Ecclesiasticus 33: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter opens with sayings about the one who fears the Lord and about the wise man who trusts the law, and then asks why one day is better than another, since all days share the same sunlight. The answer given is that the Lord made some days holy and others ordinary, and that in the same way he made people different from one another, blessing some and cursing others, as clay is in a potter's hand. The teacher then describes himself as coming last, like someone gathering after the grape pickers, and says he worked for everyone who seeks learning. He closes with advice to keep hold of your property and yourself while you live, and with instructions about work, punishment, and limits in dealing with a servant.

Claim by Claim

1. 33:1
   • No evil will happen to the one who fears the Lord.
   • In temptation the Lord will deliver him again.
2. 33:2
   • A wise man does not hate the law.
   • The one who is a hypocrite in the law is like a ship in a storm.
3. 33:3
   • A man of understanding trusts in the law.
   • The law is faithful to such a man, like an oracle giving an answer.
4. 33:4
   • Prepare what you will say, and you will be heard.
   • Bind up instruction, and then make your answer.
5. 33:5
   • The inward heart of a fool is like a cartwheel.
   • A fool's reasoning is like a turning axletree.
6. 33:6
   • A stallion horse is like a mocking friend.
   • The stallion neighs under everyone who sits upon him.
7. 33:7
   • The question is asked why one day is better than another day.
   • All the light of every day of the year comes from the sun.
8. 33:8
   • The days were distinguished from one another by the knowledge of the Lord.
   • The Lord altered seasons and feasts.
9. 33:9
   • The Lord exalted and hallowed some of the days.
   • The Lord made some of the days ordinary days counted in number.
10. 33:10
    • All men are from the ground.
    • Adam was created out of earth.
11. 33:11
    • The Lord divided men by his great knowledge.
    • The Lord made their ways different from one another.
12. 33:12
    • The Lord blessed and exalted some of them.
    • The Lord sanctified some of them and brought them near to himself.
    • The Lord cursed and brought low some of them.
    • The Lord overturned them from where they stood.
13. 33:13
    • Clay is in the potter's hand to be shaped as the potter pleases.
    • All the potter's ways with the clay are according to his own pleasure.
    • Man is in the hand of the one who made him.
    • The maker renders to men according to his own judgment.
14. 33:14
    • Good is set opposite evil.
    • Life is set opposite death.
    • The godly man is set opposite the sinner.
    • The sinner is set opposite the godly man.
15. 33:15
    • Look at all the works of the Most High.
    • The works of the Most High come two by two, one set against the other.
16. 33:16
    • The speaker says he awoke last of all.
    • The speaker was like one who gleans after the grapegatherers.
    • The speaker profited by the blessing of the Lord.
    • The speaker filled his winepress like a gatherer of grapes.
17. 33:17
    • The speaker calls on his hearers to consider that he did not labour for himself alone.
    • The speaker laboured for all who seek learning.
18. 33:18
    • The speaker calls the great men of the people to hear him.
    • The speaker calls the rulers of the congregation to listen with their ears.
19. 33:19
    • Do not give your son and wife power over you while you live.
    • Do not give your brother and friend power over you while you live.
    • Do not give your goods to another.
    • Giving them away may make you regret it and beg for them back.
20. 33:20
    • As long as you live and have breath in you, do not give yourself over to anyone.
21. 33:21
    • It is better that your children should ask from you than that you should have to look to their hands.
22. 33:22
    • In all your works keep the preeminence to yourself.
    • Do not leave a stain on your honour.
23. 33:23
    • When you come to end your days and finish your life, distribute your inheritance.
24. 33:24
    • Fodder, a stick, and burdens are for the ass.
    • Bread, correction, and work are for a servant.
25. 33:25
    • If you set your servant to labour, you will find rest.
    • If you let your servant go idle, he will seek liberty.
26. 33:26
    • A yoke and a collar bow the neck.
    • Tortures and torments are for an evil servant.
27. 33:27
    • Send the servant to labour so that he is not idle.
    • Idleness teaches much evil.
28. 33:28
    • Set the servant to work that is fit for him.
    • If the servant is not obedient, put heavier fetters on him.
29. 33:29
    • Do not be excessive toward anyone.
    • Do nothing without discretion.
30. 33:30
    • If you have a servant, let him be to you as yourself.
    • You bought your servant with a price.
31. 33:31
    • If you have a servant, treat him as a brother.
    • You have need of your servant as of your own soul.
    • If you treat your servant badly and he runs away from you, you will not know which way to go to seek him.

