Scripture Daily

Context No. 460 of 4322 · Sirach

Context · Reflection

Sirach 44:17-23: in context

17Noah was found perfect and righteous. In the season of wrath, he kept the race alive. Therefore a remnant was left on the earth when the flood came. 18Everlasting covenants were made with him, that all flesh should no more be blotted out by a flood. 19Abraham was a great father of a multitude of nations. There was none found like him in glory, 20who kept the law of the Most High, and was taken into covenant with him. In his flesh he established the covenant. When he was tested, he was found faithful. 21Therefore he assured him by an oath that the nations would be blessed through his offspring, that he would multiply him like the dust of the earth, exalt his offspring like the stars, and cause them to inherit from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates River to the utmost parts of the earth. 22In Isaac also, he established the same assurance for Abraham his father’s sake, the blessing of all men, and the covenant. 23He made it rest upon the head of Jacob. He acknowledged him in his blessings, gave to him by inheritance, and divided his portions. He distributed them among twelve tribes.

This passage comes from the great roll call of heroes in Sirach, the praise of the faithful men of old, and it moves quickly through Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, tracing the covenant that God made and handed down through them. Noah was found righteous and kept the human race alive through the flood. Abraham was the great father of many nations, unmatched in glory. But notice the specific thing Ben Sira lifts up about Abraham, the hinge on which everything else turns. There was none found like him, he says, who kept the law of the Most High, and, most pointedly, when he was tested, he was found faithful.

Look at the order there, because it matters. Everything that follows in Abraham's story, the oath God swore to him, the promise that all nations would be blessed through his offspring, that his descendants would be as numerous as the dust of the earth and exalted like the stars, that they would inherit from sea to sea, all of it, Ben Sira says, followed from this: when Abraham was tested, he was found faithful. Therefore, the text says, God confirmed the oath. The great promises did not come to Abraham instead of testing, as a reward for an easy life. They came after the testing, and because of it. The test, the offering of Isaac and the long years of waiting, was the crucible in which Abraham's faith was proven real, and it was on the far side of that proving that God sealed the covenant with an oath. The testing was not a detour away from the blessing; it was the very ground on which the blessing was confirmed.

That reframes how I regard the tests in my own life. I tend to see them as obstacles between me and the good things God has promised, delays and interruptions to be endured until the real blessing arrives. Ben Sira reads Abraham the other way: the test is where faithfulness is proven and the promise is sealed. When I am being tested, do I experience it only as an obstacle to blessing, or can I see it as Abraham's story suggests, the very place where my faith is proven and God's promises to me are confirmed?

Sources