Ecclesiasticus 48: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter continues the praise of Israel's famous ancestors. It celebrates Elias, whose word burned like a lamp, who shut up the sky, raised a dead man, anointed kings and prophets, and was taken up in a whirlwind of fire, and it names the tasks he was appointed to do. It then turns to Eliseus, who was filled with his spirit, did wonders in life, and whose body prophesied after his death, and it says the people did not repent until they were plundered and scattered. It closes with Ezekias, who fortified his city and on the people calling on the Lord when Sennacherib came, and with Esay, through whom the Lord rescued them and who saw what was to come.

Claim by Claim

1. 48:1
   • Elijah the prophet arose
   • Elijah was like fire
   • Elijah's word burned like a lamp
2. 48:2
   • Elijah brought a famine upon them
   • The famine was severe
   • By his zeal Elijah reduced their number
3. 48:3
   • By the word of the Lord Elijah shut up the heaven
   • Elijah brought down fire three times
4. 48:4
   • Elijah was honoured in his wondrous deeds
   • No one can glory as Elijah can
5. 48:5
   • Elijah raised a dead man from death
   • Elijah raised the dead man from the place of the dead
   • Elijah did this by the word of the Most High
6. 48:6
   • Elijah brought kings down to destruction
   • Elijah brought honoured men down from their bed
7. 48:7
   • Elijah heard rebuke at Sinai
   • The rebuke Elijah heard was the Lord's
   • Elijah heard judgments of vengeance at Horeb
8. 48:8
   • Elijah anointed kings to carry out retribution
   • Elijah anointed prophets to succeed after him
9. 48:9
   • Elijah was taken up in a whirlwind of fire
   • Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fiery horses
10. 48:10
    • Elijah was ordained for reproofs in their appointed times
    • Elijah was ordained to pacify wrath before it broke out into fury
    • The wrath to be pacified is the Lord's judgment
    • Elijah was ordained to turn the heart of the father to the son
    • Elijah was ordained to restore the tribes of Jacob
11. 48:11
    • Those who saw Elijah are blessed
    • Those who slept in love are blessed
    • We shall surely live
12. 48:12
    • Elijah was covered with a whirlwind
    • Elisha was filled with Elijah's spirit
    • While Elisha lived he was not moved by the presence of any prince
    • No one could bring Elisha into subjection
13. 48:13
    • No word could overcome Elisha
    • After Elisha's death his body prophesied
14. 48:14
    • Elisha did wonders during his life
    • Elisha's works were marvellous at his death
15. 48:15
    • For all this the people did not repent
    • The people did not depart from their sins
    • The people were spoiled and carried out of their land
    • The people were scattered through all the earth
    • A small people remained
    • A ruler remained in the house of David
16. 48:16
    • Some of them did what was pleasing to God
    • Some of them multiplied sins
17. 48:17
    • Hezekiah fortified his city
    • Hezekiah brought water into the midst of the city
    • Hezekiah dug through the hard rock with iron
    • Hezekiah made wells for waters
18. 48:18
    • In Hezekiah's time Sennacherib came up
    • Sennacherib sent Rabshakeh
    • Sennacherib lifted up his hand against Zion
    • Sennacherib boasted proudly
19. 48:19
    • Their hearts trembled
    • Their hands trembled
    • They were in pain like women in travail
20. 48:20
    • They called upon the Lord
    • The Lord is merciful
    • They stretched out their hands toward the Lord
    • The Holy One heard them out of heaven immediately
    • The Holy One delivered them by the ministry of Isaiah
21. 48:21
    • He smote the host of the Assyrians
    • His angel destroyed them
22. 48:22
    • Hezekiah did the thing that pleased the Lord
    • Hezekiah was strong in the ways of David his father
    • Isaiah the prophet had commanded Hezekiah those ways
    • Isaiah was great
    • Isaiah was faithful in his vision
23. 48:23
    • In Hezekiah's time the sun went backward
    • He lengthened the king's life
24. 48:24
    • Isaiah saw by an excellent spirit what should come to pass at the last
    • Isaiah comforted those who mourned in Zion
25. 48:25
    • Isaiah showed what should come to pass for ever
    • Isaiah showed secret things before they came

Words Worth Explaining

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

48:1

Elias is the Greek spelling of the Hebrew name Elijah. This book was written in Hebrew but survives mainly in Greek, so its people carry Greek forms of their names: Elias for Elijah, Eliseus for Elisha, Esay for Isaiah, Ezekias for Hezekiah, Sion for Zion. Elijah was a prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel in the ninth century BC, and his story runs from 1 Kings 17 to 2 Kings 2. This chapter belongs to a long hymn, stretching from chapter 44 to chapter 50, that praises Israel's ancestors roughly in the order they lived.

48:2

The famine is the drought Elijah announced in 1 Kings 17, which lasted more than two years. 'By his zeal he diminished their number' points to 1 Kings 18, where the prophets of Baal were put to death after the contest on Mount Carmel. Zeal in older English is not mere enthusiasm: it is a fierce, jealous devotion that acts.

