Ecclesiasticus 47: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The praise of Israel's leaders goes on with Nathan, who prophesied in David's time, and then with David himself: his handling of lions and bears, his killing of the giant, his victories over the Philistines, and the singers and set feasts he arranged for worship. The chapter then speaks directly to Solomon, recalling his wisdom, his fame, and his gold and silver, and then his women, his stained honor, and the anger that came on his children; after this the kingdom was divided. It states that the Lord will not give up his mercy or blot out the family of the one he chose, and it closes with Rehoboam and Jeroboam, whose sins grew so many that the people were driven out of their land.

Claim by Claim

1. 47:1
   • After him, Nathan rose up to prophesy.
   • Nathan prophesied in the time of David.
2. 47:2
   • The fat is taken away from the peace offering.
   • David was chosen out of the children of Israel as the fat is separated from the peace offering.
3. 47:3
   • David played with lions as with young goats.
   • David played with bears as with lambs.
4. 47:4
   • David killed a giant while he was still young.
   • David took away reproach from the people.
   • David lifted up his hand with a stone in a sling.
   • David beat down the boasting of Goliath.
5. 47:5
   • David called upon the most high Lord.
   • The Lord gave strength to David's right hand.
   • The strength was given to slay a mighty warrior.
   • The strength was given to set up the horn of David's people.
6. 47:6
   • The people honoured David with ten thousands.
   • The people praised David in the blessings of the Lord.
   • A crown of glory was given to David.
7. 47:7
   • David destroyed the enemies on every side.
   • David brought the Philistines his adversaries to nothing.
   • David broke the horn of the Philistines in pieces.
   • The horn of the Philistines remains broken to this day.
8. 47:8
   • In all his works David praised the Holy One most high with words of glory.
   • David sang praise with his whole heart.
   • David loved him that made him.
9. 47:9
   • David set singers before the altar.
   • The singers were to make sweet melody by their voices.
   • The singers were to sing praises daily in their songs.
10. 47:10
    • David beautified the feasts.
    • David set the solemn times in order until the end.
    • The purpose was that they might praise God's holy name.
    • The purpose was that the temple might sound from morning.
11. 47:11
    • The Lord took away David's sins.
    • The Lord exalted David's horn for ever.
    • The Lord gave David a covenant of kings.
    • The Lord gave David a throne of glory in Israel.
12. 47:12
    • After David a wise son rose up.
    • For David's sake the son dwelt at large.
13. 47:13
    • Solomon reigned in a peaceable time.
    • Solomon was honoured.
    • God made all quiet round about Solomon.
    • God gave him quiet so that he might build a house in God's name.
    • God gave him quiet so that he might prepare a sanctuary for ever.
14. 47:14
    • Solomon was wise in his youth.
    • Solomon was filled with understanding as a flood.
15. 47:15
    • Solomon's soul covered the whole earth.
    • Solomon filled the earth with dark parables and riddles.
16. 47:16
    • Solomon's name went far to the islands.
    • Solomon was beloved for his peace.
17. 47:17
    • The countries marvelled at Solomon.
    • They marvelled at his songs.
    • They marvelled at his proverbs.
    • They marvelled at his parables.
    • They marvelled at his interpretations.
18. 47:18
    • Solomon acted by the name of the Lord God.
    • The Lord God is called the God of Israel.
    • Solomon gathered gold as if it were tin.
    • Solomon multiplied silver as if it were lead.
19. 47:19
    • Solomon bowed his loins to women.
    • Solomon was brought into subjection by his body.
20. 47:20
    • Solomon stained his honour.
    • Solomon polluted his seed.
    • Solomon brought wrath upon his children.
    • There was grief over Solomon's folly.
21. 47:21
    • The kingdom was divided.
    • A rebellious kingdom ruled out of Ephraim.
22. 47:22
    • The Lord will never leave off his mercy.
    • None of the Lord's works shall perish.
    • The Lord will not abolish the posterity of his elect.
    • The Lord will not take away the seed of him that loveth him.
    • The Lord gave a remnant to Jacob.
    • The Lord gave a root to David out of Jacob.
23. 47:23
    • Solomon rested with his fathers.
    • Solomon left behind him Roboam, of his seed.
    • Roboam was the foolishness of the people.
    • Roboam had no understanding.
    • Roboam turned the people away through his counsel.
    • There was also Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
    • Jeroboam caused Israel to sin.
    • Jeroboam showed Ephraim the way of sin.
24. 47:24
    • Their sins were multiplied exceedingly.
    • They were driven out of their land.
25. 47:25
    • They sought out all wickedness.
    • They sought out wickedness until the vengeance came upon them.

Words Worth Explaining

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

47:1

"After him" continues a roll call of Israel's great figures that runs through these chapters; the man just praised was Samuel. Nathan was the court prophet under David, the one who both delivered God's promise about David's dynasty and later confronted David to his face over Bathsheba and Uriah.

47:2

In Israelite sacrifice the fat around the animal's organs was cut away from the rest of the meat and burned on the altar as God's own portion. It was the choicest part, reserved and set apart, so the comparison says David was singled out as the pick of the nation, not merely selected at random.

