Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
← →
⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Sirach 13 about?

The gulf between rich and poor frames the chapter, which asks what fellowship a clay pot can have with an iron kettle that will shatter it. Ben Sira observes how the rich exploit the poor and boast while the humble must plead and apologize, and how the powerful befriend others only for their use. He notes that every creature keeps to its own kind, and that like is drawn to like. The sober picture warns the lowly to keep their dignity and trust God rather than the favor of the mighty.

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 13
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 13

Sirach Chapter 13
13
← Chapter 12 Chapter 14 →
What is Sirach 13 about?

The gulf between rich and poor frames the chapter, which asks what fellowship a clay pot can have with an iron kettle that will shatter it. Ben Sira observes how the rich exploit the poor and boast while the humble must plead and apologize, and how the powerful befriend others only for their use. He notes that every creature keeps to its own kind, and that like is drawn to like. The sober picture warns the lowly to keep their dignity and trust God rather than the favor of the mighty.