Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Sirach 16 about?

Warning against pride in numerous offspring, the chapter teaches that one godly child is better than a thousand ungodly ones. Ben Sira recalls God's judgment on the ancient giants, on Lot's neighbors, and on the rebellious, insisting that no sinner escapes His reach. Against those who imagine they can hide from the LORD, he affirms that God's eyes range over all His works, which He ordered from the beginning. Certainty of divine judgment and knowledge presses the reader toward the fear of the LORD.

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 16
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 16

Sirach Chapter 16
16
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What is Sirach 16 about?

Warning against pride in numerous offspring, the chapter teaches that one godly child is better than a thousand ungodly ones. Ben Sira recalls God's judgment on the ancient giants, on Lot's neighbors, and on the rebellious, insisting that no sinner escapes His reach. Against those who imagine they can hide from the LORD, he affirms that God's eyes range over all His works, which He ordered from the beginning. Certainty of divine judgment and knowledge presses the reader toward the fear of the LORD.