Ecclesiasticus 8: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is a list of warnings about the people to avoid crossing: the powerful, the rich, the talkative, the coarse, the lawless, the reckless, the hot-tempered, the foolish, and the stranger. Mixed in are reasons to hold back from scorn, since we all deserve punishment, some of us grow old, and all die. Two verses turn the other way and urge the reader to listen to the talk of the wise and of the older generation.

Claim by Claim

1. 8:1
   • Do not strive with a mighty man.
   • Striving with a mighty man risks falling into his hands.
2. 8:2
   • Do not be at variance with a rich man.
   • Contending with a rich man risks his outweighing you.
   • Gold has destroyed many.
   • Gold has perverted the hearts of kings.
3. 8:3
   • Do not strive with a man that is full of tongue.
   • Do not heap wood upon such a man's fire.
4. 8:4
   • Do not jest with a rude man.
   • Jesting with a rude man risks your ancestors being disgraced.
5. 8:5
   • Do not reproach a man who turns away from sin.
   • Remember that we are all worthy of punishment.
6. 8:6
   • Do not dishonour a man in his old age.
   • Some of us also grow old.
7. 8:7
   • Do not rejoice over your greatest enemy when he is dead.
   • Remember that we all die.
8. 8:8
   • Do not despise the discourse of the wise.
   • Acquaint yourself with the proverbs of the wise.
   • From the wise you will learn instruction.
   • From the wise you will learn how to serve great men with ease.
9. 8:9
   • Do not miss the discourse of the elders.
   • The elders themselves learned from their fathers.
   • From the elders you will learn understanding.
   • From the elders you will learn to give an answer when there is need.
10. 8:10
    • Do not kindle the coals of a sinner.
    • Kindling a sinner's coals risks your being burnt with the flame of his fire.
11. 8:11
    • Do not rise up in anger at the presence of an injurious person.
    • Rising up at such a person risks his lying in wait to entrap you in your words.
12. 8:12
    • Do not lend to a man mightier than yourself.
    • If you do lend to such a man, count the loan as lost.
13. 8:13
    • Do not be surety beyond your power.
    • If you are surety, take care to pay it.
14. 8:14
    • Do not go to law with a judge.
    • They will judge in the judge's favour according to his honour.
15. 8:15
    • Do not travel on the way with a bold fellow.
    • Travelling with a bold fellow risks his becoming grievous to you.
    • A bold fellow will act according to his own will.
    • You will perish with him through his folly.
16. 8:16
    • Do not strive with an angry man.
    • Do not go with an angry man into a solitary place.
    • Bloodshed is as nothing in the sight of an angry man.
    • Where there is no help, he will overthrow you.
17. 8:17
    • Do not consult with a fool.
    • A fool cannot keep counsel.
18. 8:18
    • Do no secret thing in the presence of a stranger.
    • You do not know what the stranger will bring forth.
19. 8:19
    • Do not open your heart to every man.
    • Opening your heart to every man risks his requiting you with a shrewd turn.

Words Worth Explaining

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

8:1

This chapter is a string of short maxims, nearly all in the form "do not...", of the kind a teacher set before young men learning how to conduct themselves in public life. "A mighty man" is not a physically strong man but one with power, wealth and connections, and "fall into his hands" means to end up entirely at his mercy, with no one willing to step in on your behalf.

8:2

The Greek verb behind "overweigh thee" comes from the weighing scales. Since silver and gold were paid out by weight rather than counted as coins, the image is of a rich man's money tipping the balance against you, and so of his simply outweighing and overpowering you in any contest.

8:3

"Full of tongue" is a literal rendering of a Greek word for a loud, endlessly talking man. Heaping wood on a fire was a standing proverb for feeding a quarrel that would otherwise burn out on its own.

8:4

In 1611 "rude" meant unpolished, uneducated, coarse in manners, not merely impolite. The point about ancestors is that trading jokes with such a man ends with him insulting your family, and in this culture a family's honor included its dead, so an insult that reached your forebears was the deepest wound available.

8:5

"Reproach" here means to publicly throw a man's past back in his face. The warning is against shaming someone who is in the act of leaving that past behind.

8:6

Old people were honored as the keepers of the family's memory and teaching. Treating an old man as worthless was a serious insult.

8:7

The Greek text of this book survives in a shorter and a longer form. The longer form, which the King James follows, reads "thy greatest enemy being dead"; the shorter reads simply that you should not rejoice over anyone who has died. The saying is close kin to Proverbs 24:17.

8:8

"The discourse of the wise" means the teaching of the sages, handed on as collections of proverbs to be memorized. The last phrase shows who this book was written for: young men being trained as scribes and officials, who would spend their working lives attending on powerful patrons, and for whom being at ease in the presence of great men was a practical job skill.

8:9

The "elders" are the older men of the community, whose authority rested on age and on what they had received from their own fathers; instruction passed orally down the generations. "To give answer as need requireth" means knowing the right thing to say at the moment it is called for, a prized ability for someone who might at any time be questioned by a superior.

8:10

Coals from an old fire can look dead but still hold heat. Stirring them brings the flames back. Bothering a troublemaker works the same way.

8:11

The Greek here can be read two ways: either "do not get up and walk out from the presence of an insolent man" or "do not rise up in anger against him." The King James took the second; the sense of the first would be that storming off gives offense. The last phrase is literally "lie in ambush for your mouth," picturing your own hasty words stored up and later quoted against you.

8:12

A debt owed by a more powerful man was in practice unenforceable. Pressing him for repayment meant going before judges who shared his standing, so the loan is written off in advance as the price of not making an enemy.

8:13

To be "surety" is to guarantee someone else's debt, promising the lender that you will pay if the borrower does not. In this world a guarantor who could not pay could lose his goods, his land, and in the harshest cases his freedom or his children's, which is why the advice is to assume from the start that you will be the one paying.

8:14

"Honour" here means public standing in the community rather than personal integrity. Judges were drawn from the circle of leading men, and a case against one of their number would be heard by his peers, who would rule in favor of the rank he held.

8:15

The Greek word behind "bold fellow" means reckless or headstrong rather than brave. Roads in this period ran for days through open country with bandits and no protection, so a traveling party had to act as one body; a companion who did as he pleased put everyone with him in danger.

8:16

"A solitary place" translates a Greek word for wilderness, the empty country away from towns and villages. The point is not loneliness but the absence of witnesses and of anyone to call to for help. "Blood is as nothing in his sight" means that killing costs him nothing.

8:17

"Keep counsel" in 1611 English means keep a confidence. The objection to the fool is not that his advice is poor but that he cannot hold his tongue about having been asked.

8:18

"What he will bring forth" is deliberately open: you do not know what the stranger will produce out of what he has seen, whether he will simply repeat it or make some use of it against you.

8:19

In 1611 "shrewd" meant malicious or harmful, close to our "shrewish"; a "shrewd turn" was a bad turn, an injury done to you, and had nothing to do with cleverness. The Greek of the second half is unsettled: some manuscripts give the sense the King James takes, while others read something closer to "and do not let him return you a favor," that is, do not put yourself in his debt.