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Sirach 50 - The Veil, the Blessing, and the Lord of the Temple

15 min read

The high priest comes out from the sanctuary, and Ben Sira reaches for the beauty of the whole created world to describe him: star, moon, sun, rainbow, flowers, incense, and fruitful trees. Wisdom has arrived at public worship. Yet the chapter will also preserve words of national contempt, close beside its prayer for peace. We must receive both the splendor and the hard ending truthfully, following them toward Christ, who opens the way to God and crosses the boundaries our resentments defend.

The Care That Makes Worship Possible (Sirach 50:1-4)

1 Simon the high priest, the son of Onias, who in his life repaired the house again, and in his days fortified the temple: 2 and by him was built from the foundation the double height, the high fortress of the wall about the temple: 3 in his days the cistern to receive water, being in compass as the sea, was covered with plates of brass: 4 he took care of the temple that it should not fall, and fortified the city against besieging:

Before Simon appears in glorious vestments, he repairs walls and attends to water. Ben Sira praises the labor that keeps a sanctuary and a city from falling. The cistern belongs beside the altar in this remembrance because a people must be cared for as embodied human beings. Holy service includes maintenance, foresight, and the unglamorous work whose success is often measured by a crisis that never occurs. A community that loves worship should also honor those who keep its buildings safe and its ordinary needs supplied.

Simon son of Onias is commonly identified with Simon II, high priest in the early second century BC. Oesterley places the book’s composition approximately in 190-180 BC and dates the grandson’s arrival in Egypt to 132 BC, with the translation following thereafter. These dates locate the praise in the world of a still-functioning Jerusalem temple, before the coming of Christ. They do not establish that every detail is an eyewitness record. What the passage plainly gives is a grateful remembrance of priestly care for the house and the people gathered around it.

Coming from the Sanctuary in Glory (Sirach 50:5-10)

5 how was he honoured in the midst of the people in his coming out of the sanctuary! 6 He was as the morning star in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon at the full: 7 as the sun shining upon the temple of the most High, and as the rainbow giving light in the bright clouds: 8 and as the flower of roses in the spring of the year, as lilies by the rivers of waters, and as the branches of the frankincense tree in the time of summer: 9 as fire and incense in the censer, and as a vessel of beaten gold set with all manner of precious stones: 10 and as a fair olive tree budding forth fruit, and as a cypress tree which groweth up to the clouds.

The comparisons keep widening. Celestial lights, the covenant rainbow, spring flowers, precious metal, and trees make Simon’s emergence a concentrated image of created beauty offered to God. The high priest’s glory is received and representative: he belongs to a people standing before the Most High. The passage trains reverence, but also disciplines admiration. The beauty points beyond the person who wears it to the Lord whose sanctuary he serves. Sacred office becomes disordered when the people are taught to marvel at a minister instead of giving glory to God.

Brenton’s “sanctuary” is more explicit in Wright’s NETS rendering of Ziegler’s Greek edition: Simon comes from the “house of the veil.” The RSV Catholic Edition’s note at 50:5 likewise identifies that Greek phrase. The veil gives the Christian reader a precise bridge to Hebrews, where Christ enters God’s presence on our behalf. It does not, by itself, identify the whole scene as one particular temple feast. We can receive the theological connection without claiming certainty about a disputed reconstruction of the ceremony.

In Hebrews 6:19-20, hope enters behind the veil with Jesus our forerunner. Hebrews 9:11-12 declares that He enters through His own blood, obtaining eternal redemption. Then Hebrews 10:19-20 gives the faithful confidence to enter through the veil, His flesh. Matthew 27:51 places the tearing of the temple veil at Christ’s death. The fullness exceeds the image: the incarnate Son brings His people near through His self-offering. We do more than watch a priest emerge. In Him, access to the Father is given.

Gems from the Fathers 💎

St. John Chrysostom explains Hebrews 10 as a gift of approach to God, grounded in forgiveness and Christ’s love. This is a theological anchor for the Christian reading of Sirach’s sanctuary scene, not direct commentary on Sirach. He writes: “As sins (he means) produce shame, so the having all things forgiven us, and being made fellow-heirs, and enjoying so great Love, [produces] boldness.”1 Reverence and confidence therefore belong together. We approach neither as spectators excluded from divine life nor as people who possess a right to holiness apart from repentance. Christ gives the access, cleanses the conscience, and teaches us how to draw near.

