Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Historic voices 1 ▾
Fides et Ratio 1× 14
Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Sirach 1 about?

In Jerusalem, a lifetime before Antiochus and the Maccabean revolt, a scribe named Ben Sira gathers the wisdom of the fathers and opens where all wisdom opens: with the LORD. Written near 180 BC and carried into Greek by his grandson, the book has been read and prized across the whole tradition, received as Scripture by Roman Catholics and the Orthodox and set apart from the canon by the Reformers. All wisdom comes from the LORD and is with Him forever, created before all things, deep past counting as the sand of the sea and the days of eternity, poured out by Him upon all His works and upon those who love Him. Fear of the LORD carries the weight of the chapter: it is named the beginning of wisdom, its fullness, its crown, and its root. The instruction then turns on the reader: come to that fear with no divided heart, and do not exalt yourself, lest you fall.

Historical backdrop

Ben Sira taught in Jerusalem around 180 BC, in the last calm before the storm. Judea had passed from Ptolemaic to Seleucid hands, Greek ways pressed in from every side, and the second temple still stood in the glory the high priest Simon had restored, the Simon whose splendor the book remembers. Within a generation Antiochus would defile that temple, and the grandson who carried the work to Egypt and turned it into Greek wrote in the aftermath, for the Jews of Alexandria.

The Church Fathers on Sirach 1
Deuterocanon (Catholic & Orthodox) · Accepted as canonical Scripture by the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and included in the original 1611 KJV (between the Old and New Testaments). Not in the Protestant 66-book canon. Read with the same care you bring to other Scripture, conscious that Protestants and Catholics weigh its authority differently.

Sirach 1

Sirach Chapter 1
1
Chapter 2 →
What is Sirach 1 about?

In Jerusalem, a lifetime before Antiochus and the Maccabean revolt, a scribe named Ben Sira gathers the wisdom of the fathers and opens where all wisdom opens: with the LORD. Written near 180 BC and carried into Greek by his grandson, the book has been read and prized across the whole tradition, received as Scripture by Roman Catholics and the Orthodox and set apart from the canon by the Reformers. All wisdom comes from the LORD and is with Him forever, created before all things, deep past counting as the sand of the sea and the days of eternity, poured out by Him upon all His works and upon those who love Him. Fear of the LORD carries the weight of the chapter: it is named the beginning of wisdom, its fullness, its crown, and its root. The instruction then turns on the reader: come to that fear with no divided heart, and do not exalt yourself, lest you fall.