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Sirach 39 - The Scribe Who Begins with Prayer

11 min read

Before the scribe opens his mouth to teach, he opens it to confess. Sirach 39 places the learned person before the Lord who made him. Memory, difficult study, travel, counsel, and public honor all appear, but the heart of the vocation is dependence upon God. By the end of the chapter, the voice that might have advertised its own knowledge is blessing the Creator with the whole heart and mouth.

Understanding Received, Wisdom Shared (Sirach 39:1-11)

1 will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, and be occupied in prophecies. 2 He will keep the sayings of the renowned men: and where subtil parables are, he will be there also. 3 He will seek out the secrets of grave sentences, and be conversant in dark parables. 4 He shall serve among great men, and appear before princes: he will travel through strange countries; for he hath tried the good and the evil among men. 5 He will give his heart to resort early to the Lord that made him, and will pray before the most High, and will open his mouth in prayer, and make supplication for his sins. 6 When the great Lord will, he shall be filled with the spirit of understanding: he shall pour out wise sentences, and give thanks unto the Lord in his prayer. 7 He shall direct his counsel and knowledge, and on his secrets shall he meditate. 8 He shall shew forth that which he hath learned, and shall glory in the law of the covenant of the Lord. 9 Many shall commend his understanding; and so long as the world endureth, it shall not be blotted out; his memorial shall not depart away, and his name shall live from generation to generation. 10 Nations shall shew forth his wisdom, and the congregation shall declare his praise. 11 If he die, he shall leave a greater name than a thousand: and if he live, he shall increase it.

The opening continues the sentence begun in Sirach 38:34: the person devoted to the law seeks the wisdom of the ancients and the prophets. His learning has breadth and patience. He keeps sayings, attends to difficult comparisons, and tests his understanding through encounters with good and evil in human life. Travel is not automatically wisdom, nor is the obscurity of a saying a proof of depth. The scribe’s task is to understand faithfully enough to counsel and teach a people.

Verse 5 locates his beginning in prayer before the Lord who made him. Confession is not an interruption of intellectual life. It exposes the vanity, impatience, resentment, or appetite for praise that can misuse genuine learning. The person who gives counsel needs mercy as much as the person who receives it. Understanding is also received according to the Lord’s will, rather than secured by technique. This does not cancel disciplined effort; it places the effort within gratitude and dependence.

Ben Sira’s portrait is close to his own vocation as a keeper and teacher of Israel’s wisdom. The prospect of an enduring name can stir an understandable desire to be remembered, but verse 8 gives the work its proper object: the law of the covenant. The scribe shares what he has learned. In Matthew 13:52, Christ speaks of the scribe instructed for the kingdom bringing out treasures new and old. The parallel helps us see learning as stewardship. An Orthodox teacher receives the Scriptures within the Church and seeks the good of hearers, rather than treating inherited truth as private property or novelty as an end in itself.

The Learned Voice Becomes Praise (Sirach 39:12-20)

12 Yet have I more to say, which I have thought upon; for I am filled as the moon at the full. 13 Hearken unto me, ye holy children, and bud forth as a rose growing by the brook of the field: 14 and give ye a sweet savour as frankincense, and flourish as a lily, send forth a smell, and sing a song of praise, bless the Lord in all his works. 15 Magnify his name, and shew forth his praise with the songs of your lips, and with harps, and in praising him ye shall say after this manner: 16 All the works of the Lord are exceeding good, and whatsoever he commandeth shall be accomplished in due season. 17 For at time convenient they shall all be sought out: at his commandment the waters stood as an heap, and at the words of his mouth, the receptacles of waters. 18 At his commandment is done whatsoever pleaseth him; and none can hinder, when he will save. 19 The works of all flesh are before him, and nothing can be hid from his eyes. 20 He seeth from everlasting to everlasting; and there is nothing wonderful before him.

The teacher is full like the moon, yet he asks his hearers to become fragrant and fruitful. Roses beside a stream, lilies, and frankincense give the teaching a bodily quality: wisdom should make a life good to encounter. Speech and conduct belong together. A class that can repeat correct answers while becoming more contemptuous has missed the invitation. The scholar’s fullness should become the congregation’s praise, not an audience’s admiration of the scholar.

The declaration that God’s works are exceedingly good recalls the conclusion of Genesis 1, and it stands beside 1 Timothy 4:4, which receives God’s creation with thanksgiving. Food, matter, and bodily life are not stains upon an otherwise spiritual world. God has made a world in which human beings can be nourished and taught. The memory of waters standing at His command recalls the divine mastery shown in deliverance. The same Lord who sustains creation can save within it.

The claim that nothing is hidden from Him does not place human beings beneath a cold observer. The scribe has already approached this Lord in prayer for his sins. God’s knowledge makes hypocrisy futile, but it also means that grief and hidden faithfulness escape no notice. To say that nothing is wonderful before Him means that nothing astonishes Him as an unforeseen problem. The teacher may be brought to the edge of understanding without God being brought to the edge of His power.

