Ecclesiasticus 50: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter praises Simon son of Onias, the high priest, for repairing the house of God, strengthening the temple, and fortifying the city, and then describes how he looked as he came out of the sanctuary, comparing him to the morning star, the sun, flowers, trees, and worked gold. It then recounts the service at the altar: the priests hold the offerings, Simon pours out the drink offering, the priests shout and blow trumpets, the people fall on their faces and pray, the singers sing, and Simon lifts his hands and blesses the whole assembly. A call to bless God and a prayer for joy, peace, and mercy follow. The book closes with three peoples the writer's heart hates, the writer naming himself as Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem, and a blessing on anyone who takes these things to heart.

Claim by Claim

1. 50:1
   • Simon was the high priest.
   • Simon was the son of Onias.
   • During his life Simon repaired the house.
   • In his days Simon fortified the temple.
2. 50:2
   • By him the foundation was laid of the double height.
   • By him was built the high retaining wall of the temple enclosure.
3. 50:3
   • In his days the water cistern was made.
   • The cistern was like the sea in circumference.
   • The cistern was of brass.
4. 50:4
   • He took care that his people should not fall.
   • He fortified the city against siege.
5. 50:5
   • He was honoured in the midst of the people.
   • This honour was when he came out of the sanctuary.
6. 50:6
   • He was like the morning star in the midst of a cloud.
   • He was like the moon at the full.
7. 50:7
   • He was like the sun shining upon the temple of the Most High.
   • He was like the rainbow giving light in the clouds of glory.
8. 50:8
   • He was like the flower of roses in the days of first fruits.
   • He was like lilies by springs of water.
   • He was like the shoot of the frankincense tree in summer.
9. 50:9
   • He was like fire and incense in the censer.
   • He was like a vessel of beaten gold set with all manner of precious stones.
10. 50:10
    • He was like an olive tree budding forth fruit.
    • He was like a cypress tree growing up to the clouds.
11. 50:11
    • He put on the robe of honour.
    • He was clothed with the perfection of glory.
    • He went up to the holy altar.
    • He made the garment of holiness honourable.
12. 50:12
    • He took the portions out of the priests' hands.
    • He himself stood by the hearth of the altar.
    • He was compassed about by his brethren.
    • He was like a young cedar in Lebanon.
    • They compassed him round about like palm trees.
13. 50:13
    • All the sons of Aaron were in their glory.
    • The offerings of the Lord were in their hands.
    • This was before all the congregation of Israel.
14. 50:14
    • They finished the service at the altar.
    • The purpose was that he might adorn the offering of the most high Almighty.
15. 50:15
    • He stretched out his hand to the cup.
    • He poured a libation of the blood of the grape.
    • He poured it out at the foot of the altar.
    • It was a sweet-smelling savour to the Most High, the King of all.
16. 50:16
    • Then the sons of Aaron shouted.
    • They sounded the trumpets of beaten work.
    • The King James calls the trumpets silver.
    • They made a great sound to be heard.
    • The sound was for a remembrance before the Most High.
17. 50:17
    • Then all the people together hasted.
    • They fell to the earth upon their faces.
    • They fell to worship their Lord God Almighty, the Most High.
18. 50:18
    • The singers praised with their voices.
    • Sweet melody was made in the whole house.
    • The King James says the melody was made with great variety of sounds.
19. 50:19
    • The people besought the Lord Most High in prayer.
    • They prayed before him that is merciful.
    • They prayed until the solemn worship of the Lord was ended.
    • They finished his service.
20. 50:20
    • Then he went down.
    • He lifted up his hands over the whole congregation of the children of Israel.
    • He did so to give the blessing of the Lord with his lips.
    • He did so to glory in his name.
21. 50:21
    • They bowed themselves down in worship a second time.
    • This was to receive the blessing from the Most High.
    • The Greek says he bowed a second time to declare the blessing from the Most High, where the King James says they bowed to receive it.
22. 50:22
    • The hearers are told to bless the God of all.
    • God does great things everywhere.
    • The King James says God only doeth wondrous things.
    • God exalts our days from the womb.
    • God deals with us according to his mercy.
23. 50:23
    • May he grant you joyfulness of heart.
    • May peace be in our days in Israel.
    • The peace is asked for according to the days of eternity.
    • The King James asks that the peace be for ever.
24. 50:24
    • May he confirm his mercy with us.
    • May he deliver us in his days.
25. 50:25
    • Two nations vex my soul.
    • The third is no nation.
26. 50:26
    • The first are those who sit on the mountain of Samaria.
    • The second are the Philistines.
    • The third is the foolish people that dwell in Shechem.
27. 50:27
    • Instruction of understanding and knowledge has been written in this book.
    • The writer is Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem.
    • The Greek names him Jesus son of Sirach Eleazar.
    • He poured forth wisdom out of his heart.
28. 50:28
    • Blessed is he that shall be exercised in these things.
    • He that lays them up in his heart shall become wise.
29. 50:29
    • If he does them, he shall be strong to all things.
    • The light of the Lord is his path.
    • The King James says the light of the Lord leads him.
    • The King James says he gives wisdom to the godly.
    • The King James blesses the name of the Lord for ever.
    • The King James closes with Amen, Amen.
    • A prayer of Jesus the son of Sirach follows.

