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 6 about?

Friendship and the pursuit of wisdom occupy the chapter, which first exposes the fair-weather friend who deserts in trouble and then praises the faithful friend as a sturdy shelter and a treasure beyond price. Ben Sira urges the reader to test companions carefully and to prize the few who prove loyal. He then depicts wisdom as a discipline to be embraced like fetters and a yoke, harsh at first but yielding rest and joy to those who submit. Both counsels teach that lasting goods are won through patient reverence, not ease.

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 6
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 6

Sirach Chapter 6
6
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What is Sirach 6 about?

Friendship and the pursuit of wisdom occupy the chapter, which first exposes the fair-weather friend who deserts in trouble and then praises the faithful friend as a sturdy shelter and a treasure beyond price. Ben Sira urges the reader to test companions carefully and to prize the few who prove loyal. He then depicts wisdom as a discipline to be embraced like fetters and a yoke, harsh at first but yielding rest and joy to those who submit. Both counsels teach that lasting goods are won through patient reverence, not ease.