Ecclesiasticus 29: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter gives instruction about money between neighbors. It urges lending to those in need and repaying on time, describes borrowers who stall and insult the people who helped them, and tells the reader to keep giving to the poor anyway and to store up such giving as treasure. It then warns about guaranteeing another person's debt, and closes with a picture of the shame of living as a guest in someone else's house.

Claim by Claim

1. 29:1
   • The one who shows mercy will lend to his neighbor.
   • The one who strengthens his neighbor with his hand keeps the commandments.
2. 29:2
   • Lend to your neighbor in the time of his need.
   • Repay your neighbor again at the appointed time.
3. 29:3
   • Keep your word.
   • Deal faithfully with your neighbor.
   • If you do so, you will at all times find what you need.
4. 29:4
   • Many treated a loan as though it were something found.
   • Those who treated a loan as found caused trouble to the people who helped them.
5. 29:5
   • Until he has received the loan, the borrower will kiss the lender's hands.
   • For his neighbor's money the borrower will speak humbly.
   • When repayment is due, the borrower will drag out the time.
   • The borrower will give back words of complaint.
   • The borrower will blame the circumstances of the time.
6. 29:6
   • If the lender prevails, he will scarcely receive half.
   • The borrower will count the half he keeps as something found.
   • If the lender does not prevail, the borrower has robbed him of his money.
   • The borrower has gained an enemy for himself without cause.
   • The borrower repays the lender with curses and abuse.
   • Instead of honor the borrower repays the lender with dishonor.
7. 29:7
   • Many have refused to lend because of such bad dealing.
   • Those who refuse to lend fear being defrauded.
8. 29:8
   • Nevertheless, be patient with a man of low estate.
   • Do not delay to show him mercy.
9. 29:9
   • Help the poor man for the sake of the commandment.
   • Do not turn the poor man away because of his poverty.
10. 29:10
    • Lose your money for the sake of a brother and a friend.
    • Do not let your money rust away under a stone and be lost.
11. 29:11
    • Lay up your treasure according to the commandments of the Most High.
    • Treasure laid up this way will profit you more than gold.
12. 29:12
    • Store up almsgiving in your storehouses.
    • Stored-up almsgiving will deliver you from all affliction.
13. 29:13
    • Almsgiving will fight for you against your enemies.
    • Almsgiving will fight better than a strong shield and a heavy spear.
14. 29:14
    • A good man becomes surety for his neighbor.
    • The man who has lost shame will abandon his neighbor.
15. 29:15
    • Do not forget the kindness of the one who went surety for you.
    • The one who went surety for you gave his life for you.
16. 29:16
    • A sinner will ruin the property of the one who went surety for him.
17. 29:17
    • The ungrateful man will abandon the one who rescued him.
18. 29:18
    • Going surety has ruined many who were prospering.
    • Going surety has shaken them like a wave of the sea.
    • Going surety has driven powerful men from their homes.
    • Those driven out wandered among foreign nations.
19. 29:19
    • A wicked man who transgresses the commandments of the Lord will fall into suretiship.
    • The man who chases after contracts for gain will fall into lawsuits.
20. 29:20
    • Help your neighbor according to your ability.
    • Take care that you do not fall into the same trouble yourself.
21. 29:21
    • The chief necessities of life are water, bread, clothing, and a house to cover one's shame.
22. 29:22
    • The life of a poor man under his own poor shelter is better than rich fare in another man's house.
23. 29:23
    • Whether you have little or much, be content with it.
    • Being content keeps you from hearing reproach against your household.
24. 29:24
    • It is a miserable life to go from house to house.
    • Where you are a stranger, you will not dare to open your mouth.
25. 29:25
    • As a stranger you will host and serve drink and receive no thanks.
    • In addition you will hear bitter words.
26. 29:26
    • The host says: Come here, stranger, and prepare the table.
    • The host says: Feed me with whatever you have at hand.
27. 29:27
    • The host says: Make way, stranger, for one of honor.
    • The host says: My brother has come to lodge with me.
    • The host says: I have need of my house.
28. 29:28
    • These things are hard for a man of understanding to bear.
    • The reproach about lodging is hard to bear.
    • The insults of the moneylender are hard to bear.

