Ecclesiasticus 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is a string of warnings and pieces of advice. It cautions a man about jealousy toward his own wife and about involvement with other women, and it tells him not to envy sinners or take pleasure in what the ungodly enjoy. It warns him to keep his distance from a man with the power to kill. It closes by telling him to keep company with wise and upright people, and it notes how a craftsman and a ruler are each judged.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • The hearer is told not to be jealous over the wife of his bosom.
   • The hearer is told not to teach her an evil lesson that will turn against himself.
2. 9:2
   • The hearer is told not to give his soul to a woman.
   • Giving his soul to a woman would let her trample upon his strength.
3. 9:3
   • The hearer is told not to go to meet a woman who acts as a prostitute.
   • Meeting such a woman risks falling into her snares.
4. 9:4
   • The hearer is told not to spend much time with a woman who is a singer.
   • Doing so risks being caught by her devices.
5. 9:5
   • The hearer is told not to gaze at a virgin.
   • Gazing at a virgin risks stumbling and incurring the penalties owed for her.
6. 9:6
   • The hearer is told not to give his soul to prostitutes.
   • Giving his soul to prostitutes would cost him his inheritance.
7. 9:7
   • The hearer is told not to look about him in the streets of the city.
   • The hearer is told not to wander in the city's deserted places.
8. 9:8
   • The hearer is told to turn his eye away from a beautiful woman.
   • The hearer is told not to gaze at beauty that belongs to another.
   • Many have been led astray by the beauty of a woman.
   • By such beauty love is kindled like a fire.
9. 9:9
   • The hearer is told not to sit with another man's wife at all.
   • The hearer is told not to sit down with her in his arms.
   • The hearer is told not to feast and drink wine with her at shared expense.
   • Doing these things risks his soul turning aside toward her.
   • Through his spirit he would slip into destruction.
10. 9:10
    • The hearer is told not to forsake an old friend.
    • A new friend is not equal to an old one.
    • New wine is like a new friend.
    • When the wine has aged, it will be drunk with gladness.
11. 9:11
    • The hearer is told not to envy the glory of a sinner.
    • The hearer does not know what the sinner's downfall will be.
12. 9:12
    • The hearer is told not to take pleasure in what pleases the ungodly.
    • The hearer is told to remember that the ungodly will not be held guiltless all the way to the grave.
13. 9:13
    • The hearer is told to keep far from a man who has power to kill.
    • Keeping far from such a man means the hearer will not have to suspect the fear of death.
    • If the hearer does come near such a man, he is told to commit no offense.
    • Committing an offense could cause the man to take away his life.
    • The hearer is told to know that he walks in the midst of snares.
    • The hearer is told that he walks upon the battlements of cities.
14. 9:14
    • The hearer is told to estimate his neighbours as well as he is able.
    • The hearer is told to take counsel with the wise.
15. 9:15
    • The hearer is told to let his reasoning be with men of understanding.
    • The hearer is told to let all his discourse be in the law of the Most High.
16. 9:16
    • The hearer is told to let righteous men be those who eat at his table.
    • The hearer is told to let his boasting be in the fear of the Lord.
17. 9:17
    • A work is praised because of the hand of skilled workmen.
    • The ruler of a people is wise in his speech.
18. 9:18
    • A talkative man is feared in his city.
    • The man who is rash in his speech will be hated.

Words Worth Explaining

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

9:1

This chapter is a teacher's advice to a young male student, which is why every warning is addressed to a man. "The wife of thy bosom" is an old idiom meaning simply your own wife, the woman who shares your bed. The second half is compressed: the warning is that groundless jealousy puts the idea in her head, so that the husband ends up teaching her the very thing he fears and it is used against him.

9:2

"Give not thy soul" means hand yourself over, surrender control of yourself; "soul" here is the whole person, not a spiritual part of one. "Substance" in 1611 English meant property and wealth, but the Greek word behind it can mean strength or high ground, and the picture is of a victor planting a foot on what has been conquered.

9:3

"Harlot" is the King James word for a prostitute.

9:4

Women who sang and played at banquets were hired entertainers, and in this period they were widely assumed to be available for sex as well, which is why a warning about a singer is a warning about seduction. "Attempts" in 1611 English meant ventures or moves made on someone, not efforts in the modern sense.

9:5

"Maid" means a young unmarried woman, not a servant. "Those things that are precious in her" is obscure in the King James; the Greek word means penalties, and refers to the legal compensation a man owed for seducing an unbetrothed girl, the bride price paid to her father, with marriage required in some cases (Exodus 22:16-17; Deuteronomy 22:28-29).

9:6

The inheritance is the family's land and property, passed from father to son and meant to stay in the family line. Losing it to prostitutes means losing the household's permanent security, not merely spending cash.

9:7

The verse pictures a man walking the city scanning it for an encounter. The "solitary place" is a deserted quarter of the same city, the sort of place where such a meeting would go unseen.

9:8

The word the King James renders "love" is the Greek word for burning desire, not affection or devotion.

9:9

At a formal meal guests reclined on couches rather than sitting on chairs, so "sit down with her in thine arms" describes lying beside her at table; the Greek manuscripts differ here, and some read something like "lean on your elbow with her." "At the wine" means at the drinking that followed the meal.

9:10

New wine straight from the press was raw and still working, and had to age before it was good to drink. The proverb turns on that fact: like the wine, the friendship is worth having only after time has been put into it.

9:11

"Glory" in the King James usually means visible splendor: wealth, rank, display. "What shall be his end" means how his life will finish, not what he is thinking.

9:12

The Greek can be read two ways, and the King James keeps the ambiguity: either that punishment overtakes such people before they die, or that it stays with them all the way to the grave.

9:13

This is someone with legal power to put a person to death, a ruler or official; in this world capital justice belonged to the king and his officers, and giving offense could be fatal. "Make no fault" means commit no offense. "Presently" in 1611 English meant at once, immediately, not "at the present time." The "battlements" are the walkway along the top of the city wall, high and narrow and unrailed, so the image is of walking where a single wrong step is the end of you.

9:14

"Guess" in 1611 English meant to estimate or size up, forming as accurate a judgment as the evidence allows. It does not mean idle guesswork.

9:15

"The law of the most High" is the Torah, the five books of Moses and the body of instruction in them. In this book it is the normal subject of study and conversation among the wise.

9:16

"The fear of the Lord" is this book's recurring phrase for reverence toward God, an awed respect that governs how a person behaves, rather than fright. "Glorying" means boasting, the thing you take pride in publicly.

9:17

An "artificer" is a skilled worker who makes things by hand, like a carpenter, a potter or a metalworker. You judge one by looking at the work he turns out.

9:18

"A man of an ill tongue" translates a Greek word for a man of loose, unrestrained speech, a babbler. In a small city under foreign rule, careless talk could bring the authorities down on neighbors, which is why such a man is called a danger.