Ecclesiasticus 37: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter sorts friends and advisers into kinds: the friend who is only a friend in name, the companion who turns into an enemy, and the counselor who gives advice in his own interest. It lists the people who should not be asked for advice, and points instead to a godly man, to the counsel of one's own heart, and to prayer to the Most High. It then sets the wise man who is of no use to himself beside the wise man whose understanding does not fail his people. It closes with advice about testing what is bad for you and about the sickness that comes from overeating.

Claim by Claim

1. 37:1
   • Every friend says that he too is a friend.
   • There is a friend who is a friend in name only.
2. 37:2
   • A companion and friend turning into an enemy is a grief that reaches to death.
3. 37:3
   • The wicked imagination is addressed and asked where it came from.
   • The wicked imagination came to cover the earth with deceit.
4. 37:4
   • There is a companion who rejoices in a friend's prosperity.
   • That same companion will be against his friend in the time of trouble.
5. 37:5
   • There is a companion who helps his friend for the sake of his belly.
   • That companion takes up the shield against the enemy.
6. 37:6
   • Do not forget your friend in your mind.
   • Do not be unmindful of your friend when you have riches.
7. 37:7
   • Every counsellor extols counsel.
   • There is a counsellor who gives counsel for his own advantage.
8. 37:8
   • Beware of a counsellor.
   • Know beforehand what interest the counsellor has.
   • The counsellor will counsel for himself.
   • The counsellor may cast the lot against you.
9. 37:9
   • The counsellor may tell you that your way is good.
   • The counsellor will afterward stand on the other side to see what happens to you.
10. 37:10
    • Do not consult with one who looks on you with suspicion.
    • Hide your counsel from those who envy you.
11. 37:11
    • Do not consult a woman about the woman she is jealous of.
    • Do not consult a coward about matters of war.
    • Do not consult a merchant about exchange.
    • Do not consult a buyer about selling.
    • Do not consult an envious man about thankfulness.
    • Do not consult an unmerciful man about kindness.
    • Do not consult a slothful man about any work.
    • Do not consult a hireling about finishing work.
    • Do not consult an idle servant about much business.
    • Do not listen to these people in any matter of counsel.
12. 37:12
    • Be continually with a godly man.
    • The godly man is one you know to keep the commandments of the Lord.
    • The godly man's mind is according to your own mind.
    • The godly man will sorrow with you if you fail.
13. 37:13
    • Let the counsel of your own heart stand.
    • No one is more faithful to you than your own heart.
14. 37:14
    • A man's mind is sometimes accustomed to tell him more than seven watchmen sitting high on a watchtower.
15. 37:15
    • Above all this, pray to the Most High.
    • Pray that the Most High will direct your way in truth.
16. 37:16
    • Reason is the beginning of every enterprise.
    • Counsel comes before every action.
17. 37:17
    • The countenance is a sign of a change in the heart.
18. 37:18
    • Four kinds of things arise: good, evil, life, and death.
    • The tongue rules over these continually.
19. 37:19
    • There is a man who is wise and teaches many.
    • That same man is unprofitable to himself.
20. 37:20
    • There is a man who shows wisdom in words and is hated.
    • That man will be destitute of all food.
21. 37:21
    • Grace was not given to him from the Lord.
    • He was deprived of all wisdom.
22. 37:22
    • There is a man who is wise to himself.
    • The fruits of his understanding are trustworthy in his mouth.
23. 37:23
    • A wise man instructs his people.
    • The fruits of a wise man's understanding do not fail.
24. 37:24
    • A wise man will be filled with blessing.
    • All who see the wise man will call him happy.
25. 37:25
    • The days of a man's life can be numbered.
    • The days of Israel are innumerable.
26. 37:26
    • A wise man will inherit glory among his people.
    • A wise man's name will last forever.
27. 37:27
    • The speaker addresses his son.
    • Test your soul during your life.
    • See what is evil for your soul.
    • Do not give what is evil to your soul.
28. 37:28
    • Not all things are profitable for all men.
    • Not every soul takes pleasure in everything.
29. 37:29
    • Do not be insatiable in any delicacy.
    • Do not be too greedy for food.
30. 37:30
    • Excess of food brings sickness.
    • Surfeiting turns into choler.
31. 37:31
    • Many have died because of surfeiting.
    • He who takes heed prolongs his life.