Words Worth Explaining

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

29:1

Under the Law of Moses a loan to a fellow Israelite in need was to be made without interest and released in the seventh year (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35-37, Deuteronomy 15:7-11). The "commandments" in view are those rules, so the lending described here is a form of charity, not an investment.

29:3

Keep your word means you do what you promised to do.

29:4

"Reckoned it to be found" is an idiom for treating borrowed money as a windfall. Property found without an identifiable owner was commonly kept by the finder, so the borrower behaves as though the money were simply his.

29:5

Kissing a man's hand was the gesture of a dependent toward a patron or benefactor, a show of submission used here as flattery. "Complain of the time" means blaming the season or the state of trade, a bad harvest or hard times, rather than admitting he can pay.

29:6

"If he prevail" is ambiguous in the Greek as well as the English. It may mean if the lender manages to press his claim successfully, or if the borrower gets the upper hand; the sentence that follows works either way, since even a successful lender recovers only half.

29:9

"For the commandment's sake" again points to the Law's specific requirements about the poor, which command an open hand to a needy neighbor and forbid turning him away (Deuteronomy 15:7-11).

29:10

Before banks, savings were often hidden as buried coin, literally put under a stone. Ancient coinage was silver, bronze or copper, all of which corrode, so buried money could be lost outright. The image is of wealth that helps nobody and then perishes anyway.

29:11

The Most High is a name for God. It means he is higher than everything. Treasure means money and other valuable things people save up.

29:12

"Alms" means money or goods given to the poor as a religious duty. The image is deliberately paradoxical: the storehouse where you lock up your wealth is the hand of the poor, and what you give away is what is actually kept safe.

29:13

A shield was a big cover a soldier held up. It stopped arrows and swords. A spear was a long pole with a sharp point.

29:14

To be "surety" is to stand as guarantor for someone else's debt, accepting personal liability if the borrower defaults. It was not a signature on a form but an exposure of your own property and person, which is why the rest of the chapter treats it as dangerous.

29:15

"He hath given his life for thee" is not an exaggeration in legal terms. A defaulting debtor or the guarantor who stood for him could be seized, imprisoned, stripped of property, or sold with his family into debt slavery until the debt was worked off.

29:16

If the borrower never pays, the surety must pay instead. That can take away everything the surety owns.

29:18

Debtors and ruined guarantors commonly fled the district or the country to escape creditors who could seize them. "Wandered among strange nations" describes that flight; "strange" in 1611 English means foreign, not odd.

29:19

"Followeth other men's business for gain" refers to taking on contracts, running another person's trade or undertaking work on commission. "Suits" are lawsuits: contracts and guarantees both drag a man into court.

29:21

"An house to cover shame" means a shelter that keeps the body private, since "shame" here is the older sense of nakedness rather than disgrace. The four items form a standard ancient list of bare necessities.

29:22

"Mean" in 1611 English means lowly or poor in quality, not unkind. The Greek suggests a rough shelter of boards or logs. The contrast is between a hut that is yours and rich food eaten at someone else's table on someone else's terms.

29:23

The Greek is compressed and can be read two ways: that you will not have to hear your own household despised, or that you will not have to hear the taunts that come with lodging in another man's house. The verses that follow favor the second.

29:24

This describes the position of a dependent guest, a man with no house of his own who lives in turn at other people's tables. Such a person had no standing in the household and no right to speak in it, which is what "thou darest not open thy mouth" means.

29:25

"Entertain, and feast" reads in modern English as though the guest were enjoying himself. The Greek means the opposite: he does the entertaining, waiting on the household and pouring their drinks, and gets no thanks for it.

29:26

"Stranger" here translates a word for a resident outsider, a lodger living among people not his own, not someone unknown. The blunt orders show that the household treats him as unpaid help rather than as a guest.

29:27

The owner tells his guest to leave. He wants the room for someone he likes better.

29:28

"Upbraiding of houseroom" means being scolded over the lodging he has been given. "Reproaching of the lender" means the insults that come from the moneylender; the Greek word is the one for a creditor, so the abuse is his, not aimed at him.