Ecclesiasticus 46: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter continues the praise of Israel's ancestors, turning to Joshua son of Nun, who succeeded Moses, fought Israel's wars, and brought the people into their inheritance. It recalls Caleb, who stood with Joshua against the assembly in the time of Moses and later received the hill country for his family, and it calls for a blessing on the memory of the judges who stayed faithful. It closes with Samuel, who established a kingdom, anointed rulers, called on the Lord and was answered with thunder, declared his innocence before he died, and prophesied even after his death.

Claim by Claim

1. 46:1
   • Joshua the son of Nun was valiant in war.
   • Joshua was the successor of Moses in prophecies.
   • Joshua was made great according to his name.
   • Joshua's greatness was for the saving of God's elect.
   • Joshua took vengeance on the enemies that rose up against them.
   • Joshua's purpose was to give Israel their inheritance.
2. 46:2
   • Joshua obtained great glory when he lifted up his hands.
   • Joshua stretched out his sword against the cities.
3. 46:3
   • No one before Joshua stood so firmly.
   • The Lord himself brought Joshua's enemies to him.
4. 46:4
   • The sun went back by Joshua's means.
   • One day became as long as two.
5. 46:5
   • Joshua called upon the Most High Lord.
   • Joshua called when the enemies pressed upon him on every side.
   • The great Lord heard him.
6. 46:6
   • Joshua made the battle fall violently upon the nations with hailstones of mighty power.
   • Joshua destroyed those who resisted in the descent of Beth-horon.
   • The destruction happened so that the nations might know all their strength.
   • Joshua fought in the sight of the Lord.
   • Joshua followed the Mighty One.
7. 46:7
   • In the time of Moses, Joshua did a work of mercy.
   • Caleb the son of Jephunneh also did a work of mercy.
   • Joshua and Caleb withstood the congregation.
   • Joshua and Caleb withheld the people from sin.
   • Joshua and Caleb appeased the wicked murmuring.
8. 46:8
   • There were six hundred thousand people on foot.
   • Joshua and Caleb, the two of them, were preserved out of that number.
   • They two were preserved in order to bring the people into the heritage.
   • The heritage was a land flowing with milk and honey.
9. 46:9
   • The Lord gave strength to Caleb.
   • That strength remained with Caleb until his old age.
   • Caleb entered upon the high places of the land.
   • Caleb's seed obtained the land for an inheritance.
10. 46:10
    • The purpose was that all the children of Israel might see that it is good to follow the Lord.
11. 46:11
    • The judges are named, each one by his name.
    • The hearts of these judges did not go a whoring.
    • These judges did not depart from the Lord.
    • A wish is expressed that their memory be blessed.
12. 46:12
    • A wish is expressed that their bones flourish out of their place.
    • A wish is expressed that the name of those who were honoured be continued upon their children.
13. 46:13
    • Samuel was the prophet of the Lord.
    • Samuel was beloved of his Lord.
    • Samuel established a kingdom.
    • Samuel anointed princes over his people.
14. 46:14
    • Samuel judged the congregation by the law of the Lord.
    • The Lord had respect unto Jacob.
15. 46:15
    • Samuel was found a true prophet by his faithfulness.
    • Samuel was known to be faithful in vision by his word.
16. 46:16
    • Samuel called upon the mighty Lord.
    • Samuel called when his enemies pressed upon him on every side.
    • Samuel called while offering a sucking lamb.
17. 46:17
    • The Lord thundered from heaven.
    • The Lord made his voice heard with a great noise.
18. 46:18
    • Samuel destroyed the rulers of the Tyrians.
    • Samuel destroyed all the princes of the Philistines.
19. 46:19
    • Before his long sleep, Samuel made protestations in the sight of the Lord and his anointed.
    • Samuel said he had not taken any man's goods, not even a shoe.
    • No man accused Samuel.
20. 46:20
    • After his death Samuel prophesied.
    • Samuel showed the king his end.
    • Samuel lifted up his voice from the earth in prophecy.
    • The purpose of the prophecy was to blot out the wickedness of the people.

