Context No. 2678 of 4322 · Sirach

Sirach 48:1-16: in context

1Then Elijah arose, the prophet like fire. His word burned like a torch. 2He brought a famine upon them, and by his zeal made them few in number. 3By the word of the Lord he shut up the heavens. He brought down fire three times. 4How you were glorified, O Elijah, in your wondrous deeds! Whose glory is like yours? 5You raised up a dead man from death, from Hades, by the word of the Most High. 6You brought down kings to destruction, and honorable men from their sickbeds. 7You heard rebuke in Sinai, and judgments of vengeance in Horeb. 8You anointed kings for retribution, and prophets to succeed after you. 9You were taken up in a tempest of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses. 10You were recorded for reproofs in their seasons, to pacify anger, before it broke out into wrath, to turn the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob. 11Blessed are those who saw you, and those who have been beautified with love; for we also shall surely live. 12Elijah was wrapped in a whirlwind. Elisha was filled with his spirit. In his days he was not moved by the fear of any ruler, and no one brought him into subjection. 13Nothing was too hard for him. When he was buried, his body prophesied. 14As in his life he did wonders, so his works were also marvelous in death. 15For all this the people didn’t repent. They didn’t depart from their sins, until they were carried away as a plunder from their land, and were scattered through all the earth. The people were left very few in number, but with a ruler from the house of David. 16Some of them did that which was right, but some multiplied sins.

Sirach's long roll call of the ancestors reaches Elijah, "the prophet like fire." The praise piles up: famine shut and opened by his word, fire called down three times, a dead man raised, the prophet himself carried off in a whirlwind of flame. Whose glory, the poet asks, is like his?

Then verse fifteen turns cold. For all of this, the people did not repent. They did not leave their sins until they were carried off as plunder and scattered over the earth. The wonders were real, and they changed nothing in the hearts that watched them. Sirach will not let us believe that a vivid enough sign would finally settle the matter. What God asked was a turning, and no torch of fire could do that turning for them.

Do I imagine some sign would at last resolve my doubts, when what God waits for is a repentance I keep putting off?

Sources

1 Kings 19:12: "After the earthquake a fire passed; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice."
Malachi 4:6: "He will turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers."
Luke 16:31: "If they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead."