An impressive dream and an impressive offering can both deceive. Sirach asks what each rests upon: God’s truth or our desire for certainty, justice or another person’s stolen bread. The chapter leads from the shadows of sleep to the daylight of wages, where devotion becomes answerable to a neighbor’s life.
Brenton follows the Greek manuscript order in chapters 30-36, so his chapter numbers differ here.
A Shadow Is Not a Foundation (Sirach 34:1-8; Brenton 31:1-8)
1 The hopes of a man void of understanding are vain and false: and dreams lift up fools. 2 Whoso regardeth dreams is like him that catcheth at a shadow, and followeth after the wind. 3 The vision of dreams is the resemblance of one thing to another, even as the likeness of a face to a face. 4 Of an unclean thing what can be cleansed? and from that thing which is false what truth can come? 5 Divinations, and soothsayings, and dreams, are vain: and the heart fancieth, as a woman’s heart in travail. 6 If they be not sent from the most High in thy visitation, set not thy heart upon them. 7 For dreams have deceived many, and they have failed that put their trust in them. 8 The law shall be found perfect without lies: and wisdom is perfection to a faithful mouth.
A shadow may resemble something real without being something the hand can grasp. Sirach uses that image for the attempt to build hope on dreams. Desire and fear can supply convincing pictures; conviction alone does not make a message divine. The comparison with a woman in labor describes inward agitation, not a claim that women are less trustworthy witnesses.
Verse 6 leaves room for God’s freedom to communicate, as Scripture elsewhere records, but it gives no method for declaring every vivid dream a revelation. The ordinary counsel is to refuse obsession. The law offers a truthful foundation, while divination and fortune-telling seek certainty by means God has not given. A dream cannot authorize disobedience, an accusation against another person, or a decision made in fear without wise counsel.
A troubling dream is not itself a sin or proof of spiritual attack. Stress, illness, grief, medication, and ordinary sleep can affect what a person experiences. Persistent distress deserves compassionate pastoral and, where appropriate, clinical help. The Christian can place the experience before Christ without making it the ruler of the day. Truth is received through faithful discernment, not by treating anxiety as an oracle.
Experience Received Under God’s Care (Sirach 34:9-17; Brenton 31:9-17)
9 A man that hath travelled knoweth many things: and he that hath much experience will declare wisdom. 10 He that hath no experience knoweth little: but he that hath travelled is full of prudence. 11 When I travelled, I saw many things; and I understand more than I can express. 12 I was oft-times in danger of death: yet I was delivered because of these things. 13 The spirit of those that fear the Lord shall live; for their hope is in him that saveth them. 14 Whoso feareth the Lord shall not fear nor be afraid; for he is his hope. 15 Blessed is the soul of him that feareth the Lord: to whom doth he look? and who is his strength? 16 For the eyes of the Lord are upon them that love him, he is their mighty protection and strong stay, a defence from heat, and a cover from the sun at noon, a preservation from stumbling, and an help from falling; 17 he raiseth up the soul, and lighteneth the eyes: he giveth health, life, and blessing.
Travel and danger enlarge the teacher’s understanding. The praise of experience is not contempt for people who cannot leave their home or have received less education. It recognizes that reality can correct what a person merely imagined. Experience becomes wisdom when it produces attentive judgment rather than a story about one’s own importance.
The teacher then moves from what he has seen to the One in whom he hopes. God’s care is shade at noon, support under a burden, and help against falling. These are images of a life upheld in vulnerability. The passage has already acknowledged danger; its confidence cannot honestly be taught as a promise that the faithful will never become ill or afraid.
Christ makes God’s nearness visible within suffering. Trust in Him need not wait until fear disappears. A frightened person can still choose prayer, seek help, and take the next faithful step. The eyes lightened by God’s care belong to someone who has been raised up, not someone who has proved they were never weak.
Bread, Wages, and the Unacceptable Gift (Sirach 34:18-22; Brenton 31:18-22)
18 He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is ridiculous; and the gifts of unjust men are not accepted. 19 The most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked; neither is he pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. 20 Whoso bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doeth as one that killeth the son before his father’s eyes. 21 The bread of the needy is their life: he that defraudeth him thereof is a man of blood. 22 He that taketh away his neighbour’s living slayeth him; and he that defraudeth the labourer his hire is a bloodshedder.
The tenderness of God’s protection makes unjust offerings more offensive, not less. What is taken from the poor cannot become acceptable by being carried to an altar. Sirach calls such an offering ridiculous and compares it to killing a child before his father’s eyes. The Lord receives no honor through violence against those He protects.
The bread and wages sayings make the harm exact. Taking a person’s livelihood takes the means by which that person lives. James 5:4 names the same cry of withheld pay reaching the Lord. A delayed wage, coerced unpaid work, or an unpaid debt can remain hidden behind public generosity. The wrong must be repaired, not offset by a donation elsewhere.
Mark 12:41-44 shows Christ seeing the poor widow whose offering seemed negligible to other observers. God knows the person and the true cost of the gift; He is not dazzled by its size. Christian almsgiving and church support therefore begin within justice. Restitution, fair dealing, and repentance belong beside the offering because Christ seeks the restoration of persons, not a religious way of concealing their loss.
