Context No. 2765 of 4322 · Sirach

Sirach 38:1-16: in context

1Honor a physician according to your need with the honors due to him, for truly the Lord has created him. 2For healing comes from the Most High, and he shall receive a gift from the king. 3The skill of the physician will lift up his head. He will be admired in the sight of great men. 4The Lord created medicines out of the earth. A prudent man will not despise them. 5Wasn’t water made sweet with wood, that its power might be known? 6He gave men skill that he might be glorified in his marvelous works. 7With them he heals and takes away pain. 8With these, the pharmacist makes a mixture. God’s works won’t be brought to an end. From him, peace is upon the face of the earth. 9My son, in your sickness don’t be negligent, but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you. 10Put away wrong doing, and direct your hands in righteousness. Cleanse your heart from all sin. 11Give a sweet savor and a memorial of fine flour, and pour oil on your offering, according to your means. 12Then give place to the physician, for truly the Lord has created him. Don’t let him leave you, for you need him. 13There is a time when recovery is in their hands. 14For they also shall ask the Lord to prosper them in diagnosis and in healing for the maintenance of life. 15He who sins before his Maker, let him fall into the hands of the physician. 16My son, let your tears fall over the dead, and as one who suffers grievously, begin lamentation. Wind up his body with due honor. Don’t neglect his burial.

This is a strikingly balanced passage on sickness and healing. Honor the physician, Ben Sira says, for the Lord created him, and the medicines come from the earth God made; a sensible person will not despise them. And in the same breath: in your sickness pray to the Lord, put away wrongdoing, cleanse your heart, make your offering, and then give the physician his place, for you need him.

Ben Sira refuses a false choice that people still make. He does not say pray instead of seeing a doctor, nor see a doctor instead of praying. He holds them together. Healing comes from God, and God works through the physician's skill and the remedy drawn out of creation. To honor the doctor and to pray are not rivals competing for credit; both trust the one God who is the source of every cure. The chapter even closes by teaching honest tears for the dead and a decent burial.

Do I split God and ordinary means into rivals, or receive the doctor's care and the medicine as gifts from the same God I pray to?

Sources

Sirach 38:2: "For healing comes from the Most High, and he shall receive a gift from the king."
2 Kings 20:7: "Isaiah said, Take a cake of figs. They took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered."
Colossians 4:14: "Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you."