Ecclesiasticus 38: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter tells the reader to honor the physician, since the Lord created him and made medicines from the earth, and to pray, turn from sin and bring an offering in sickness, and then make room for the doctor. It sets limits on mourning: weep for the dead a day or two, bury him properly, and then let grief go, since sorrow harms the living and the dead do not come back. It closes with a comparison between the scholar, whose wisdom comes from having free time, and the farmer, engraver, smith and potter, who are skilled in their trades and keep the world going, but are not sought out in council or seated among the judges.

Claim by Claim

1. 38:1
   • The reader is told to honor a physician with the honor due to him
   • The honor is due because of the uses the reader may have of the physician
   • The Lord created the physician
2. 38:2
   • Healing comes from the Most High
   • The physician will receive a gift from the king
3. 38:3
   • The skill of the physician will lift up the physician's head
   • The physician will be admired in the sight of great men
4. 38:4
   • The Lord created medicines out of the earth
   • A prudent man will not abhor medicines
5. 38:5
   • Water was made sweet by means of wood
   • The water was made sweet so that the power of the wood might be known
6. 38:6
   • God gave men skill
   • God gave men skill so that he might be glorified in his marvellous works
7. 38:7
   • With such things God heals
   • With such things God takes away pain
8. 38:8
   • The apothecary makes a compound from such things
   • God's works are never brought to an end
   • Peace from God is over the face of all the earth
9. 38:9
   • The speaker addresses the hearer as his son
   • The hearer is told not to be negligent in his sickness
   • The hearer is told to pray to the Lord
   • The Lord will make the hearer whole
10. 38:10
    • The hearer is told to leave off from sin
    • The hearer is told to order his hands aright
    • The hearer is told to cleanse his heart from all wickedness
11. 38:11
    • The hearer is told to give a sweet savor
    • The hearer is told to give a memorial offering of fine flour
    • The hearer is told to make a fat offering
    • The offering is to be made as if the hearer were not existing, or according to his means
12. 38:12
    • The hearer is told to give place to the physician
    • The Lord created the physician
    • The hearer is told not to let the physician go from him
    • The hearer has need of the physician
13. 38:13
    • There is a time when good success is in the hands of physicians
14. 38:14
    • Physicians also pray to the Lord
    • Physicians pray that God would prosper what they give for ease and remedy
    • The ease and remedy are given to prolong life
15. 38:15
    • The one who sins before his Maker should fall into the hand of the physician
16. 38:16
    • The speaker addresses the hearer as his son
    • The hearer is told to let tears fall over the dead
    • The hearer is told to begin to lament as if he had suffered great harm himself
    • The hearer is told to cover the body of the dead according to what is due him
    • The hearer is told not to neglect the burial of the dead
17. 38:17
    • The hearer is told to weep bitterly
    • The hearer is told to make great moan
    • The hearer is told to use lamentation as the dead person is worthy
    • The mourning is to last a day or two
    • The mourning is limited lest the hearer be evil spoken of
    • The hearer is told to comfort himself for his heaviness
18. 38:18
    • Death comes from heaviness
    • Heaviness of the heart breaks strength
19. 38:19
    • In affliction sorrow remains
    • The life of the poor man is a curse to the heart
20. 38:20
    • The hearer is told to take no heaviness to heart
    • The hearer is told to drive heaviness away
    • The hearer is told to remember the last end
21. 38:21
    • The hearer is told not to forget it
    • There is no turning again
    • The hearer will not do the dead man good by grieving
    • The hearer will hurt himself by grieving
22. 38:22
    • The hearer is told to remember the speaker's judgment
    • The hearer's judgment will also be so
    • It was yesterday for the speaker and is today for the hearer
23. 38:23
    • When the dead is at rest, the hearer is to let his remembrance rest
    • The hearer is to be comforted for the dead when his spirit has departed from him
24. 38:24
    • The wisdom of a learned man comes by opportunity of leisure
    • He who has little business will become wise
25. 38:25
    • It is asked how the man who holds the plough can get wisdom
    • That man glories in the goad
    • That man drives oxen
    • That man is occupied in the labors of oxen
    • That man's talk is of bullocks
26. 38:26
    • The ploughman gives his mind to making furrows
    • The ploughman is diligent to give the cows fodder
27. 38:27
    • Every carpenter and workmaster labors night and day
    • Some cut and engrave seals
    • They are diligent to make great variety
    • They give themselves to imitate imagery
    • They stay awake to finish a work
28. 38:28
    • The smith sits by the anvil
    • The smith considers the unwrought iron
    • The vapor of the fire wastes the smith's flesh
    • The smith fights with the heat of the furnace
    • The noise of the hammer is ever in the smith's ears
    • The smith's eyes look upon the pattern of the thing he makes
    • The smith sets his mind to finish his work
    • The smith stays awake to polish it perfectly
29. 38:29
    • The potter sits at his work
    • The potter turns the wheel about with his feet
    • The potter is always carefully set at his work
    • The potter makes all his work by number
30. 38:30
    • The potter fashions the clay with his arm
    • The potter bows down his strength before his feet
    • The potter applies himself to finish the glazing
    • The potter is diligent to make the furnace clean
31. 38:31
    • All these craftsmen trust to their hands
    • Every one of them is wise in his own work
32. 38:32
    • Without these craftsmen a city cannot be inhabited
    • Men shall not dwell where they will nor go up and down without them
33. 38:33
    • These craftsmen shall not be sought for in public counsel
    • They shall not sit high in the congregation
    • They shall not sit on the judges' seat
    • They shall not understand the covenant of judgment
    • They cannot declare justice and judgment
    • They shall not be found where parables are spoken
34. 38:34
    • These craftsmen will maintain the state of the world
    • All their desire is in the work of their craft
    • An exception is made for the man who gives his soul and meditates in the law of the Most High

Words Worth Explaining

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

38:1

The Greek word behind "honour" covers both respect and payment, so the verse is about paying the doctor as well as thinking well of him. The writer is arguing a point that was contested in his world: some held that sickness came from God and should be met with prayer alone, and that going to a doctor showed a lack of trust. The chapter's answer is that God is the source of the doctor's skill.