Words Worth Explaining

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

46:1

The King James calls him "Jesus the son a Nave" because Ben Sira's book survives in Greek, and Greek spells Joshua as Iesous and Nun as Naue; the man meant is Joshua son of Nun, Moses' deputy and successor. The line "according to his name was made great for the saving of the elect" is a play on that name: Joshua means roughly "the Lord saves." "Inheritance" here is not money but land: the territory each tribe received as its permanent holding.

46:2

Lifting up the hands and stretching out the sword recalls Joshua 8, where Joshua held out his javelin toward the city of Ai and kept it extended until the town fell. The gesture was a signal to his troops and a sign that the attack was commanded.

46:4

A reference to Joshua 10, where the sun was said to stand still over Gibeon so that the fighting could be finished before dark, making one day as long as two.

46:5

"Most High" is a name for God. It means he is above everyone and everything.

46:6

The hailstones and the slope belong to the same battle: a storm struck the fleeing armies at the descent of Beth-horon, a steep pass dropping from the hill country toward the coastal plain, and the road there was the obvious escape route. The King James reads "that the nations might know all their strength"; other copies of the Greek read "know his armor," meaning his weaponry or his equipment for war. The manuscripts genuinely differ.

46:7

The episode is Numbers 13 and 14. Twelve scouts were sent into Canaan; ten came back saying the land could not be taken, and only Joshua and Caleb urged going in. "Withstood the congregation" means they stood against the whole assembled people, who wanted to turn back. "Murmuring" in the King James is not muttering under the breath but open, angry complaining against Moses and against God.

46:8

Six hundred thousand "on foot" is the figure given for the adult men who left Egypt, counted as foot soldiers rather than as the whole population. The point is that of that entire generation only these two lived to enter the land. "Flowing with milk and honey" was the standard phrase for Canaan: milk from herds grazing good pasture, and honey from wild bees, a land rich enough to feed itself without hard labor.

46:9

"High places" in the King James usually means hilltop shrines, but here it simply means the hill country, the upland region around Hebron that Caleb asked for and received. "His seed" means his descendants.

46:11

The judges were not courtroom officials. They were the leaders described in the book of Judges, men and women who rallied the tribes in a crisis and then governed, often after a military rescue. "Whose heart went not a whoring" uses a standard biblical idiom in which worshiping other gods is spoken of as a married partner being unfaithful; it is about loyalty to God, not sexual conduct.

46:12

A traditional blessing spoken over the dead: may their bones put out shoots from the grave, as a cut stump sends up new growth. The wish is that the family line continue and the name stay alive in later generations.

46:13

Samuel anointed Saul and then David. Anointing meant pouring olive oil over a man's head in a public ceremony to mark him as chosen for an office; it is where the title "anointed one" comes from. "Princes" here means rulers or heads of the nation, not sons of a king.

46:14

"Jacob" stands for the whole nation, which traced itself to the man Jacob and was named Israel after him. "Had respect unto" in 1611 English means looked on with favor, paid attention to, not treated with deference.

46:15

A vision is a picture or message that God gave a prophet. People trusted Samuel because what he said always came true.

46:16

The scene is 1 Samuel 7. A lamb still nursing, not yet weaned, was offered whole as a burnt sacrifice while the Philistine army advanced, an unusually costly offering made in an emergency.

46:18

The Philistines occupied five cities on the coastal plain southwest of Israel and were Israel's chief rivals in this period; their "princes" were the lords of those cities. The mention of Tyre is puzzling, since Tyre was a Phoenician port far to the north and takes no part in the story of Samuel; many readers take the Greek word here to be a copying slip for the Philistine rulers, but the Greek text as it stands says Tyrians.

46:19

"Made protestations" means made a formal public declaration, close to swearing an oath in front of witnesses. The scene is 1 Samuel 12, where Samuel steps down as leader and challenges anyone to name property he took while in office. "His anointed" is the newly anointed king, Saul, standing there as a witness. A sandal was the cheapest thing a man owned, so "so much as a shoe" means he had not taken even the smallest item.

46:20

A reference to 1 Samuel 28, where Saul had Samuel's spirit called up from the grave after Samuel's death, and Samuel told the king that he would die in the coming battle. "Lifted up his voice from the earth" means spoke from below ground, from the place of the dead.