
8. 28:8
   • Abstain from strife.
   • If you abstain from strife, you will diminish your sins.
   • A hot-tempered man will kindle strife.
9. 28:9
   • A sinful man troubles friends.
   • A sinful man throws slander in among those who are at peace.
10. 28:10
    • A fire burns according to the fuel it has.
    • A man's wrath is according to his strength.
    • A man raises his anger according to his wealth.
    • The more firmly the strife is set, the more it is inflamed.
11. 28:11
    • A contention pressed in haste kindles a fire.
    • A fight pressed in haste sheds blood.
12. 28:12
    • If you blow on a spark, it will burn.
    • If you spit on a spark, it will be quenched.
    • Both blowing and spitting come out of your mouth.
13. 28:13
    • Curse the whisperer and the double-tongued.
    • Such people have destroyed many who were at peace.
14. 28:14
    • A slandering tongue has shaken many.
    • A slandering tongue has driven them from nation to nation.
    • A slandering tongue has pulled down strong cities.
    • A slandering tongue has overthrown the houses of great men.
15. 28:15
    • A slandering tongue has cast out capable women.
    • A slandering tongue has deprived them of the fruit of their labours.
16. 28:16
    • Whoever gives heed to it will never find rest.
    • Whoever gives heed to it will never dwell in quiet.
17. 28:17
    • The stroke of a whip makes welts.
    • The stroke of the tongue breaks bones.
18. 28:18
    • Many have fallen by the edge of the sword.
    • Those who have fallen by the tongue are more than those who fell by the sword.
19. 28:19
    • Blessed is the man who is sheltered from it.
    • Blessed is the man who has not passed through its wrath.
    • Blessed is the man who has not drawn its yoke.
    • Blessed is the man who has not been bound in its bands.
    • The King James says the man is defended through its venom.
20. 28:20
    • Its yoke is a yoke of iron.
    • Its bands are bands of brass.
21. 28:21
    • The death it brings is an evil death.
    • The grave is better than it.
22. 28:22
    • It will not have power over the godly.
    • The godly will not be burned in its flame.
23. 28:23
    • Those who forsake the Lord will fall into it.
    • It will burn among them.
    • It will not be quenched.
    • It will be sent against them like a lion.
    • It will destroy them like a leopard.
24. 28:24
    • Hedge your possession about with thorns.
    • Bind up your silver and your gold.
25. 28:25
    • Make a balance and a weight for your words.
    • Make a door and a bar for your mouth.
26. 28:26
    • Take heed that you do not slip by it.
    • Otherwise you will fall before one who lies in wait.

Words Worth Explaining

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

28:1

"Keep his sins in remembrance" translates a Greek phrase meaning to fix or make firm: the picture is of a ledger entry that is not erased. The verse turns on a single Greek root used twice, so the payback matches the offense word for word.

28:2

The wording of this verse, forgiveness given matched by forgiveness received when you pray, is very close to the petition in the Lord's Prayer about forgiving debts. Ben Sira wrote roughly two centuries earlier, and the pairing was a familiar one in Jewish teaching.

28:3

Where the King James has "pardon," the Greek word is healing. Sickness and sin were often spoken of with the same vocabulary, so asking God for healing could mean asking to be put right after wrongdoing.

28:5

"Flesh" here is not a contrast between body and soul. It is the standard biblical way of saying a mortal, breakable creature, as opposed to God.

28:6

"Thy end" means the end of your life. "Corruption" is the physical decay of a body in the grave; the King James uses the word in its older, literal sense, not to mean moral corruption.

28:7

A covenant is a formal binding agreement, sworn and permanent, of the kind made between a king and his people; "the covenant of the Highest" is the agreement between God and Israel, with the commandments as its terms. To "wink at" something in 1611 English meant to shut your eyes to it deliberately, to let it pass without comment. It carried none of the flirtatious sense the phrase has now.

28:9

"Debate" in 1611 English meant a quarrel or a fight, not a discussion. The word has softened considerably since.

28:10

"The matter of the fire" means its fuel. The saying works by proportion: a fire burns as big as its woodpile, and a man's rage runs as far as his strength and money let it. A wealthy man could press a feud through lawsuits, hired men and bought influence, where a poor man simply had to let it go.

28:13

"Whisperer" is the standard term for someone who carries private talk from person to person. "Doubletongued" means saying one thing to a man's face and another behind his back, not stammering or speaking two languages. "Curse" here is a formal act, calling down harm on someone by name, not merely swearing at them.

28:14

"Driven them from nation to nation" describes exile: a slander at court could cost a family its standing and force it to resettle abroad. "The houses of great men" means their households and family lines, not their buildings.

28:15

"Virtuous" here translates a Greek word meaning brave or capable, the same sense as the "virtuous woman" of Proverbs 31 who runs an estate and trades in land. It is not primarily about chastity. "Cast out" points to divorce: a woman divorced on the strength of a rumor lost the household she had built and the property that went with it, which is what "deprived them of their labours" means.

28:18

"Fallen by the edge of the sword" means killed in a fight with swords.

28:19

A yoke is the heavy wooden beam fastened across the necks of oxen to harness them to a plow. In everyday speech it stood for forced servitude, being owned and driven by another. The King James "defended through the venom thereof" is awkward; the Greek says sheltered from it, kept out of its reach altogether.

28:20

"Brass" in the King James almost always means bronze, the copper and tin alloy used for weapons, chains and fittings. Brass as we know it, copper mixed with zinc, was barely in use in the ancient world. Iron and bronze are named as the two hardest metals available, so the image is of bonds that cannot be broken.

28:21

The Greek word behind "the grave" is Hades, the underworld where all the dead were thought to go, good and bad alike. It is not a place of punishment here, simply the common destination of the dead, which is what makes the comparison sharp: ordinary death would be preferable.

28:22

To "fear God" in biblical usage means to hold God in awe and to order your life accordingly. It describes reverence and loyalty rather than fright.

28:23

A leopard is a big spotted wild cat. It hunts and tears what it catches.

28:24

Farmers fenced fields and vineyards by planting or piling thornbush around them, a cheap barrier against animals and thieves. Coined money was still uncommon in this period, so silver and gold were kept as weighed lumps and pieces, knotted into a cloth or tied in a purse for safekeeping.

28:25

A balance is a pair of pans hung from a beam, the instrument used to weigh out silver in a transaction. The advice puts your words in the same category as money: measured before they leave your hands. The "door and bar" is a house door with a heavy wooden beam dropped into brackets across it, the ordinary way of securing a home at night.

28:26

"Slide" means slip, as a foot slips. "Him that lieth in wait" is an ambusher, someone lying hidden to catch you; here it means a person waiting for you to say something careless that he can use against you.