Words Worth Explaining

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

50:1

Simon son of Onias is Simon II, high priest in Jerusalem around 219 to 196 BC, probably within the author's own memory. The high priest was the chief official of the temple, the only man permitted into its innermost room, and under Persian and Greek rule he was also the effective political head of the Jewish people. "The house" is the temple itself.

50:2

The temple stood on a raised platform. The walls described here are the massive supporting walls that held up that platform and enclosed the temple courts, built high enough to serve as fortification as well as foundation.

50:3

"The sea" was the name given to the enormous bronze basin that stood in Solomon's temple, roughly fifteen feet across, used for washing. The Greek can mean either that the new cistern was as big around as that famous basin, or that the cistern itself was a bronze-lined pool of that scale.

50:4

An attacking army in this period usually took a walled city by camping around it and cutting off food and water until it surrendered. Fortifying the city meant repairing walls and, above all, securing the water supply, which is why the cistern of verse 3 belongs to the same building program.

50:5

The Greek calls it "the house of the veil," the inner sanctuary screened off by a curtain. The moment described is the high priest emerging from the temple building into the courtyard where the people were waiting. Many readers take the scene to be the annual Day of Atonement, when the high priest alone entered the innermost room; the text itself does not say which service it was.

50:6

The morning star is the planet Venus, the brightest thing in the sky before sunrise.

50:8

Frankincense is a fragrant resin that oozes from cuts made in the bark of a desert tree; hardened into lumps, it was the main ingredient of the incense burned in the temple, and it was expensive.

50:9

A censer is a metal pan or bowl in which incense was burned on live coals, so that scented smoke rose from it.

50:10

A cypress is a tall, thin tree that stays green all year.

50:11

The high priest's vestments were a fixed set described in Exodus 28: a blue robe hung with gold bells and woven pomegranates, a gold-and-jewel breastpiece holding twelve stones for the twelve tribes, and a turban with a gold plate across the forehead. The "courtyard" is the open temple court where the altar stood and where the crowd could see him.

50:12

The portions are the cut pieces of the sacrificed animal, passed from priest to priest along a line and handed up to be burned on the altar. The hearth is the fire-bed on top of the altar. Lebanon (the King James spells it "Libanus") was famous for its forests of enormous cedars, the standard image for tall, straight timber; the other priests standing in a ring around him are the palm trunks.

50:13

Only descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses, could serve as priests at the altar. "The sons of Aaron" is the ordinary term for the whole priesthood, not for one man's children.

50:15

Wine was poured out at the base of the altar as a drink offering accompanying the sacrifice. "The blood of the grape" is an old poetic term for wine, used in Genesis and Deuteronomy. Calling the offering a sweet smell is standard offering language: the rising smoke is described as pleasing to God.

50:16

These were straight silver trumpets, each hammered from a single piece of metal, prescribed in Numbers 10 and sounded by priests at sacrifices and festivals. "A remembrance before the Most High" is a fixed phrase meaning that the sound was intended to bring the people to God's attention, not that it reminded the worshipers of anything.

50:17

Dropping face down on the ground was the normal bodily posture of worship before a king or before God, not an expression of unusual emotion.

50:20

The gesture is the priestly blessing of Numbers 6, spoken with both hands raised over the crowd. The last phrase is ambiguous in Greek: it can mean to rejoice or boast in God's name, and it can also be read as the high priest pronouncing the divine name aloud, which by this period was otherwise avoided.

50:21

The Greek manuscripts differ over who bows here. Some read "they bowed down," the people worshiping a second time, as the King James has it; others read "he bowed down," the high priest, before delivering the blessing.

50:22

"Lifts up our days from the womb" is a compressed Hebrew-style phrase: God raises a person up and makes his life great from birth onward.

50:25

Calling a group "no nation at all" is a deliberate insult in this kind of writing: it denies that they count as a people with a legitimate ancestry, rather than saying they do not exist.

50:26

Samaria and Shechem both point to the Samaritans, who worshiped at a rival temple on Mount Gerizim above Shechem and whom Judean writers of this period refused to count as fellow Israelites. The Philistines had occupied the coastal plain to the southwest since before the time of the kings and were the traditional enemy in Israel's older stories; by the author's day the name stood for the Greek-speaking cities of that coast.

50:27

"Jesus" here is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Yeshua or Joshua, a common name; it is the author signing his own book, which he wrote in Hebrew around 180 BC. This verse is the book's original closing signature. The chapter that follows was added on afterward.

50:29

"Amen" is a Hebrew word meaning "truly" or "so let it be," used to endorse a prayer that has just been spoken. The closing line and the title attached to it are a copyist's addition and vary from manuscript to manuscript; the King James follows a Greek text that carries them.