Context No. 3833 of 4322 · Sirach

Sirach 23:17-28: in context

17All bread is sweet to a fornicator. He will not cease until he dies. 18A man who goes astray from his own marriage bed says in his heart, “Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me. No one sees me. Of whom am I afraid? The Most High will not remember my sins.” 19The eyes of men are his terror. He doesn’t know that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, seeing all the ways of men, and looking into secret places. 20All things were known to him before they were created, and also after they were completed. 21This man will be punished in the streets of the city. He will be seized where he least expects it. 22So also is a wife who leaves her husband, and produces an heir by another man. 23For first, she was disobedient in the law of the Most High. Second, she trespassed against her own husband. Third, she played the adulteress in fornication, and had children by another man. 24She shall be brought out into the congregation. Her punishment will extend to her children. 25Her children will not take root. Her branches will bear no fruit. 26She will leave her memory for a curse. Her reproach won’t be blotted out. 27And those who are left behind will know that there is nothing better than the fear of the Lord, and nothing sweeter than to heed the commandments of the Lord.

This passage exposes a lie that people tell themselves when they sin in secret: who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me; no one sees me. The person tempted to do wrong in hidden places imagines that concealment from human eyes means the deed is truly unseen.

But the passage answers the delusion directly: he does not know that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, seeing all the ways of men and looking into the secret places. There is no darkness that hides us from God. He sees what no human eye can, into the hidden corners of our lives and hearts. This is a sobering thought, but a clarifying one. So much sin is committed on the assumption that it is hidden, that no one will know. But nothing is hidden from God, who sees in secret. And the passage ends not in despair but in wisdom: those who learn this come to know that there is nothing better than the fear of the Lord. To live always aware that God sees is to be freed from the lie of the secret sin.

Do I live in the awareness that God sees into every hidden corner of my life, so that no secret darkness can hide me from him, and does that awareness draw me toward the fear of the Lord?

Sources

Sirach 23:18: "A man who goes astray... says in his heart, Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me. No one sees me."
Sirach 23:19: "He doesn't know that the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun, seeing all the ways of men, and looking into secret places."
Sirach 23:27: "Those who are left behind will know that there is nothing better than the fear of the Lord."