Gifts, Judgment, and the Limits of Our Explanation (Sirach 39:21-31)

21 A man need not to say, What is this? wherefore is that? for he hath made all things for their uses. 22 His blessing covered the dry land as a river, and watered it as a flood. 23 As he hath turned the waters into saltness: so shall the heathen inherit his wrath. 24 As his ways are plain unto the holy; so are they stumbling-blocks unto the wicked. 25 For the good are good things created from the beginning: so evil things for sinners. 26 The principal things for the whole use of man’s life are water, fire, iron, and salt, flour of wheat, honey, milk, and the blood of the grape, and oil, and clothing. 27 All these things are for good to the godly: so to the sinners they are turned into evil. 28 There be spirits that are created for vengeance, which in their fury lay on sore strokes; in the time of destruction they pour out their force, and appease the wrath of him that made them. 29 Fire, and hail, and famine, and death, all these were created for vengeance; 30 teeth of wild beasts, and scorpions, serpents, and the sword, punishing the wicked to destruction, 31 shall rejoice in his commandment, and they shall be ready upon earth, when need is; and when their time is come, they shall not go beyond his word.

The question about the use of things asks the reader to trust a wisdom larger than immediate appearances. The list of necessities makes the point concrete: water, fire, iron, salt, grain, honey, milk, wine, oil, and clothing sustain ordinary life. Their goodness is not measured only by our present pleasure. Fire can warm or destroy; iron can become a tool or a weapon. Human conduct matters in the reception of gifts. The created thing and the use made of it must be distinguished.

The passage nevertheless says more than that people misuse resources. It speaks of wrath, destructive spirits, famine, death, wild creatures, and the sword as instruments of judgment under God’s command. These are hard assertions of divine sovereignty, and the text does not supply a complete account of every affliction. The Christian reader should neither erase their seriousness nor use them to assign guilt to victims of war, famine, or disaster. God does not create moral wickedness, and evil is not a substance He has made. Nor can a neighbor claim to know the hidden reason for another person’s suffering. Job and John 9:1-3 restrain such presumption.

The Cross gives Christian confession of providence its center. Human betrayal and violence remain evil; Christ freely bears them and brings life from what His enemies intended for death. This does not make suffering pleasant or remove our duty to relieve it. It means that suffering does not put the sufferer outside God’s saving reach. Romans 8:18-30 holds together creation’s groaning, the Spirit’s intercession, and the hope of redemption. We may trust the Lord’s sovereignty while confessing that we cannot explain a particular loss. Compassion is an obedience we can know; a secret judgment about the victim usually is not.

Whole-Hearted Praise in Due Season (Sirach 39:32-35)

32 Therefore from the beginning I was resolved, and thought upon these things, and have left them in writing. 33 All the works of the Lord are good: and he will give every needful thing in due season. 34 So that a man cannot say, This is worse than that: for in time they shall all be well approved. 35 And therefore praise ye the Lord with the whole heart and mouth, and bless the name of the Lord.

Ben Sira returns to what he has resolved to leave in writing: God’s works are good, and their place will become clear in due season. The time belongs to God. This protects praise from being measured solely by the present moment, when a need may be urgent and the answer unseen. It also guards against an impatient attempt to settle every question before offering thanks. Faith can acknowledge a gift and still weep over a wound.

The ending joins heart and mouth. Earlier the scribe opened his mouth in confession; now he blesses the Lord with all that he is. Study has reached its proper fruit when truth becomes worship and service. A person does not need to solve every mystery to receive today’s bread gratefully, protect a neighbor, or ask Christ for mercy. The world is larger than our account of it, and the Lord is more faithful than our ability to trace His ways.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

Begin learning as a person who needs mercy. Before study, work, or preparation for a lesson, spend a brief moment before the God who made you. Name one temptation that could bend the task: a wish to impress, resentment toward a colleague, haste, or the need to win. Ask for the grace to serve truth. Then work carefully. Prayer does not replace preparation; it makes preparation less captive to self-importance and leaves the heart more able to receive correction.

Give away one piece of understanding. The scribe shows what he has learned. Help someone understand a passage, a practical skill, or a task that your experience makes easier. Adapt the explanation to the person’s actual need, and let the person ask a basic question without embarrassment. Knowledge becomes more fruitful when another can stand securely because of it. The measure is not whether you sounded learned, but whether the other person was helped.

Recover gratitude for an ordinary necessity. Choose something named in verses 26-27, such as water, clothing, or grain. Give thanks for it at one definite moment each day this week. Remember the labor through which it reached you, and respond by avoiding waste or helping someone who lacks it. Thanksgiving can heal the habit of receiving the world as an entitlement. A gift comes into clearer focus when another person’s need also becomes visible.

Stand beside pain without pretending to explain it. When someone suffers, resist the need to defend God by supplying a hidden cause. Listen, pray, and offer the help that is actually possible. If you are suffering, you may bring your unanswered question into prayer without manufacturing a cheerful conclusion. Christ’s Cross allows sorrow and hope to remain together. Let the final blessing of the chapter be a small act of trust: the heart cannot yet see the whole, but it can place today’s life in the hands of the faithful Lord.

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