Ecclesiasticus 40: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter opens with the hard labor and heavy load that belong to every person from birth until burial, and with the fears and broken sleep that reach everyone from the king on his throne to the one sitting in ashes. It lists the disasters that come on all living things and sevenfold more on sinners, then says the gains of the unjust drain away while honest dealing lasts. The second half is a series of comparisons, each naming two good things and then something better still, ending with the fear of the Lord. It closes with a warning against a life of begging and living off another person's table.

Claim by Claim

1. 40:1
   • Great travail is created for every man.
   • A heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam.
   • This burden lasts from the day they come out of their mother's womb until the day they return to the mother of all things.
   • The earth is the mother of all things.
2. 40:2
   • Their imagining of things to come troubles their thoughts.
   • The day of death troubles their thoughts.
   • These things cause fear of heart.
3. 40:3
   • This extends from the one who sits on a throne in glory.
   • One man sits on a throne in glory.
4. 40:4
   • This extends from the one who wears purple and a crown down to the one clothed in a coarse linen garment.
   • One man wears purple and a crown.
   • Another man is clothed with a coarse linen garment.
5. 40:5
   • Wrath is among these troubles.
   • Envy is among these troubles.
   • Trouble is among these troubles.
   • Unquietness is among these troubles.
   • Fear of death is among these troubles.
   • Anger is among these troubles.
   • Strife is among these troubles.
   • In the time of rest upon his bed, his night sleep changes his knowledge.
6. 40:6
   • His rest is little or nothing.
   • Afterward in his sleep he is as in a day of keeping watch.
   • He is troubled in the vision of his heart.
   • He is as if he had escaped out of a battle.
7. 40:7
   • When he is safe, he awakes.
   • He marvels that the fear was nothing.
8. 40:8
   • Such things happen to all flesh, both man and beast.
   • Such things come upon sinners sevenfold more.
9. 40:9
   • Death comes upon them.
   • Bloodshed comes upon them.
   • Strife comes upon them.
   • The sword comes upon them.
   • Calamities come upon them.
   • Famine comes upon them.
   • Tribulation comes upon them.
   • The scourge comes upon them.
10. 40:10
    • These things are created for the wicked.
    • The flood came for the sake of the wicked.
11. 40:11
    • All things that are of the earth shall turn to the earth again.
    • That which is of the waters returns into the sea.
12. 40:12
    • All bribery shall be blotted out.
    • All injustice shall be blotted out.
    • True dealing shall endure for ever.
13. 40:13
    • The goods of the unjust shall be dried up like a river.
    • The goods of the unjust shall vanish with noise, like a great thunder in rain.
14. 40:14
    • While he opens his hand he shall rejoice.
    • Transgressors shall come to nothing.
15. 40:15
    • The children of the ungodly shall not bring forth many branches.
    • The children of the ungodly are as unclean roots upon a hard rock.
16. 40:16
    • The weed growing upon every water and upon the bank of a river shall be pulled up before all grass.
17. 40:17
    • Bountifulness is as a most fruitful garden.
    • Mercifulness endures for ever.
18. 40:18
    • To labour and to be content with what one has is a sweet life.
    • He that finds a treasure is above them both.
19. 40:19
    • Children continue a man's name.
    • The building of a city continues a man's name.
    • A blameless wife is counted above them both.
20. 40:20
    • Wine rejoices the heart.
    • Music rejoices the heart.
    • The love of wisdom is above them both.
21. 40:21
    • The pipe and the psaltery make sweet melody.
    • A pleasant tongue is above them both.
22. 40:22
    • Your eye desires favour and beauty.
    • Green corn is more desirable than both.
23. 40:23
    • A friend and a companion never meet amiss.
    • A wife with her husband is above them both.
24. 40:24
    • Brethren and help are for the time of trouble.
    • Alms shall deliver more than them both.
25. 40:25
    • Gold and silver make the foot stand sure.
    • Counsel is esteemed above them both.
26. 40:26
    • Riches and strength lift up the heart.
    • The fear of the Lord is above them both.
    • There is no want in the fear of the Lord.
    • In the fear of the Lord there is no need to seek help.
27. 40:27
    • The fear of the Lord is a fruitful garden.
    • The fear of the Lord covers a man above all glory.
28. 40:28
    • The speaker addresses his son.
    • The speaker tells him not to lead a beggar's life.
    • It is better to die than to beg.
29. 40:29
    • The life of him that depends on another man's table is not to be counted a life.
    • He pollutes himself with other men's food.
    • A wise and well-nurtured man will beware of this.
30. 40:30
    • Begging is sweet in the mouth of the shameless.
    • In the belly of the shameless beggar a fire shall burn.

