The Wisdom of God

Psalm 45 • Psalm 47, 48
Ecclus. 24:1-12 • Rev. 11:14-19 • Luke 11:27-36

The Book of Sirach is a “Wisdom Book” from what Protestants call the Apocrypha, those books of the Old Testament that St. Jerome translated but considered of doubtful canonicity because they were written late—only a couple of centuries before the birth of Jesus—or because he possessed only Greek translations of Hebrew to translate from. Since the early nineteenth century, published Protestant translations of the Bible into English, unlike Catholic translations, have not included these books.

Sirach wrote his book about 220 b.c., probably over many years, considering the meditative nature of the aphorisms he develops. It is thanks to Sirach's grandson, who moved from Jerusalem to Alexandria, Greece, where he translated his grandfather's book, that Jerome was able to translate it from Greek into Latin. However, during the 20th century, several manuscripts containing the book were discovered, so we now have about two thirds of it in the original language, all close to what the grandson translated. Sirach's aphorisms include self-interested wisdom (Don't reveal your fault to people because they will “hold it against you and in time become your enemy”), lessons on loving your neighbor and loving God (“Do not gossip”; “All wisdom is fear of the Lord”), and lessons which a greater teacher of wisdom, Jesus, might contradict (“No good comes to him who gives comfort to the wicked.”)

In the passage for today, Sirach interrupts his teachings to sing a hymn of praise to the allegorical Wisdom of God. In it, Wisdom declares that, after wandering and holding sway “over every people and nation,” she “sought a resting place,” whereupon “the Creator of all” gave her an abode in Zion, among the Jewish people in Jerusalem. We therefore join Sirach in thanks today for the wisdom we have learned studying the Jewish Old Testament writers and for the wisdom of later Jewish leaders: for the writers of the Talmud; for theologians such as Martin Buber and Harold Kushner; for the Anti-Defamation League campaigners and martyrs who defied White Supremacy during the worst of the Jim Crow error; for the many rabbis who in August of this year joined religious leaders of all faiths in calling on China to end its policy of genocide against the Uyghur people; for our Lord Jesus, and for many others.

Written by John Tabb DuVal

John dedicates this Morning Reflection to his mother, who first taught him the wisdom of God and who left him her New American Bible, the source for his quotations from Sirach today.