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 9 about?

Caution in relationships governs the chapter, which counsels the reader against jealousy toward his own wife and against entanglement with dangerous or immoral women. It urges loyalty to old friends, whom no new acquaintance can replace, and wariness toward the powerful. The closing lines commend keeping company with the wise and the God-fearing, letting conversation dwell among those who keep the law. Discernment about companions is offered as a safeguard for reverent living.

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 9
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 9

Sirach Chapter 9
9
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What is Sirach 9 about?

Caution in relationships governs the chapter, which counsels the reader against jealousy toward his own wife and against entanglement with dangerous or immoral women. It urges loyalty to old friends, whom no new acquaintance can replace, and wariness toward the powerful. The closing lines commend keeping company with the wise and the God-fearing, letting conversation dwell among those who keep the law. Discernment about companions is offered as a safeguard for reverent living.