38:2

"he shall receive honour of the king" means he will be given a fee or gift by the king. Physicians attached to royal courts were paid, salaried men in the Greek-speaking world of the writer's day.

38:3

"lift up his head" is an idiom for being given public standing and confidence, the opposite of going about with the head bowed in shame.

38:4

Ancient medicines were made from plants, roots, minerals and animal products, so "out of the earth" is meant literally as well as figuratively.

38:5

A reference to Exodus 15:23 to 25, where the Israelites came to water at Marah too bitter to drink, and Moses was shown a piece of wood which, thrown into the water, made it sweet. In the King James, "the virtue thereof" means its power or effectiveness, not moral goodness.

38:8

An "apothecary" is a maker of drugs, ointments and perfumes, the ancient equivalent of a pharmacist, and a "confection" is a compounded mixture, not a sweet. The word translated "peace" covers health and general well being, not only the absence of war. Whether "from him" means from God or from the apothecary is unclear in the Greek, and the King James leaves it unclear too.

38:9

"My son" is how a teacher spoke to his student. He taught him kindly, like a father.

38:10

"order thine hands aright" is an idiom for straightening out one's conduct; the hands stand for what a person actually does.

38:11

These are the instructions for the grain offering of Leviticus 2. A handful of fine flour, with oil poured over it and incense added, was burned on the altar as the "memorial" portion, and the rising smoke was the "sweet savour". To "make a fat offering" is to anoint it generously with oil. The King James ending, "as not being", renders a Greek phrase that is genuinely obscure: it has been read as "as much as your means allow" and as "as one who is already as good as dead".

38:15

The line is ambiguous in the Greek and has been read two ways: as a warning, that a person who sins will end up sick and in a doctor's hands, and as advice, that such a person should put himself under a doctor's care. The King James keeps the ambiguity.

38:16

To "cover his body according to the custom" is to wrap the corpse in cloth for burial, a duty owed by the family. Burial normally followed within a day of death, and to leave a body unburied was among the worst things that could happen to a person in this culture.

38:17

Loud, formal weeping was expected of a household, and professional mourners were often hired to lead it. "lest thou be evil spoken of" means so that neighbors cannot say you failed to mourn properly. The "day or two" limits the most intense stage of mourning, not the whole of it.

38:18

"heaviness" all through this passage means grief or sorrow. It does not mean weight, or drowsiness.

38:19

This verse is obscure in the Greek and the manuscripts differ. "the life of the poor is the curse of the heart" appears to mean that a life of poverty lies on the heart like a curse, though other readings of the line are possible.

38:20

"member the last end" contains an old misprint, carried in many editions of the King James, for "remember". "the last end" means death.

38:22

The speaker of this line is the dead person, addressing the living, a form of words familiar from ancient grave inscriptions. "my judgment" means the sentence passed on me, that is, death. Some Greek manuscripts read "his judgment" instead of "mine".

38:24

"a learned man" translates the word for a scribe: a member of a professional class of copyists, scholars and legal experts who studied and taught the written law. The training took years of unpaid study, which only a man with leisure could afford. The list of trades that follows is a comparison of that life with manual work.

38:25

A goad is a long pole tipped with a sharpened point or iron spike, used to prod oxen forward; the plowman carried it as the mark of his trade. "bullocks" are young bulls.

38:26

"kine" is an old plural of cow.

38:27

Seals were small carved stones, worn on a ring or a cord, pressed into wax or soft clay to sign documents and mark ownership, and cutting them was fine miniature work. "counterfeit imagery" does not mean forgery: in 1611 "counterfeit" meant to copy or reproduce a likeness faithfully. A "workmaster" is a master craftsman who directs the work of others.

38:28

"the vapour of the fire" is the smoke and fumes of the forge. "considering the iron work" means studying the raw, unworked lump of iron before shaping it.

38:29

The potter's wheel of this period had a lower disc turned by the feet and an upper disc carrying the clay. "maketh all his work by number" means he turns out pieces to a set count, repeating the same shape many times over.

38:30

"he applieth himself to lead it over" refers to glazing: a lead based glaze was applied over the pot before firing. The "furnace" here is the kiln, which had to be raked clean of ash between firings. "boweth down his strength before his feet" is awkward in the Greek and is usually taken to describe treading the clay underfoot to soften it.

38:32

The second half of the verse is disputed. The Greek speaks of settling as resident foreigners and of walking about, and the sense seems to be that craftsmen are tied to the city where their workshop stands and cannot travel or resettle as a scholar or a merchant can.

38:33

"publick counsel" is the governing council of the town. To "sit high in the congregation" is to take a seat of honor in the public assembly, and "the sentence of judgment" is the terms of a legal ruling. "where parables are spoken" means where proverbs and wise sayings are debated; a parable here is a compressed saying or maxim, not a story with a moral, and skill with such sayings was how a sage made his name.

38:34

"maintain the state of the world" means hold the ordinary fabric of daily life together. In the final clause the Greek manuscripts differ: some read "all their desire is in the work of their craft", others "their prayer is in the practice of their trade", which would make the craftsman's work itself his form of prayer.