Words Worth Explaining

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

37:1

A friend in name only is called your friend. But he does not act like one.

37:3

The rendering's "evil scheming" stands for a phrase the wisdom writers used for the inward impulse toward wrong, something pictured as planted inside a person rather than arriving from outside; later Jewish teachers called it the evil inclination. "Cover the dry land" borrows the language used of the flood covering the earth. The verse breaks off from advice about friends to address this impulse directly, as if it were a person standing there.

37:5

"For the sake of his own stomach" means for his keep, for the food at your table. The buckler (KJV "the buckler") was a small round shield strapped to the arm. The Greek here is genuinely unsettled: it can be read as praise, a companion who for all his low motives still picks up a shield and fights beside you, or as one more example of the unreliable companion of verse 4. Translations divide.

37:8

Casting lots meant settling a question by chance, drawing marked stones or sticks. To "cast the lot against you" pictures an adviser gambling with your affairs, deciding which way your case falls while risking nothing of his own.

37:9

The Greek word means standing opposite, facing you. Translators differ over whether the picture is of an adviser who steps back to a safe distance to watch, or one who stays close by as a spectator; either way he has moved from sharing the risk to observing the result.

37:11

The woman "she is jealous of" is a rival wife or concubine in the same household, the ordinary situation where a man had more than one wife. A worker "hired by the year" was paid for a fixed term rather than for the finished job, so getting done early gained him nothing. Each item in the list pairs a question with the one person whose own interest guarantees a slanted answer.

37:12

"Whose mind matches your own mind" translates an idiom, literally that his soul is as your soul: a person of the same outlook, who will take your setbacks as his own.

37:13

"Heart" in this book means the mind, the place where a person weighs things and decides, not the seat of feeling. The same holds at verse 17.

37:14

Watchmen were posted on a town's walls and towers through the night to spot raiders or fire and raise the alarm. Seven of them, set high up, stands for the best lookout imaginable, and the saying claims a person's own mind can sometimes see further than that.

37:15

The Most High is a name for God. It means no one is higher.

37:17

Verses 17 and 18 are one sentence in the Greek, and a hard one; the verse numbering cuts it in two. The sense seems to be that a turn in the heart shows first in the face, and that out of the heart come four possible outcomes, with the tongue deciding which arrives. The manuscripts vary here and translators join the parts differently.

37:18

The tongue here means the words a person says.

37:20

A teacher of wisdom lived on the welcome of the households and towns he taught in. Losing their goodwill meant losing his meals, so being "left without any food" is a plain practical consequence and not only a figure of speech.

37:21

"Favor" (KJV "grace") here means a pleasing quality granted from above, the thing that makes a speaker's words land well with hearers. The verse gives the reason for verse 20: the man had clever words but not the wisdom underneath them.

37:22

"The fruits of his understanding" is a farming image, the crop that understanding yields. Here the crop is what comes out of his mouth.

37:24

A blessing is the good things God gives to a person.

37:25

"Israel" here means the people as a whole, across all its generations, not the man Jacob and not a piece of territory. The contrast is between one man's countable days and a community that carries on past any individual.

37:26

"Inherit honor" uses the vocabulary of property law for reputation: standing among his people is something handed on to him and by him, like an estate. A name that "lasts forever" means one still spoken by descendants and neighbors long after the man is gone.

37:27

"My son" is the standard way a teacher addresses a pupil in this kind of wisdom writing and need not mean an actual son. "Test yourself" renders a phrase built on the word soul, which from here to the end of the chapter means the whole living self, appetites included, not a spiritual part separate from the body.

37:29

"Rich food" (KJV "any dainty thing") means delicacies, luxury eating, as against ordinary fare.

37:30

KJV's "surfeiting" means gorging, eating well past fullness. "Choler" was yellow bile, one of the four humors that ancient medicine believed made up the body; too much of it was thought to bring on nausea, vomiting and a foul temper. The old wording is saying that overeating turns the body bilious.