Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
Jerusalem, early 2nd century BCE
Jesus Ben Sira writes practical holiness: speech, friendship, money, the poor. The gospels’ wisdom flavor often sounds like this household. Sirach 4 could sit beside the Nazareth sermon without blushing.
Sirach 4:8–10 (WEB)
To the poor man incline your ear… Deliver him who is wronged from the hand of the oppressor… Be as a father to the fatherless… So you will be as a son of the Most High.
Meaning
Ben Sira will not leave holiness in the clouds. The poor person’s living, the hungry soul, the friendly answer, and rescue from an oppressor are one paragraph. Delay is a moral failure. Tone and justice are not alternate tracks.
Historical context
Yeshua ben Sira taught in Jerusalem in the early second century BCE, before the Maccabean revolt. His grandson translated the work into Greek in Egypt and left a prologue that dates the translation to the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes. The Hebrew audience is a school training young men for speech, money, friendship, and public life.
Hebrew copies at Masada and in the Dead Sea caves show wide use. The Latin name Ecclesiasticus marks it as a church book of practical conduct. When gospel wisdom sounds domestic, this household is part of the reason. Chapter 4 can sit beside the Nazareth sermon because both think the poor are a test of God-knowledge.
Ways to interpret
Historical
Jerusalem wisdom, early second century, then a Greek life in Egypt. Elite-adjacent instruction that still fears the curse of the poor.
Contemplative
Answer one need before your preferred task is done. The chapter’s insight is about waiting, not about grand programs.
Justice
A meek answer does not replace deliverance from an oppressor. Ben Sira lists both. So should a community that quotes him.
Related readings
Wisdom 11:24–26 (WEB)
For you love all things that are, and abhor none of the things which you made; For you never would have formed anything if you hated it. How would anything have endured unless you had willed it? Or that which was not called by you, how would it have been preserved? But you spare all things, because they are yours, O Sovereign Lord, you lover of souls.
Sirach 4:1–2, 8–10 (WEB)
My son, don’t deprive the poor of his living. Don’t make the needy eyes wait long. Don’t make a hungry soul sorrowful. Don’t provoke a man in his distress. To the poor man incline your ear, and pay your debt, and give him a friendly answer in meekness. Deliver him who is wronged from the hand of the oppressor. Don’t be faint-hearted in giving judgment. Be as a father to the fatherless, and in place of 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.
Tobit 4:15–16 (WEB)
Do that to no one which you hate. Don’t drink wine to drunkenness, and don’t let drunkenness go with you on your way. Give of your bread to the hungry, and of your garments to those who are naked. Of all you possess, give alms; and don’t let your eye begrudge when you give alms.