The Fast That Must Become a Turn (Sirach 34:23-26; Brenton 31:23-26)
23 When one buildeth, and another pulleth down, what profit have they then but labour? 24 When one prayeth, and another curseth, whose voice will the Lord hear? 25 He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body, if he touch it again, what availeth his washing? 26 So is it with a man that fasteth for his sins, and goeth again, and doeth the same: who will hear his prayer? or what doth his humbling profit him?
One person builds while another tears down. The image exposes contradiction: religious effort can be undone by the injustice a person chooses to preserve. The competing prayer and curse ask whose cry God will hear when the apparent worshiper is causing another person’s suffering.
The washing after contact with a dead body belongs to the text’s ritual world. Sirach uses repeated contact to show the futility of undoing one’s own act. Fasting for sin while deliberately returning to the same wrong leaves repentance unfinished. The target is not a struggling person who falls, grieves, and returns sincerely; it is the plan to keep both the sin and the appearance of renouncing it.
In the Church, fasting makes room for prayer and mercy, and confession names the real need for change. Grace precedes every genuine return. A practical barrier against a recurring wrong, restitution to someone injured, or a candid request for help can make the turn concrete. Christ does not require us to manufacture a flawless past before coming to Him. He calls us to stop arranging the future around the sin we ask Him to forgive.
Spiritual Fruit 🍇
Let a troubling dream pass through prayer without becoming a command. If a dream unsettles you, place it before Christ and return to the duties and commandments already clear. Avoid divination and repeated attempts to force a hidden prediction out of it. If fear persists, speak with a trustworthy priest and seek appropriate clinical help when sleep or daily life is affected. You do not need certainty about the dream in order to act faithfully today.
Receive experience with humility. Recall one difficulty that corrected an opinion you once held about other people. Let the memory make you slower to offer an easy explanation of someone else’s distress. Thank God for the help you received, including practical help through others. Experience becomes fruitful when it increases compassion and discernment rather than merely the confidence that you have already seen everything.
Trace one gift back to its source. Before your next offering, examine whether money or time owed to someone else is being withheld. Review an unpaid invoice, a delayed wage, a debt, or work you have allowed another person to do without fair acknowledgment. Correct what is within your power and make an honest plan for what cannot be repaired immediately. Giving to church is no substitute for paying the person whose livelihood you hold.
Give your fast a direction. Choose one recurring wrong and identify the occasion that repeatedly prepares it. Change a concrete condition: remove an easy access, settle the grievance truthfully, seek support, or make restitution. Bring both the sin and the attempted change to confession without exaggerating your progress or denying the grace already given. Christ receives the person who returns. The work is to keep returning with a will that increasingly seeks freedom, rather than making religious effort a shelter for the habit you intend to preserve.
Teaching Notes
Suggested timing: 60-75 minutes, including 10 minutes for Spiritual Fruit and prayer. Allow longer for difficult verses rather than rushing a personal disclosure.
A Shadow Is Not a Foundation (Sirach 34:1-8; Brenton 31:1-8)
- Ask: What is the difference between a vivid impression and a trustworthy foundation?
- Emphasize: God’s freedom does not make every dream a command.
- Watch for: Do not shame nightmares, encourage fortune-telling, or diagnose spiritual causes without grounds.
- Key phrases to say slowly: “A shadow is not a foundation”; “Anxiety is not an oracle.”
Experience Received Under God’s Care (Sirach 34:9-17; Brenton 31:9-17)
- Ask: When has experience corrected an assumption you held too confidently?
- Emphasize: Hope rests in the saving God, not in an untouchable life.
- Watch for: Do not equate anxiety or bodily sickness with lack of faith.
- Key phrases to say slowly: “Upheld in vulnerability”; “Trust can begin while fear remains.”
Bread, Wages, and the Unacceptable Gift (Sirach 34:18-22; Brenton 31:18-22)
- Ask: What can make a visibly generous gift unjust at its source?
- Emphasize: Withheld livelihood is harm to a person, not merely an accounting issue.
- Watch for: Do not pressure exploited workers to treat wages as a voluntary sacrifice.
- Key phrases to say slowly: “The poor person’s bread is life”; “Repair the wrong, not an image.”
The Fast That Must Become a Turn (Sirach 34:23-26; Brenton 31:23-26)
- Ask: What concrete change would keep a fast from being contradicted by the following day?
- Emphasize: Distinguish sincere struggle from a deliberate plan to retain the wrong.
- Watch for: Do not tell a penitent whose struggle continues that every prayer is useless.
- Key phrases to say slowly: “Repentance must become a turn”; “Stop planning around the sin.”
Sources
Embedded Scripture is from Brenton’s English Septuagint (LXX).
Primary sources
Brenton, The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament: familiar Sirach 34:1-26 corresponds, by its words, to Brenton 31:1-26, from vain dreams through fasting contradicted by repeated wrongdoing.
@andraws/lectionary-data 1.3.3: no appointment of familiar Sirach 34 appears in the package’s Sirach reading records.
World English Bible Classic, Sirach 34 is used only to compare familiar verse divisions and clause content, not as the embedded Scripture translation.
No direct patristic commentary on this passage surfaced in the sources used for this guide. No thematic patristic witness is included.
Secondary academic sources
None used.
Coptic Orthodox and pastoral sources
No additional Coptic pastoral commentary is used.
Web pages and non-academic sources
eBible.org supplies the familiar-numbering comparison linked above.