Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Sirach 35 about?

Genuine offering is Ben Sira's theme, as he teaches that keeping the law is itself a manifold sacrifice, that to forsake unrighteousness is atonement, and that a man should not come before the Lord empty-handed but give cheerfully as he has been blessed. He then proclaims the Lord as a judge who shows no partiality, who will not slight the plea of the orphan or the widow, and whose ear the prayer of the humble reaches, piercing the clouds. He looks to the day when God will repay the nations, judge righteously, and comfort His people. The chapter carries the fear of the Lord into worship and hope alike, binding acceptable offering to just living and patient trust in God's vindication.

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 35
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 35

Sirach Chapter 35
35
← Chapter 34 Chapter 36 →
What is Sirach 35 about?

Genuine offering is Ben Sira's theme, as he teaches that keeping the law is itself a manifold sacrifice, that to forsake unrighteousness is atonement, and that a man should not come before the Lord empty-handed but give cheerfully as he has been blessed. He then proclaims the Lord as a judge who shows no partiality, who will not slight the plea of the orphan or the widow, and whose ear the prayer of the humble reaches, piercing the clouds. He looks to the day when God will repay the nations, judge righteously, and comfort His people. The chapter carries the fear of the Lord into worship and hope alike, binding acceptable offering to just living and patient trust in God's vindication.