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 39 about?

The scribe devoted to the law fills the opening, as Ben Sira portrays him searching out the wisdom of the ancients and the meaning of prophecies, serving among rulers, traveling foreign lands, rising early to seek the Lord, and being filled with a spirit of understanding so that his memory will not fade. From this portrait he breaks into praise: all the works of the Lord are good and supply every need in its season, so that no one may say one thing is worse than another, for each has its purpose, even winds and fire and the punishments prepared for the wicked. Everyone, therefore, should give thanks and bless the name of the Lord. The chapter crowns the fear of the Lord with confident praise, teaching that God's ordering of creation and of learning is wholly good.

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 39
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 39

Sirach Chapter 39
39
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What is Sirach 39 about?

The scribe devoted to the law fills the opening, as Ben Sira portrays him searching out the wisdom of the ancients and the meaning of prophecies, serving among rulers, traveling foreign lands, rising early to seek the Lord, and being filled with a spirit of understanding so that his memory will not fade. From this portrait he breaks into praise: all the works of the Lord are good and supply every need in its season, so that no one may say one thing is worse than another, for each has its purpose, even winds and fire and the punishments prepared for the wicked. Everyone, therefore, should give thanks and bless the name of the Lord. The chapter crowns the fear of the Lord with confident praise, teaching that God's ordering of creation and of learning is wholly good.