The Offering amid the Priests (Sirach 50:11-15)

11 When he put on the robe of honour, and was clothed with the perfection of glory, when he went up to the holy altar, he made the garment of holiness honourable. 12 When he took the portions out of the priests’ hands, he himself stood by the hearth of the altar, compassed with his brethren round about, as a young cedar in Libanus; and as palm trees compassed they him round about. 13 So were all the sons of Aaron in their glory, and the oblations of the Lord in their hands, before all the congregation of Israel. 14 And finishing the service at the altar, that he might adorn the offering of the most high Almighty, 15 he stretched out his hand to the cup, and poured of the blood of the grape, he poured out at the foot of the altar a sweetsmelling savour unto the most high King of all.

Simon stands surrounded by his priestly brethren, like a cedar ringed with palms. Their hands bear the offerings before the whole congregation. The image makes worship communal without dissolving distinct responsibilities. The high priest, the other priests, and the assembled people belong within one service to the Almighty. Aaron’s glory, remembered earlier in Sirach, has become a present act of offering. The beautiful garment is honorable because of the service performed in it.

The poured wine is described as the blood of the grape. In this scene it is a temple libation, poured at the altar’s foot. Christians may recognize a preparation of the imagination for offering, wine, thanksgiving, and priestly service, but Sirach 50 is not the institution narrative and does not itself establish the Eucharist. The Divine Liturgy is received from Christ’s saving work and command, not by assigning a Christian equivalent to every detail of an earlier rite. His once-for-all sacrifice gives the Church’s worship its center. The priest who serves at the altar must therefore show the self-emptying love of the One who is both High Priest and Offering.

A People Who Bow and Receive Blessing (Sirach 50:16-24)

16 Then shouted the sons of Aaron, and sounded the silver trumpets, and made a great noise to be heard, for a remembrance before the most High. 17 Then all the people together hasted, and fell down to the earth upon their faces to worship their Lord God Almighty, the most High. 18 The singers also sang praises with their voices, with great variety of sounds was there made sweet melody. 19 And the people besought the Lord, the most High, by prayer before him that is merciful, till the solemnity of the Lord was ended, and they had finished his service. 20 Then he went down, and lifted up his hands over the whole congregation of the children of Israel, to give the blessing of the Lord with his lips, and to rejoice in his name. 21 And they bowed themselves down to worship the second time, that they might receive a blessing from the most High. 22 Now therefore bless ye the God of all, which only doeth wondrous things every where, which exalteth our days from the womb, and dealeth with us according to his mercy. 23 He grant us joyfulness of heart, and that peace may be in our days in Israel for ever: 24 that he would confirm his mercy with us, and deliver us at his time!

Sound and bodily action fill the scene: trumpets, singing, prayer, faces bowed to the earth, and hands lifted in blessing. The people worship the Lord God Almighty, then bow again to receive His blessing. These are not rival acts, as though human praise and divine generosity competed for attention. Worship gives thanks for gifts already received and opens the people to mercy still needed. The prayer’s requests are beautifully ordinary: joy of heart, peace in their days, confirmed mercy, deliverance in God’s time. All the splendor gathers around the dependence of human lives.

A strong parallel appears at the end of Luke’s Gospel, Luke 24:50-53. Christ lifts His hands and blesses the disciples; they worship Him and return with joy, continually blessing God in the temple. Luke begins with Zacharias emerging unable to speak in Luke 1:21-22, and ends with the risen Lord giving blessing. This is a meaningful scriptural echo, not proof of direct literary borrowing from Sirach. In Christ, the blessing comes from the Lord who has conquered death, and the people worship the One through whom the blessing is given.

For an Orthodox Christian, the bowed body and praising mouth belong together with the trained conscience. The mouth schooled by Sirach’s warnings against slander is now singing; the hands taught generosity are now open to receive. The resemblance to the Church’s embodied worship is a resonance, not an assertion that this chapter describes a later Christian service. We receive the blessing truthfully when we carry its peace beyond the church door. A beautifully reverent posture cannot substitute for a refusal to humiliate a neighbor.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

On Amshir 8, the Coptic Synaxarium names “The Feast of Presenting the Lord Christ to the Temple” and “The Departure of St. Simeon the Elder.” The preserved Entrance into the Temple readings include Luke 2:21-39 at the Liturgy and Psalm 49:14, 23 (NKJV 50:14, 23). This is a thematic connection, not a reading of Sirach 50. In Luke 2:21-40, the Lord of the temple is carried in as a Child and received by Simeon. The honor of the vestments finds its fulfillment in the Person whom Simeon holds: God’s salvation has come near enough to be embraced.

National Contempt Before the Savior of Samaria (Sirach 50:25-26)

25 There be two manner of nations which my heart abhorreth, and the third is no nation: 26 they that sit upon the mountain of Samaria, and they that dwell among the Philistines, and that foolish people that dwell in Sichem.

