Ecclesiasticus 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

A father calls his children to listen and sets out what comes to those who honor their father and mother: sins made up for, long life, answered prayer, joy from their own children, and a blessing that steadies a household. He tells his son to support his father in old age and to bear with him when his understanding fails. The chapter then turns to humility, warns against searching out things too hard for a person and against claiming knowledge one does not have, and closes with sayings about the stubborn heart, the listening ear, and giving to the poor.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • The speaker addresses his children as their father and calls them to hear him.
   • He commands them to act according to what he says.
   • He says the purpose is that they may be kept safe.
2. 3:2
   • The Lord has given the father honor over the children.
   • The Lord has confirmed the mother's authority over the sons.
3. 3:3
   • Whoever honors his father makes atonement for his sins.
4. 3:4
   • Whoever honors his mother is like one laying up treasure.
5. 3:5
   • Whoever honors his father will have joy from his own children.
   • When such a man prays, he will be heard.
6. 3:6
   • He who honors his father will have a long life.
   • He who obeys the Lord will be a comfort to his mother.
7. 3:7
   • He who fears the Lord will honor his father.
   • He who fears the Lord will serve his parents as if they were his masters.
8. 3:8
   • Honor your father and mother in word as well as in deed.
   • The purpose is that a blessing from them may come upon you.
9. 3:9
   • A father's blessing establishes the houses of his children.
   • A mother's curse tears out foundations.
10. 3:10
    • Do not take glory in your father's dishonor.
    • Your father's dishonor is no glory to you.
11. 3:11
    • A man's glory comes from his father's honor.
    • A mother in dishonor is a reproach to her children.
12. 3:12
    • The speaker addresses his son.
    • He tells him to help his father in his old age.
    • He tells him not to grieve his father as long as his father lives.
13. 3:13
    • If the father's understanding fails, the son is to be patient with him.
    • The son is not to despise his father while the son himself is at full strength.
14. 3:14
    • Kindness shown in relieving one's father will not be forgotten.
    • It will be credited in place of sins and added to build the son up.
15. 3:15
    • It will be remembered in the day of your affliction.
    • Your sins will melt away like ice in warm fair weather.
16. 3:16
    • He who forsakes his father is like a blasphemer.
    • He who angers his mother is cursed by God.
17. 3:17
    • The speaker addresses his son.
    • He tells him to carry on his affairs in meekness.
    • Doing so will make him loved by the one who is approved.
18. 3:18
    • The greater a person is, the more he should humble himself.
    • By doing so he will find favor before the Lord.
19. 3:19
    • Many are in high position and of renown.
    • Mysteries are revealed to the meek.
20. 3:20
    • The power of the Lord is great.
    • The Lord is honored by the lowly.
21. 3:21
    • Do not search out things too hard for you.
    • Do not investigate things beyond your strength.
22. 3:22
    • Think with reverence on what has been commanded you.
    • It is not necessary for you to see with your eyes the things that are hidden.
23. 3:23
    • Do not be curious about unnecessary matters.
    • More things have been shown to you than people can understand.
24. 3:24
    • Many have been deceived by their own worthless opinion.
    • Evil suspicion has overthrown their judgment.
25. 3:25
    • Without eyes you will lack light.
    • Do not profess knowledge that you do not have.
26. 3:26
    • A stubborn heart will fare badly in the end.
    • He who loves danger will perish in it.
27. 3:27
    • An obstinate heart will be weighed down with sorrows.
    • The wicked man will heap sin upon sin.
28. 3:28
    • There is no remedy in the punishment of the proud.
    • The plant of wickedness has taken root in him.
29. 3:29
    • The heart of the prudent will understand a parable.
    • An attentive ear is what a wise man desires.
30. 3:30
    • Water will quench a blazing fire.
    • Almsgiving makes atonement for sins.
31. 3:31
    • He who repays kindnesses is mindful of what may come afterward.
    • When he falls, he will find support.

Words Worth Explaining

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

3:1

The teacher speaks in the voice of a father addressing his sons, the standard form of address in ancient wisdom instruction, where a sage's pupils were called his children. Ben Sira, who kept a school in Jerusalem around 180 BC, uses it throughout, as in the "My son" of verses 12 and 17. The advice fits both a literal household and a classroom.

3:2

KJV "honour over the children" translates a phrase for a legal claim or right, and "authority" in the second line renders a word for a judge's ruling. The couplet says that both parents' standing over their children has God's backing, not merely custom's.

