Scripture Daily

Context No. 972 of 4322 · Sirach

Context · Reflection

Sirach 1:17-30: in context

17She will fill all her house with desirable things, and her storehouses with her produce. 18The fear of the Lord is the crown of wisdom, making peace and perfect health to flourish. 19He both saw and measured her. He rained down skill and knowledge of understanding, and exalted the honor of those who hold her fast. 20To fear the Lord is the root of wisdom. Her branches are length of days. 22Unjust wrath can never be justified, for his wrath tips the scale to his downfall. 23A man that is patient will resist for a season, and afterward gladness will spring up to him. 24He will hide his words until the right moment, and the lips of many will tell of his understanding. 25A wise saying is in the treasures of wisdom; but godliness is an abomination to a sinner. 26If you desire wisdom, keep the commandments and the Lord will give her to you freely; 27for the fear of the Lord is wisdom and instruction. Faith and humility are his good pleasure. 28Don’t disobey the fear of the Lord. Don’t come to him with a double heart. 29Don’t be a hypocrite in men’s sight. Keep watch over your lips. 30Don’t exalt yourself, lest you fall and bring dishonor upon your soul. The Lord will reveal your secrets and will cast you down in the midst of the congregation, because you didn’t come to the fear of the Lord and your heart was full of deceit.

Ben Sira is unfolding what it means that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Here he calls it the crown of wisdom and the root of wisdom both, the thing wisdom grows from and the thing that completes it. He then turns practical: if you want wisdom, keep the commandments and God will give her to you freely. Faith and humility please him. And he warns against the counterfeit, do not come to God with a double heart, do not be a hypocrite, keep watch over your lips, do not exalt yourself, because God will expose what is hidden.

The passage keeps circling one danger, the divided or double heart. Ben Sira is clear that wisdom is a gift God gives freely to those who fear him and keep his commandments, not something you earn by cleverness. But he is equally clear that you cannot fake your way to it. Do not approach God with a double heart, do not play the hypocrite before others, because the God who gives wisdom also reveals secrets and will bring down the person whose reverence was only for show. The fear of the Lord that produces wisdom is not a performance of piety; it is the real thing, an undivided heart that actually reveres him when no one is watching. And humility runs through it all, do not exalt yourself lest you fall. Real wisdom, in Ben Sira, is inseparable from an honest, single-hearted reverence, the opposite of the polished religious act that hides a divided interior. God is not deceived by the performance, and eventually neither is anyone else.

Is my reverence for God whole and single-hearted, or do I carry a double heart, performing piety in front of others while something divided hides underneath?

Sources