Texts in Conversation
James echoes the language of Sirach by urging care for orphans and widows as a sign of genuine devotion. Both connect compassion for the vulnerable with imitating God’s character in the Torah, portraying it as an essential expression of faithful living.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Sirach 4:10
Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
Deuterocanon
5 Don’t turn your eye away from one who asks. Give no occasion to a man to curse you. 6 For if he curses you in the bitterness of his soul, he who made him will hear his supplication. 7 Endear yourself to the assembly. Bow your head to a great man. 8 Incline your ear to a poor man. Answer him with peaceful words in humility. 9 Deliver him who is wronged from the hand of him who wrongs him; Don’t be hesitant in giving judgment. 10 Be as a father to the fatherless, and like a husband to their mother. So you will be as a son of the Most High, and he will love you more than your mother does.
Date: 195–180 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
James 1:27
New Testament
23 For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone who gazes at his own face in a mirror. 24 For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets what sort of person he was. 25 But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out—he will be blessed in what he does. 26 If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their adversity and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
Date: 80–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... After castigating the one who does not bridle his tongue as a practitioner of a vain religion in 1:26, James goes on to describe true religion as characterized by two elements: visiting/caring for orphans and widows in their distress, and keeping oneself unstained from the world ... it seems to me that James owes even more to OT passages referring to God as Father than outlined above. Besides providing him with the designation of God as Father (to the fatherless) and a concern for orphans and widows, Psalm 67 (LXX) has other themes which recur in James 1:27. Thus James’ (worship of God expressed in religious service or cult) may recall the singing of praises to God in joyful worship ... the connection has been made already before James’s time. Thus Sirach 4:10 reads, (be a father to the orphans, and be like a husband to their mother; you shall then be like a son of the Most High, and he will love you more than does your mother) ..."
Esther Yue L. Ng, “Father-God Language and Old Testament Allusions in James,” TynBul 54.2 (2003): 41–54.
* 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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