47:3

Not a fairy tale detail. This compresses David's own account in 1 Samuel 17 of his years as a shepherd, when he says he killed a lion and a bear that carried off sheep from his father's flock. "Played with" is the writer's way of saying he handled them as easily as a child handles a lamb.

47:4

Goliath was the champion of the Philistine army, described in 1 Samuel 17 as a giant in armor whose daily challenge shamed the Israelite soldiers because no one would face him. "Reproach" in 1611 English means public disgrace, the insult itself rather than any guilt of theirs.

47:5

The horn of an ox or ram stood for sheer strength in Hebrew poetry, so to raise up someone's horn is to make them strong and give them standing, and to break a horn is to leave them powerless. The image runs through this chapter at verses 5, 7 and 11.

47:6

The reference is to the song the women sang when David returned from battle in 1 Samuel 18: "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." The tens of thousands are enemy dead, counted as praise.

47:7

The Philistines were a people settled on the coastal plain southwest of Israel, organized around five cities, and they were Israel's dominant military rival through the period of the judges and Saul. By the writer's own day, some eight centuries later, they had ceased to be a power, which is what "unto this day" is pointing at.

47:8

The Holy One Most High is a name for God.

47:9

The Jerusalem temple did not yet exist in David's reign, so this is the altar at the tent shrine. The tradition followed here, set out at length in 1 Chronicles, credits David with organizing the guilds of Levite musicians who sang at the daily sacrifices.

47:10

"Solemn times" in 1611 English does not mean grave or gloomy occasions; it means the fixed festival days of the religious year, appointed and recurring. Setting them "in order" means arranging the calendar and the rotas of priests and singers who served at each one.

47:11

"A covenant of kings" points to the promise in 2 Samuel 7 that David's descendants would hold the throne permanently. A covenant here is a binding agreement with sworn terms, closer to a treaty or a grant than to a mutual understanding.

47:12

The wise son is Solomon. "Dwelt at large" is old English for living in open, unconfined space, hence living in security rather than under siege; the point is that Solomon inherited the safety David's wars had won. The Greek leaves it open whether "because of him" means because of David or because of God.

47:13

The "house" is the temple in Jerusalem, which Solomon built. The tradition was that David was not permitted to build it because he had been a man of war, and that the work fell to a son who reigned in peace.

47:14

From here the writer talks straight to Solomon. He says you, as if Solomon were listening.

47:15

"Dark parables" does not mean sinister ones. A parable in this older sense is a saying with a hidden point, and a dark one is a riddle whose meaning is deliberately veiled. The queen of Sheba's visit in 1 Kings 10 is described as an attempt to test Solomon with exactly this kind of hard question.

47:16

The islands, or isles, is a standard biblical phrase for the coastlands and islands of the Mediterranean, the far western edge of the known world. Saying a name reached the islands is saying it reached everywhere.

47:17

The list matches 1 Kings 4, which credits Solomon with thousands of proverbs and songs and says that people came from every nation to hear his wisdom. "Interpretations" means his solutions to riddles and hard questions put to him.

47:18

Tin and lead were the cheap, ordinary metals of the ancient world, used for solder and weights. The comparison is about quantity: Solomon accumulated gold and silver in the bulk you would expect only of scrap metal.

47:19

A restrained way of describing what 1 Kings 11 says openly, that Solomon took hundreds of foreign wives and concubines and that in old age they turned him toward the worship of their own gods. "Brought into subjection" means he ended up under their control rather than in charge of himself.

47:20

"Pollute thy seed" means he defiled his own line of descendants, so the consequences fell on his children rather than on him. The last clause is uncertain in the manuscripts: some read "and wast grieved for thy folly" as the King James does, making Solomon the one who grieves, while others read "I was grieved for your folly," putting the grief in the writer's own mouth.

47:21

After Solomon's death the single kingdom split in two: ten northern tribes broke away under Jeroboam, leaving Solomon's son Rehoboam with Judah in the south. Ephraim was the largest northern tribe, and its name is used throughout the prophets as shorthand for the whole northern kingdom.

47:22

A remnant is the surviving fraction left after a disaster, the part not carried off or destroyed. Jacob is the ancestor whose other name was Israel, so "Jacob" here means the nation. A "root" is the living stump left when a tree is cut down, from which new growth can still come; the promise is that David's line is not finished.

47:23

"Rested with his fathers" is the standard biblical formula for dying and being buried in the ancestral tomb, with no comment implied about the state of the dead. Rehoboam's fatal counsel was his refusal, in 1 Kings 12, to lighten the forced labor and taxes Solomon had imposed, which triggered the northern revolt. Jeroboam "caused Israel to sin" by setting up rival golden calf shrines at Bethel and Dan so that his subjects would not travel south to worship in Jerusalem.

47:24

Driven out of the land means deported. The northern kingdom was broken up and its population resettled by Assyria in 722 BC, and Judah was carried off to Babylon in stages ending in 587 BC.