These words are painful precisely where they stand, close to the prayer for peace. The speaker names his own abhorrence and dismisses the people of Sichem, or Shechem, as unworthy even of being called a nation. This is ancient intercommunal hostility voiced in the book, not a command requiring Christians to despise a people. We should neither disguise the contempt nor turn it into a virtue. The hard text searches the worshiper who can bless the God of all while reserving hatred for a neighboring community.

The textual witnesses also need to be kept distinct. Brenton names those on the mountain of Samaria. Oesterley’s Hebrew-based edition reads the inhabitants of Seir, and the RSV Catholic Edition identifies Seir as the Hebrew and Latin reading against the Greek’s Samaria. Seir concerns Edom, while the separate reference to Shechem concerns the Samaritan community. This difference changes the first people named; it does not remove the verse’s national hostility. It gives no basis for transferring contempt to their modern descendants or treating any present people as collectively guilty.

Christ gives a concrete answer. In John 4:1-42, He asks water of a Samaritan woman near the land Jacob gave Joseph, reveals Himself to her, and stays among the Samaritans who receive Him. In Luke 10:25-37, He makes a Samaritan the example of the neighbor who shows mercy. In Acts 1:8, Samaria is named within the disciples’ mission of witness. We cannot follow this Lord while turning a people’s name into an insult. Repentance means learning to see the person we inherited reasons to despise, and making mercy concrete without denying real wrongs or surrendering necessary protection.

The Author’s Name and the Reader’s Path (Sirach 50:27-29)

27 Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem hath written in this book the instruction of understanding and knowledge, who out of his heart poured forth wisdom. 28 Blessed is he that shall be exercised in these things: and he that layeth them up in his heart shall become wise. 29 For if he do them, he shall be strong to all things: for the light of the Lord is his path.

The writer names himself: Jesus son of Sirach of Jerusalem. This is the author of the wisdom book, not Jesus Christ. The closing blessing then turns from the writer’s heart to the reader’s heart. Attention must become interior reception, and reception must become action. A reader can collect the sayings, admire their beauty, and remain unchanged. The promised strength belongs to doing what is received, with the Lord’s light making the path visible. The blessing offers perseverance, not invulnerability or worldly success.

Psalm 118:105 (NKJV 119:105) likewise makes God’s word a lamp for the path, and John 8:12 gives the Christian confession of Christ as the Light of the world. We receive the book’s instruction within His light, including the light that exposes our selective charity. St. Jerome’s Prologue to the Books of Solomon reports finding Sirach in Hebrew and calls the work a model of virtue, using the title often rendered “Panaretos.” His testimony preserves part of the book’s reception history; his own distinction between books used for edification and books used to establish doctrine differs from the Coptic Orthodox reception of Sirach. The Church receives this wisdom within the light of Christ, who forms a people able both to praise God and to show mercy.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

Honor the hidden care beneath the beautiful service. Simon’s walls and cistern come before his vestments. At the next gathering, notice one person whose work makes worship possible without drawing attention: a cleaner, caretaker, driver, organizer, or quiet giver. Offer specific thanks and one practical help. This is more than good manners. It trains the heart to recognize service when it does not resemble the role we most admire, and to receive the Church as a people rather than a performance.

Approach with confidence given by Christ. Before the Liturgy, bring one real sin or fear into prayer instead of rehearsing either your unworthiness or your achievements. Seek confession and reconciliation as needed. Christ’s blood opens the way to the Father; no religious polish can create that access. Let reverence become attention to His mercy. During the blessing, stay inwardly present and ask that the peace received may govern one difficult conversation waiting outside.

Bring the body and conscience into the same act of worship. The people bow and pray together. Choose one bodily help to attention: arrive without haste, put the phone away, or stand quietly during prayer. Adapt this to illness and disability without shame. Then join it to one ethical response, such as ending a slanderous conversation or returning what you owe. A posture becomes truthful as grace teaches the whole person to turn toward God.

Pray across an inherited boundary. Name before Christ one group you have learned to dismiss, whether through family memory, national conflict, parish rivalry, or online contempt. Pray for their protection and salvation by name where possible. Refuse one dehumanizing joke or repost. If there is a safe opportunity for practical mercy, take it without demanding agreement as payment. Christ’s meeting with the Samaritan woman does not erase truth; it reveals how truth seeks a person. Ask Him to make your worship generous enough to follow Him there. The God of all receives praise from a heart learning to make no people an exception to mercy.

Footnotes

  1. St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Hebrews, Homily XIX, §2, primary text. ↩

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