Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Sirach 49 about?

The remembrance nears its end with the last kings, the prophets, and the builders of the return. Josiah's memory is called sweet as incense, righteous where most kings forsook the law; Jeremiah, Ezekiel with his vision of the glory, and the Twelve prophets are recalled; and the rebuilders, Zerubbabel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, and Nehemiah who raised the walls, are honored for restoring temple and city. Ben Sira then looks back past them all to Enoch, Joseph, Shem, Seth, and Adam, glorious above every living thing. Gathering the faithful from the ruin of exile to the first man, the chapter presents the whole line of those who kept covenant as worthy of honor and imitation.

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 49
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 49

Sirach Chapter 49
49
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What is Sirach 49 about?

The remembrance nears its end with the last kings, the prophets, and the builders of the return. Josiah's memory is called sweet as incense, righteous where most kings forsook the law; Jeremiah, Ezekiel with his vision of the glory, and the Twelve prophets are recalled; and the rebuilders, Zerubbabel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, and Nehemiah who raised the walls, are honored for restoring temple and city. Ben Sira then looks back past them all to Enoch, Joseph, Shem, Seth, and Adam, glorious above every living thing. Gathering the faithful from the ruin of exile to the first man, the chapter presents the whole line of those who kept covenant as worthy of honor and imitation.