Texts in Conversation

Sirach 18:1 and Revelation 4:11 both refer to God as the eternal creator, using stock language that highlights his authority over the universe. Phrases describing divine power, creation, and eternal life echo a shared liturgy and interpretive tradition.
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Sirach 18:1

Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
1 He who lives forever created the whole universe; 2 the Lord alone is just. 3 He steers the world with the span of his hand, and all things obey his will; for he is king of all things by his power, separating among them the holy things from the profane.
Date: 195-175 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates) Source

Revelation 4:11

New Testament
9 And whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the one who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders throw themselves to the ground before the one who sits on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever, and they offer their crowns before his throne, saying: 11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, since you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created!
Date: 92-96 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates) Source
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Notes and References

#3808
"... The presence of such a Daniel 4:35-37 influence in verse 11 would be explainable because of the Danielic influence and echoes already seen in verses 9-11, especially the double occurrence of the Daniel 4:34 allusions in verses 9-10. In fact, the language of Daniel 4:35-37 may be appended by John - consciously or unconsciously - to the divine attribute of eternity because this is the hymnic pattern in the Daniel (9, Masoretic) text. Whether John is drawing from a tradition which had already combined these two LXX and Theodotion (or Masoretic) readings, or whether he knew them both in some textual form and combined them consciously, we are not able to say with certainty. Perhaps the former is the case, since the parallels from Qumran, Wisdom and the Psalms may represent some such circulating tradition, and such hymnic language would have been susceptible of easy adaption for repeated use in early Jewish and Christian liturgy. On the other hand, the Danielic framework of Revelation 4-5 may point to the latter alternative ..."

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