48:3

To shut up the heaven is the ordinary way of saying the rain stopped, since the sky was pictured as a store of water that could be closed. The three fires are the fire that fell on the altar at Carmel (1 Kings 18) and the two fires that consumed the companies of soldiers sent to arrest Elijah (2 Kings 1).

48:5

The dead man is the son of the widow at Zarephath, whom Elijah revived in 1 Kings 17. 'The place of the dead' translates Hades, the Greek name for the underworld, which stands here for the Hebrew Sheol: the shadowy place where all the dead were thought to go, the good along with the bad. It is not a place of punishment.

48:6

The kings are Ahab and his son Ahaziah, whose deaths Elijah announced. The Greek behind 'honorable men from their bed' means a sickbed: Ahaziah was told he would never rise from the bed he lay in after his fall through a lattice (2 Kings 1).

48:7

Sinai and Horeb are two names for the same mountain, the one where Moses received the law. The verse refers to 1 Kings 19, where Elijah fled to that mountain and heard the Lord speak to him there.

48:8

To anoint someone was to pour olive oil over the head, the public act that marked a person out for an office. The kings are Hazael of Syria and Jehu of Israel, whom Elijah was told to anoint so that they would carry out judgment on Ahab's house (1 Kings 19). The prophet who followed him was Elisha. The Greek reads 'after you'; the King James slips into 'after him' partway through, and the whole chapter moves back and forth between addressing Elijah directly and speaking about him.

48:9

This is 2 Kings 2, where Elijah was carried off alive instead of dying. Because he was never said to have died, later Jewish tradition expected him back before the end, which is what verse 10 draws on.

48:10

'Ordained for reproofs in their times' renders a Greek phrase meaning that Elijah stands written down, held in readiness for an appointed moment. The last two clauses quote Malachi 4:5-6, which promises that Elijah will return before the day of the Lord to turn parents and children back to each other; 'restore the tribes of Jacob' echoes Isaiah 49:6. Jacob was renamed Israel, and the twelve tribes descended from his sons, most of them scattered when Assyria destroyed the northern kingdom.

48:11

'Slept in love' uses the ordinary ancient way of saying that someone died. The Greek of this line is damaged and the manuscripts disagree; some read something closer to 'those who have been adorned with love.' What the second half promises, and to whom, is genuinely unsettled, and the confident 'for we shall surely live' is one reading among several.

48:12

Elisha asked for a double share of Elijah's spirit as Elijah was taken up (2 Kings 2:9), a double share being the portion an eldest son inherited. From this point the 'he' of the verse is Elisha, who faced down kings of Israel without flinching.

48:13

This refers to 2 Kings 13:20-21, where a corpse hurriedly thrown into Elisha's grave came back to life on touching his bones. To say his body 'prophesied' is to say that it went on doing what a prophet's body did in life.

48:15

Being plundered and carried out of the land means deportation: Assyria destroyed the northern kingdom and scattered its people in 722 BC, and Babylon took Judah into exile in 586 BC. The 'ruler in the house of David' is the line of kings descended from David, which continued in the southern kingdom of Judah after the north was gone.

48:17

Ezekias is Hezekiah, king of Judah in the late eighth century BC. The water works are described in 2 Kings 20:20: a tunnel cut through solid rock to bring the Gihon spring inside the city walls, so that a besieged Jerusalem would not be cut off from its water. The tunnel still exists. 'Wells' here translates the Greek word for cisterns, sealed tanks for storing water, not shafts dug down to groundwater.

48:18

Sennacherib was king of Assyria; he invaded Judah in 701 BC. Rabsaces is not a personal name but a title, the Rabshakeh, a senior Assyrian officer, sent ahead to stand outside the walls and demand surrender (2 Kings 18). Sion is the Greek spelling of Zion, the hill Jerusalem stood on and so a name for the city itself.

48:20

Spreading the hands out, arms extended with the palms open, was the ordinary posture for prayer, so the gesture simply means they prayed. 'The Holy One' is a title for God, used constantly in the book of Isaiah. Esay is Isaiah the prophet, who advised Hezekiah during the siege.

48:21

According to 2 Kings 19:35, a hundred and eighty five thousand men in the Assyrian camp were struck down in a single night, and Sennacherib withdrew without taking Jerusalem. 'His angel' means the Lord's messenger.

48:22

David was a famous good king long before Ezekias. Ezekias came from David's family.

48:23

This is the sign given in 2 Kings 20:8-11: the shadow on the stairway of Ahaz moved back ten steps, as a guarantee that the sick Hezekiah would recover. Fifteen years were added to his life. The one who made the king's life longer is Isaiah, through whom the promise came.

48:24

This points at the later chapters of the book of Isaiah, which speak to people already in exile and promise them comfort; Isaiah 61:2-3 in particular speaks of comforting those who mourn in Zion. The writer treats the whole book as the work of the one prophet who advised Hezekiah.