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Sirach

Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus

About this book
Chapter 36

1 Have mercy upon us, O Lord the God of all, and look at us with favor;⁠ 2 and send your fear upon all the nations.⁠ 3 Lift up your hand against the foreign nations and let them see your mighty power.⁠ 4 As you showed your holiness in us before them, so be magnified in them before us.⁠ 5 Let them know you, as we also have known you, that there is no God but only you, O God. 6 Show new signs, and work various wonders. 7 Glorify your hand and your right arm. 8 Raise up indignation and pour out wrath. 9 Take away the adversary and destroy the enemy. 10 Hasten the time and remember your oath. Let them declare your mighty works. 11 Let him who escapes be devoured by raging fire. May those who harm your people find destruction. 12 Crush the heads of the rulers of the enemies who say, “There is no one but ourselves.” 13 Gather all the tribes of Jacob together, 16 and take them for your inheritance, as from the beginning. 17 O Lord, have mercy upon the people that is called by your name, and upon Israel, whom you likened to a firstborn. 18 Have compassion upon the city of your sanctuary, Jerusalem, the place of your rest. 19 Fill Zion. Exalt your oracles and fill your people with your glory. 20 Give testimony to those who were your creatures in the beginning, and fulfill the prophecies that have been spoken in your name. 21 Reward those who wait for you, and men will put their trust in your prophets. 22 Listen, O Lord, to the prayer of your servants, according to the blessing of Aaron concerning your people; and all those who are on the earth will know that you are the Lord, the eternal God.⁠

The Choice of Companions and Counselors

23 The belly will eat any food, but one food is better than another. 24 The mouth tastes game taken in hunting, so does an understanding heart detect false speech. 25 A contrary heart will cause heaviness. A man of experience will pay him back. 26 A woman will receive any man, but one daughter is better than another. 27 The beauty of a woman cheers the face. A man desires nothing more. 28 If kindness and humility are on her tongue, her husband is not like other sons of men. 29 He who gets a wife gets his richest treasure, a helper fit for him and a pillar of support. 30 Where no hedge is, the property will be plundered. He who has no wife will mourn as he wanders. 31 For who would trust a nimble robber who skips from city to city? Even so, who would trust a man who has no nest, and lodges wherever he finds himself at nightfall?⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Ezekiel 20:41 and Sirach 36:3

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

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Summary

Ezekiel depicts the future of Israel gathered from exile, accepted with offerings, and set apart as holy in the sight of the nations. Sirach echoes this language by portraying God’s actions toward Israel as a display of power before other peoples.

Passages

Ezekiel 20:41

Hebrew Bible
39 “‘As for you, O house of Israel, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Each of you go and serve your idols, if you will not listen to me. But my holy name will not be profaned again by your sacrifices and your idols. 40 For there on my holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel, declares the Sovereign Lord, all the house of Israel will serve me, all of them in the land. I will accept them there, and there I will seek your contributions and your choice gifts, with all your holy things. 41 When I bring you out from the nations and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, I will accept you along with your soothing aroma. I will display my holiness among you in the sight of the nations. 42 Then you will know that I am the Lord when I bring you to the land of Israel, to the land I swore to give to your fathers. 43 And there you will remember your conduct and all your deeds by which you defiled yourselves. You will despise yourselves because of all the evil deeds you have done.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ezekiel

Sirach 36:3

Deuterocanon · Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus
1 Have mercy upon us, O Lord the God of all, and look at us with favor; 2 and send your fear upon all the nations. 3 Lift up your hand against the foreign nations and let them see your mighty power. 4 As you showed your holiness in us before them, so be magnified in them before us. 5 Let them know you, as we also have known you, that there is no God but only you, O God.
195–180 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Sirach

References

"... Verse 4 refers to the divine punishment that Israel had to face and which also served as evidence of Yahweh's holiness to the Gentiles. The biblical background for this argumentation is primarily found in Deuteronomy 28:36-37 which presupposes the setting of the Babylonian exile: 'The Lord will bring you, and the king whom you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known, where you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone. You shall become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you.' These lines can be interpreted as an ideological background, but even more direct lexical connections are detectable between Sirach 36:4 and the recurring phrase 'I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the nations' that occurs in Ezekiel 20:41, 28:25 (and with slight modifications in Ezekiel 38:16 and 39:27). The composer of our prayer firmly adheres to the proclamation of Ezekiel which promises the reversal of political powers. Israel has been humiliated and she has been scattered among the nations. This is one sign of the might of Yahweh, which even the foreign nations should acknowledge. But greater than this will be Yahweh's act towards Israel when he gathers her dispersed tribes and leads them back to their own land. This idea is implicitly expressed in Sirach 36:4, and it reaches its concrete formulation in verse 11. The adherence to the Ezekielian passages presupposes that the foreign nations either would not remain intact when Yahweh decides to punish, for it is said that Yahweh will summon his sword against Gog (Ezekiel 38:21) ..."
Marko Marttila, Foreign Nations in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: A Jewish Sage between Opposition and Assimilation, DCLS 13 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 136–137.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Ezekiel 20:41 and Sirach 36:3

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