Words Worth Explaining

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

40:1

"Travail" in 1611 meant hard toil and painful effort, not travel. A "yoke" is the heavy wooden beam laid across the necks of oxen to harness them to a plow or cart, so it stands for a burden a person cannot shrug off. "The sons of Adam" is a Hebrew way of saying all human beings. "The mother of all things" is the earth: the first man was said to be formed from the ground, and burial returns the body to it.

40:3

Sitting in dirt and ashes was the recognized posture of a mourner or of someone utterly humiliated, so the phrase means the lowest condition a person can be in. Verses 3 and 4 pair the highest and lowest examples in order to say "everyone in between as well."

40:4

Purple cloth was dyed with a secretion from murex sea snails, and it took thousands of them to color one garment. It was therefore ruinously expensive and functioned as a badge of kings and the very rich. The garment at the other end of the scale is coarse working cloth, what the Greek calls sackcloth, the roughest fabric a poor laborer wore.

40:5

The last clause is obscure in the Greek and the King James follows it word for word. The sense seems to be that even in bed his mind is not at rest but is churned and altered by what he has been through, which is what verse 6 then describes.

40:6

"A day of keeping watch" is sentry duty, standing guard through the night while everyone else sleeps. The comparison is to a man who is technically lying down but is as alert and strained as a soldier on watch.

40:8

"All flesh" is a standard Hebrew and Greek phrase for every living creature, people and animals together. "Sevenfold" is a set idiom for many times over rather than an exact multiple.

40:9

"The scourge" is literally a whip. It was commonly used as an image for an epidemic, which is why modern versions render it plague.

40:10

The reference is to the flood of Noah in Genesis 6 to 9, sent because of human wickedness.

40:11

The Greek manuscripts read "what is from the waters returns to the sea." A Hebrew copy of Sirach found in the twentieth century reads instead "what is from above returns above," which makes the second line about the breath or spirit rather than water. Both readings are ancient.

40:12

A bribe is money given in secret. People gave it so a judge would not be fair.

40:14

This verse is damaged or garbled in the Greek and its exact sense is disputed. Opening the hand is the ordinary gesture of generous giving, so the line is usually taken as a contrast: the open handed man ends in gladness, the lawbreaker ends in nothing.

40:15

Branches stand for descendants, as in a family tree. Roots on bare rock have nothing to grip and no soil to feed on, so they cannot last.

40:16

"Weed" here means the reeds and rushes that grow right at the waterline. Because they sit closest to the edge, they are the first thing stripped away when the river rises or dries, while ordinary grass further back survives.

40:17

"Mercifulness" and, in verse 24, "alms" translate a Greek word that covers both compassion and the concrete act of handing money or food to the poor. In this period that giving was a recognized religious duty with a name of its own, not an occasional kindness.

40:18

Buried treasure was a real category, not a fairy tale. With no banks, people hid coin and valuables in the ground, and wars and sudden deaths meant caches were often left unclaimed and later stumbled on.

40:19

A man's name surviving him depended on descendants who bore it or on a founded settlement that carried it. Both are ways of not being forgotten, which is what "continue a man's name" means.

40:21

The "psaltery" was a stringed instrument plucked with the fingers, closer to a lyre or lute than to a modern harp. The "pipe" is a reed wind instrument. Both were standard at feasts.

40:22

"Corn" in the King James means grain of any kind, wheat or barley, never maize. "Corn while it is green" is the young shoots standing in the field, the sight that promises there will be food this year.

40:23

"Never meet amiss" is old English for "their meeting is never ill timed or unwelcome." It is not about quarreling.

40:24

"Brethren" here means kin generally, not only brothers. See the note at verse 17 for "alms."

40:25

Making the foot stand sure is an idiom for secure footing in life, the ability to stand your ground rather than slip. Money buys that stability; the saying is that advice buys more of it.

40:26

"The fear of the Lord" is a fixed phrase in these books. It means awe and reverence expressed in how a person lives, not fright. "There is no want" means nothing is lacking.

40:27

"Glory" here means being famous and having people look up to you.

40:29

Depending on another man's table means living as a hanger on in a wealthy household, fed at the patron's expense. "Meat" in the King James means food of any kind. "Polluteth himself" is the language of defilement: the writer treats eating at someone else's expense as staining a person, in the way a ritual impurity would.

40:30

"A fire burns in his belly" means a hot, sick feeling of shame. It is not a real fire.