Wisdom writing · Hebrew, Jerusalem, c. 195-175 BC
Sirach
The one book on this shelf whose author signs his name — a Jerusalem teacher handing his students everything he knows.
- 51Chapters
- 1,393Verses
- HebrewOriginal language
Written: c. 196-175 BCE (Hebrew); Greek translation by grandson c. 132 BCE
King James Version Apocrypha (1769 standardized text) · public domain
Read Sirach
King James Version + Apocrypha (standardized 1769 text), eBible.org USFX edition of the Crosswire/eBible KJV — Public Domain
Plain answers first
What this book is
This is the longest book of the Apocrypha and the only one that names its author: Jesus son of Sirach, a scribe of Jerusalem who taught in the years just before the Maccabean crisis, probably between 195 and 175 BC. His grandson carried the book to Egypt and translated it into Greek around 132 BC, adding a preface that apologizes for how hard translation is. The church used it so heavily in teaching new believers that it picked up the Latin nickname Ecclesiasticus, the church's book.
Most of it is proverbs, gathered in loose clusters, on everything a young man of that world had to handle: speech, money, friendship, work, food, doctors, grief, servants, and the honoring of parents (3:1-16). The section on the tongue is famous — "many have fallen by the edge of the sword: but not so many as have fallen by the tongue" (28:18). Chapter 24 stands apart: Wisdom rises in the assembly and praises herself, then is identified with the book of the covenant, the law of Moses — Wisdom pitching her tent in Israel.
The last section, chapters 44 to 50, is a roll call. "Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us" (44:1), and then Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, ending with the high priest Simon coming out of the sanctuary in his robes like a morning star. It is the first surviving Jewish history told through biography.
The Hebrew original was lost for nearly a thousand years, and then it came back. Beginning in 1896, leaves of the Hebrew Ben Sira turned up in the Cairo Geniza, the storeroom of discarded manuscripts in an old Cairo synagogue, where Solomon Schechter recognized the first one. Fragments later appeared at Qumran, and in 1964 a scroll of the closing chapters was excavated at Masada. About two-thirds of the Hebrew text has now been recovered.
The grandson's preface is itself a landmark. It speaks of the law, the prophets, and the other books of the fathers — the earliest clear witness we have to the threefold shape of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The canon question, honestly
Why it stands outside the 66
Jewish teachers knew this book and loved it — it is quoted in the Talmud, sometimes with a formula normally reserved for Scripture — and still it was not received into the Hebrew canon. Jerome knew the Hebrew existed and set the book among those the church reads for building people up rather than for establishing doctrine. The Reformers kept that line, and the King James of 1611 printed it in the Apocrypha; the Church of England's sixth Article names Ecclesiasticus among the books read for example of life and instruction of manners but not to establish doctrine. Trent made it canonical for Roman Catholics in 1546. It is worth saying that Ben Sira never claims to be writing Scripture: he is a teacher passing on what he has learned.
Why a student of the 66 should still open it
Why read it — and how
For plain usable wisdom this is the closest thing outside the canon to Proverbs, and the church has always known it. The strongest New Testament resonance is with James: both hammer the tongue (Sirach 28:12-26 beside James 3:1-12), both warn against the double heart (Sirach 1:28 beside James 1:8), both say be swift to hear (Sirach 5:11 beside James 1:19), and both insist God tempts no one — Sirach 15:11-12, "say not thou, It is through the Lord that I fell away," stands remarkably close to James 1:13. Scholars argue whether James read Sirach or whether both drew on the same body of Jewish teaching; either way the parallel is real. Many readers also hear Sirach 51:23-27, with its call to put your neck under the yoke and let your soul receive instruction, behind the invitation of Matthew 11:28-30 — though there Jesus does what no scribe would dare: he offers his own yoke and his own rest. And chapter 24, Wisdom tabernacling in Israel, is the background music behind John 1:14.
Do not read it straight through. It is a teacher's notebook, not an argument, so take a chapter at a time the way you would take Proverbs and let the lines that sting stay with you. Keep a hand on the New Testament while you read: Ben Sira's world runs on honor and shame and a hard hand with sons and daughters, and some of his counsel about women and servants belongs to his century rather than to the gospel. Save chapters 44 to 50 for last, and read them aloud.
Doors into the text
Key moments
All wisdom comes from the Lord, and the fear of the Lord is its beginning.
The fullest ancient Jewish expansion of the fifth commandment, including aging parents.
Wisdom praises herself in the assembly and settles in Jacob as the law of Moses.
More have fallen by the tongue than by the sword — the chapter behind James 3.
Honor the doctor, God made him; then the vocation of the man who studies the law.
The roll call of Israel's fathers begins, and runs to the high priest in his glory.
The disagreement is old — here it is plainly
Where the traditions stand
| Tradition | Where this book stands |
|---|---|
| jewish | not canonical, but quoted approvingly by rabbis (with the formula 'as it is written in the book of Ben Sira') in the Talmud and recovered Hebrew fragments at Cairo Geniza, Masada, and Qumran indicate it was read seriously well into late antiquity |
| anglican | apocryphal — read for example of life and instruction of manners |
| catholic | canonical (deuterocanonical) |
| protestant | non-canonical; widely respected as edifying literature, often included in Reformation-era Bibles as an appendix |
| eastern orthodox | canonical (anagignoskomena) |
| oriental orthodox | canonical |