Words Worth Explaining

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

33:1

KJV "temptation" keeps its older and wider sense of a trial or test of any kind, including hardship and misfortune. It does not mean an enticement to do wrong.

33:2

"The law" throughout this chapter means the law of Moses, the body of instruction in the first five books of the Bible, which this writer treats as the same thing as wisdom. KJV "an hypocrite therein" translates a Greek word whose root sense is a stage actor: someone who plays a part with the law rather than living by it.

33:3

KJV "as an oracle" translates a Greek word used in the Greek Old Testament for the Urim, the object by which the high priest obtained a clear answer from God. The comparison is to a source that gives a dependable answer, not to the riddling oracles of Greek shrines.

33:4

The image behind "bind up instruction" is tying up a bundle: gather what you have learned into one package first, and then speak.

33:5

An "axletree" is the wooden bar that a cart wheel turns on. Both halves of the picture spin constantly in the same place without arriving anywhere.

33:6

A "stallion horse" is an uncastrated male, kept for breeding and known for being noisy and hard to control. It neighs under whoever happens to be riding it, making no distinction between one rider and another.

33:7

The question is about the calendar. If every day in the year gets its light from the same sun, why are some days counted as festivals and others not?

33:8

"Seasons and feasts" are the fixed times of the Jewish year: the weekly sabbath and the annual festivals such as Passover, Weeks and Booths, each falling on a set date.

33:9

"High days" are festival days, days marked off from the ordinary run of the calendar.

33:10

In Hebrew, "Adam" is also the ordinary word for a human being, and it sounds like adamah, the word for ground or soil. The two halves of this verse are that play on words: humanity comes from the ground, and the man made of earth is called Earthling.

33:11

The argument carries over from days to people: as the Lord singled out some days from others that are physically identical, so with human beings.

33:12

"Set near himself" uses the vocabulary of approaching the sanctuary, which was the privilege of priests. "Turned out of their places" is the vocabulary of peoples driven off their land, as the nations of Canaan were said to have been.

33:13

A potter is someone who makes bowls and jars from clay. He presses the soft clay into any shape he wants.

33:14

In KJV "against" here means "opposite" or "matched with", as one half of a pair, not "attacking". The claim is that created things come in facing pairs.

33:15

"The Most High" is a name for God. It means he is higher than everything else.

33:16

KJV "I awaked up last of all" means the writer came last in time, after generations of earlier teachers. Under the harvest laws the poor were allowed to follow the pickers through a vineyard and take whatever they had left behind (Leviticus 19:10, Deuteronomy 24:21), and he casts himself as one of those latecomers who nonetheless filled his press. A winepress was a shallow trough cut in rock where grapes were crushed underfoot, the juice running off into a lower basin.

33:18

"The congregation" translates the Greek word for the assembled community of Israel, the people gathered as a body to hear and decide. It does not mean a church congregation.

33:19

Handing property to heirs before death was a real and risky option in this world: the transfer was final, and the giver spent the rest of his life dependent on the people he had given it to. KJV "intreat for the same again" means to have to beg for it back.

33:21

"Stand to their courtesy" is an old English idiom meaning to be left at the mercy of someone else's goodwill, with no claim you can enforce.

33:22

"Honour" here means public standing in the eyes of the community, the reputation that determined how a man was treated. A visible loss of position was a stain on it.

33:23

The things you leave behind are called an inheritance. They are given to your family after you die.

33:24

From here to the end of the chapter, KJV "servant" means a slave: a person owned as property and bought for a price, as verse 30 states outright. The advice assumes that ownership, and ancient readers heard it that way. KJV "a wand" means a stick for driving an animal, a goad, with nothing magical about it.

33:25

"He shall seek liberty" means he will start looking for a way out, whether by pressing for his release or by running, which is the danger verse 31 returns to.

33:26

A yoke is the wooden beam laid across the neck of a draft animal, and the collar is the band that holds it in place. The verse takes the working gear of an ox and applies it to a human being.

33:28

"Fetters" are iron shackles locked around the ankles to stop a person from walking away.

33:30

"Let him be unto thee as thyself" echoes the wording of Leviticus 19:18, "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself", here applied to a slave. The second half of the verse gives the owner's reason in the same breath: he is your property.

33:31

KJV "entreat him as a brother" and "if thou entreat him evil" use "entreat" in its older sense of "treat" or "deal with". It has nothing to do with begging. "As of thine own soul" means as you need your own life or your own self; "soul" in this idiom is the whole living person, not a part of one. The closing question is practical: a slave who escaped into a large country was in most cases simply gone.