Texts in Conversation
Revelation 18:3 echoes Sirach 26:29 in portraying merchants as linked to injustice. Sirach describes the merchant as unable to avoid sin, while Revelation includes merchants among those who become rich through corrupt association with imperial luxury.
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Sirach 26:29
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
27 [A loud-voiced and garrulous wife is like a trumpet sounding the charge,] [and every person like this lives in the anarchy of war.] 28 At two things my heart is grieved, and because of a third anger comes over me: a warrior in want through poverty, intelligent men who are treated contemptuously, and a man who turns back from righteousness to sin -- the Lord will prepare him for the sword! 29 A merchant can hardly keep from wrongdoing, nor is a tradesman innocent of sin.
Date: 195-175 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Revelation 18:3
New Testament
2 He shouted with a powerful voice:“Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detested beast. 3 For all the nations have fallen from the wine of her immoral passion, and the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have gotten rich from the power of her sensual behavior.” 4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, so you will not take part in her sins and so you will not receive her plagues,
Date: 92-96 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The only other place emporos appears in the New Testament is in the book of Revelation, and the description is not complimentary. Depicting the Roman Empire as a whore, Revelation 18:3 connects the “kings of the earth” who have “committed fornication with her” to the “merchants of the earth” who “have waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” ... Merchants receive similarly dismissive treatment in the Septuagint ... emporoi sell Joseph into slavery (Genesis 37:28), fill Solomon’s overextended coffers (1 Kings 10:15, 28; 2 Chronicles 1:16), sell other Israelites into slavery (1 Maccabees 3:41; 2 Maccabees 8:34), and epitomize transgression. As Sirach 26:29 states, “A merchant (emporos) can hardly keep from wrongdoing, nor is a tradesman (kapelos) innocent of sin.” Merchants are not to be trusted to provide honest responses (Sirach 37:11), although the sage does state that one should not be ashamed of taking profit from them (42:5) ..."
Levine, Amy-Jill
Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi
(pp. 152-153) HarperOne, 2014
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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