Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Historic voices 1 ▾
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1× 1
Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Sirach 48 about?

Prophets and a faithful king fill the next portion of the honor roll. Elijah is praised as one who arose like fire, shut up the heavens, called down flame, raised the dead, and was taken up in the whirlwind, with the expectation that he would return; Elisha, filled with his spirit, worked wonders and prophesied even from the grave. The account then turns to Hezekiah, who did what was right, fortified Jerusalem and secured its water, and to Isaiah the prophet, great and faithful, through whom the LORD struck the camp of Sennacherib and comforted the mourners of Zion. Ben Sira sets these against a people who would not repent, so that the fidelity of prophet and king stands as a summons to 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 48
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 48

Sirach Chapter 48
48
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What is Sirach 48 about?

Prophets and a faithful king fill the next portion of the honor roll. Elijah is praised as one who arose like fire, shut up the heavens, called down flame, raised the dead, and was taken up in the whirlwind, with the expectation that he would return; Elisha, filled with his spirit, worked wonders and prophesied even from the grave. The account then turns to Hezekiah, who did what was right, fortified Jerusalem and secured its water, and to Isaiah the prophet, great and faithful, through whom the LORD struck the camp of Sennacherib and comforted the mourners of Zion. Ben Sira sets these against a people who would not repent, so that the fidelity of prophet and king stands as a summons to the fear of the LORD.