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 26 about?

Turning from the evil wife to the good, Ben Sira calls a worthy wife a gift of the Lord who doubles the days of her husband and makes his face cheerful in every season. He praises modesty, self-command, and a quiet spirit, setting them against the shameless and headstrong woman who brings grief. The chapter then lists the things that make the heart afraid and closes with a warning that a merchant is scarcely kept clear of wrongdoing and a tradesman rarely free of sin. Offered to householders in Ben Sira's Jerusalem, its counsel binds the ordering of marriage and commerce alike to reverence for God.

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 26
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 26

Sirach Chapter 26
26
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What is Sirach 26 about?

Turning from the evil wife to the good, Ben Sira calls a worthy wife a gift of the Lord who doubles the days of her husband and makes his face cheerful in every season. He praises modesty, self-command, and a quiet spirit, setting them against the shameless and headstrong woman who brings grief. The chapter then lists the things that make the heart afraid and closes with a warning that a merchant is scarcely kept clear of wrongdoing and a tradesman rarely free of sin. Offered to householders in Ben Sira's Jerusalem, its counsel binds the ordering of marriage and commerce alike to reverence for God.