3:3

"Atonement" means the covering over or wiping out of an offense, something normally accomplished by a sacrifice at the temple. Ben Sira transfers that sacrificial language to ordinary acts of family duty here, and to almsgiving in verse 30.

3:4

There were no banks. "Laying up treasure" meant storing away coins, silver, or fine cloth to keep for the future.

3:5

When a prayer is heard, it means God listens to it. It does not just mean the sound reached him.

3:7

"Masters" translates a word for owners or lords, the head of a household to whom slaves and hired servants answered. The comparison is to that relationship of service, not to schoolteachers.

3:8

This whole section works out the commandment "Honour thy father and thy mother," which in Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16 carries a promise of long life in the land; that promise is behind verse 6. Honoring parents in that setting meant practical support of them in old age, which is what verses 12 to 15 spell out.

3:9

A "house" is a household and the family line that continues it, together with its property and standing, so "houses" and "foundations" are two halves of one image: a family built like a building. A parent's blessing or curse was treated as a spoken act with real force once uttered, not merely a wish, which is why the deathbed blessings in Genesis could not be taken back.

3:10

This warns against making a joke of a father's disgrace or spreading the story of it.

3:12

There were no pensions and no nursing homes. Grown children were the only care an old parent had.

3:13

"If his understanding fail" means his mind grows weak with age, so he forgets things and gets confused.

3:14

The wording is drawn from accounting: the care you give is credited to you and set against the debt of your sins. The Greek text and the surviving Hebrew of this verse differ, and the second half is obscure in both. "Build thee up" carries the same house-building image as verse 9.

3:15

The day of your trouble means a hard time in your life. It might be sickness, danger, or losing something you love.

3:16

A "blasphemer" is someone who speaks of God with contempt, an offense Israelite law treated as among the gravest (Leviticus 24:16); the comparison is measuring how serious it is to abandon a parent. The colon in "cursed: of God" is a quirk of the 1611 printing, and the sense is simply "cursed by the Lord."

3:17

"Meekness" in 1611 did not mean timidity. It means the absence of self-assertion: restraint, gentleness, not pressing your own claims. The second half of the verse is uncertain, and the Greek manuscripts divide between "you will be loved by one who is acceptable to God" and "you will be loved more than a person who gives gifts," that is, modesty wins more goodwill than generosity can buy.

3:18

Humble means you do not think you are better than other people.

3:19

This verse is missing from many Greek manuscripts and from the surviving Hebrew, so it may be a later addition to the book. "Mysteries" translates a word meaning secrets or hidden things, matters that have to be disclosed before anyone can know them. It does not mean puzzles.

3:21

"Too hard for thee" and "above thy strength" form a standard Hebrew pairing for matters out of a person's reach. The lines warn against prying into what has not been disclosed, and later Jewish teachers quoted this passage as a limit on speculation about what lies beyond the created world.

3:22

Deep respect here means treating God as great and important. The old word for this is reverence.

3:23

"Curious" in 1611 meant prying or meddlesome, poking into what is not your business. It did not mean simply interested or inquisitive.

3:24

"Suspicion" here translates a word for an assumption, a notion a person takes for granted. It is not distrust of other people. The line is about false ideas wrecking someone's judgment.

3:25

"Want" in 1611 means lack, not desire. This verse is also absent from some ancient manuscripts.

3:26

In the Bible, the heart means the part of you that thinks and chooses. A stubborn heart is one that will not change its mind.

3:27

A wicked man is someone who keeps choosing to do bad things on purpose.

3:28

"Punishment" translates a word meaning calamity or affliction, the disaster that falls on a proud person, and "no remedy" means incurable; the picture is of a wound or disease past healing. The second line switches to a plant that has rooted itself in him, another figure for something that cannot be pulled out.

3:29

A "parable" here is not a story of the kind told in the Gospels. The Greek word stands for the Hebrew mashal, which covers proverbs, riddles, comparisons and any compressed saying that has to be worked out before it yields its sense.

3:30

"Alms" means money, food or goods given to the poor. The word reaches English through a Greek term for mercy, and in Israelite practice giving to the poor was a defined obligation rather than an optional kindness.

3:31

"Requiteth good turns" means repays the favors done to him. Households in this world survived on such exchanges of help, with no institution to fall back on, so a person who paid his debts of kindness built up goodwill he could draw on when his own turn came. "A stay" is a prop or support to lean on.