Ecclesiasticus 49: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter continues the praise of famous ancestors. It begins with Josiah, whose memory is called sweet, and says that apart from David, Ezekias and Josias the kings of Judah fell short and forsook the law, so that their power went to others and their glory to a foreign nation, and the chosen city of the sanctuary was burned as Jeremiah had said. It then names Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the twelve prophets, Zorobabel, Jesus the son of Josedec, and Neemias, and closes with Enoch, Joseph, Sem, Seth and Adam.

Claim by Claim

1. 49:1
   • The remembrance of Josiah is like a compound of incense prepared by the perfumer's art.
   • The remembrance of Josiah is sweet as honey in every mouth.
   • The remembrance of Josiah is like music at a banquet of wine.
2. 49:2
   • Josiah conducted himself rightly in turning the people back.
   • Josiah removed the abominations of lawlessness.
3. 49:3
   • Josiah set his heart toward the Lord.
   • In the days of the lawless, Josiah made godliness strong.
4. 49:4
   • Except for David and Hezekiah and Josiah, all the kings committed offense.
   • They forsook the law of the Most High.
   • The kings of Judah came to an end.
5. 49:5
   • He gave their power to others.
   • He gave their glory to a foreign nation.
6. 49:6
   • They burned the chosen city of the sanctuary.
   • They made her streets desolate.
   • This happened according to the word of Jeremiah.
7. 49:7
   • They mistreated Jeremiah.
   • Jeremiah was a prophet.
   • Jeremiah was consecrated in the womb.
   • Jeremiah was appointed to root out, to afflict, and to destroy.
   • Jeremiah was appointed likewise to build and to plant.
8. 49:8
   • Ezekiel saw a vision of glory.
   • The vision was shown to him upon the chariot of the cherubim.
9. 49:9
   • Ezekiel made mention of the enemies in connection with the rain.
   • Ezekiel did good to those who directed their ways rightly.
10. 49:10
    • Let the memorial of the twelve prophets be blessed.
    • Let the bones of the twelve prophets flourish again out of their place.
    • The twelve prophets comforted Jacob.
    • The twelve prophets delivered them by confident hope.
11. 49:11
    • A question is asked how Zerubbabel shall be magnified.
    • Zerubbabel was like a signet on the right hand.
12. 49:12
    • Jesus son of Josedec was likewise as a signet on the right hand.
    • In their days they built the house.
    • They set up a holy temple to the Lord.
    • The temple was prepared for everlasting glory.
13. 49:13
    • Nehemiah was among the elect.
    • The renown of Nehemiah is great.
    • Nehemiah raised up for us the walls that had fallen.
    • Nehemiah set up the gates and the bars.
    • Nehemiah raised up our ruined dwellings again.
14. 49:14
    • No man was created upon the earth like Enoch.
    • Enoch was taken from the earth.
15. 49:15
    • No young man was born like Joseph.
    • Joseph was a governor of his brethren.
    • Joseph was a support of the people.
    • Joseph's bones were cared for by the Lord.
16. 49:16
    • Shem and Seth were held in great honor among men.
    • Adam was above every living thing in creation.

Words Worth Explaining

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

49:1

Josias is the Greek form of Josiah, king of Judah in the late seventh century BC, remembered for tearing out shrines and images and for restoring the temple worship. This chapter belongs to a long roll call of Israel's famous men that runs from chapter 44 onward, and it works roughly backward from the last kings to the first man. "The composition of the perfume" is the sacred incense blended for the temple from a fixed recipe of spices; a recipe no one was permitted to copy for ordinary use.

49:2

The "abominations" are idols and the shrines and objects that went with them. The word in the King James is the standard term for an object of another people's worship seen from the inside of Israel's own; it carries disgust rather than description. In 1611 "conversion" simply meant a turning around, with no sense of a private change of heart.

49:3

Worship means singing, praying, and giving gifts to God. Josias helped the people do this again.

49:4

Ezekias is the Greek form of Hezekiah, a king of Judah about a century before Josiah. "Defective" here means falling short or failing, not damaged. The kings "failed" in the sense that the line came to its end: the last kings of Judah were deposed by Babylon and the kingdom stopped existing in 587 BC.

49:5

"He" is God, though the King James does not say so outright. "A strange nation" means a foreign one, with no suggestion of oddness; the nation meant is Babylon.

49:6

The chosen city is Jerusalem, and the sanctuary is the temple standing in it; both were burned by the Babylonian army. Jeremias is the Greek form of Jeremiah, the prophet who had announced this during the city's last years.

49:7

"Entreated him evil" means treated him badly. Jeremiah was beaten, put in the stocks and lowered into a muddy cistern by people who resented what he said. The six verbs that follow, rooting out, afflicting, destroying, building and planting, are quoted from the opening of his own book, where they describe the commission he was given.

49:8

The reference is to the vision that opens the book of Ezekiel. Cherubim are not the plump winged children of later art but composite winged creatures, with faces of more than one kind, who bear or guard God's throne; "cherubim" is already a plural, so "the cherubims" of 1611 is a double plural.

49:9

This line is obscure and the ancient copies do not agree. The Greek behind the King James speaks of the enemies being remembered in a rainstorm, probably pointing to Ezekiel's picture of a storm that tears down a badly built wall. A surviving Hebrew copy of this book reads instead that he mentioned Job, who kept to the ways of righteousness. The translation here follows the Greek, but the sense remains disputed.

49:10

"The twelve prophets" are the shorter prophetic books from Hosea to Malachi, which were copied together on a single scroll and counted as one book. Bones flourishing or sprouting out of their resting place is a set phrase for renewed life and strength, borrowed from Isaiah; it is a wish, not a claim about what happened. "Jacob" stands for the whole people descended from him.

49:11

Zorobabel is the Greek form of Zerubbabel, who led a party of exiles home from Babylon and began rebuilding the temple around 520 BC. A signet was a ring carved with its owner's personal mark, pressed into wax or clay to make a document genuine. Because forging it would be ruinous, a man kept it on his own hand and never let it out of his sight, so calling someone a signet ring on the right hand means he is both trusted absolutely and never set aside.

49:12

"Jesus" here is simply the Greek form of the name Joshua, a common name; this is Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest who returned from exile alongside Zerubbabel. "The house" means the temple, rebuilt on the site of the one the Babylonians burned.

49:13

Neemias is the Greek form of Nehemiah, who came from the Persian court about 445 BC and rebuilt Jerusalem's city wall in the face of local opposition. The "bars" are the heavy beams dropped across the inside of a gate to lock it; walls and barred gates together are what made a place a city rather than an open village.

49:14

Enoch appears in the list of long-lived men in Genesis, where the usual formula "and he died" is replaced by the statement that God took him. He is singled out here because he left the earth without dying.

49:15

Joseph, sold into Egypt by his brothers, rose to govern the country and later kept his family alive through a famine. The note about his bones refers to his deathbed request that his remains not be left in Egypt; they were carried out at the exodus and buried at Shechem generations later.

49:16

Sem is the Greek form of Shem, one of Noah's sons. Seth was the son born to Adam after Cain and Abel. The chapter ends by reaching back past every figure already named to the first man of all.