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Goering, Greg Schmidt.
Wisdom’s root revealed : Ben Sira and the election of Israel / by GregSchmidt Goering. p. cm. — (Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism,
ISSN 1384-2161 ; v. 139) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-16579-3 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Jews—Election, Doctrine of. 2. Bible. O.. Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. itle. II. Series.
BM613.G64 2009 296.3’1172—dc22
2009022348
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ν λ καρδ σου δξασον τν πατρα σου κα μητρς δνας μ πιλθ μνσθητι τι δι ατν γεννθης κα τ νταποδσεις ατος καθς ατο σο
With all your heart honor your father, And the mother who bore you do not forget. Remember that from them you came into being; How can you repay them according to what they have done for
you? —Sir 7.27–8
To my parents, Judith and Lowell Goering, with all my heart. How can I repay you for what you have done for me?
8/20/2019 Schmidt Goering Wisdoms Root Revealed Brill
Election in Sirach ....................................................... 9
Chapter Two
Two Apportionments of Wisdom ................................... 21
Ben Sira’s Theology of Creation .................................... 25
The Sovereignty of YHWH....................................... 27
A Doctrine of Opposites? ........................................ 31YHWH as Divine Warrior and Storm God .................... 35
Divine Mastery Over Primordial Chaos ....................... 40
Observation of Nature: Universal Knowledge of YHWH ... 45
The Sun, the Moon, and the Election of Israel ................... 49
Conclusion: Election and Creation .................................. 61
Chapter Three
General and Special Wisdom ..................................... 69
Wisdom as Divine Revelation ....................................... 69 The Twofold Nature of Wisdom’s Revelation .................... 78
General Wisdom .................................................. 79
Special Wisdom ................................................... 89
Conclusion: Election and Revelation ............................. 102
Chapter Four
The High Priest .................................................. 123
The Scribal Retainers ........................................... 125
Chapter Five
The “Fear of YHWH” ............................................. 129Wisdom and Fear of YHWH ........................................ 130
The Asyndetic Correlation of Wisdom
and Fear of YHWH ......................................... 131
Fear of YHWH and Universal Piety ........................... 134
Fear of YHWH and Special Wisdom ............................... 138
Piety and the Pursuit of Wisdom ............................. 140
Fear of YHWH and Jewish Piety .............................. 143
Ethical Piety: torah and “The Torah” ............................. 153
Motivations for Ethical Piety .................................. 155 Guarding Oneself and Guarding the Torah .................. 160
Cultic Piety: The Actualization of Wisdom ...................... 167
Participation in the Cult of YHWH ............................ 167
Wisdom and the Jerusalem Temple .......................... 173
Cultic Piety and Creation ...................................... 177
Conclusion: Election and Piety .................................... 185
Chapter Six
Election and Eschatology:
Israel among the Nations ......................................... 187 Ben Sira and the Nations ............................................ 188
The Wisdom of the Nations and the Fear of YHWH ....... 194
The Propaedeutic Quality of General Wisdom ............. 197
The Nations and Knowledge of YHWH ........................... 198
Proper and Improper Piety and YHWH’s Response ........ 201
YHWH’s Judgment of the Nations ............................ 203
A Prayer for Deliverance ...................................... 204
The Origin of the Prayer for Deliverance ................... 212
The Prayer for Deliverance in the Context of Sirach ...... 224
YHWH as Universal King or Universal God? ............... 230
Conclusion: Election and Eschatology ........................... 235
Chapter Seven
Election in Jubilees ............................................. 241
Election in Philo ................................................ 243
Appendixes ................................................................ 251Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Bibliography ............................................................... 270
PREFACE
This study interprets the theme of election in the book of Sirach.
When I first undertook this project, I never imagined that the end
product would focus entirely upon Sirach, nor that it would treat the
theme of election.
Perhaps as long as humans have existed, so has their cultural ten-
dency to organize themselves into groups. As cultural anthropolo-
gists have shown, group identities are often formed by drawing
boundaries between insiders and outsiders. I have long been in-
trigued by the formation of communal identities, especially as per-
sons create these identities in order to traverse the ever-present ter-
rain of exclusiveness and openness. I am particularly drawn to the
ways in which members of a community ask and answer questions
about their relationship to those outside their community. My inter-
est in these questions originates, in part, because I was raised in the
United States in a small religious and ethnic minority group wherediscussions frequently focused on who was a Mennonite and who
was not. Only later did I learn that this discourse on inclusivism and
exclusivism resonated with the perennial question posed within Ju-
daism, “Who is a Jew?” Thus, when I first began to study Wisdom
literature from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Israel, I was struck
by the largely non-theistic and non-national idiom in which the sages
communicated a wisdom ethos. I was also fascinated by the focus in
this literature upon the individual, rather than the nation. Moreover,
the exchange across national boundaries of wisdom ideas and genres—even literal borrowing in some cases—suggested a cosmopolitan
outlook seemingly unconcerned with religious and ethnic boundary
marking.
Yet, despite this apparent internationalism, a nagging question
persisted. If much of the ANE Wisdom tradition could be charac-
terized as cosmopolitan, what made a certain wisdom work distinctly
Egyptian or Israelite? I began to research older Israelite Wisdom
texts—such as Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes—for indications that,
despite their apparent disinterest in the national traditions of ancient
Israel, they nonetheless were products of Israelite sages who at-
tempted to inculcate a specifically Israelite identity. I intended to
conclude my study with Sirach, given the author’s obvious concern
to combine the cosmopolitan wisdom tradition with Israel’s national
heritage. Thinking that Sirach would be the easiest case of all to ex-
amine, I began my research with Ben Sira’s book. It soon became
apparent that the question of how Ben Sira relates Israel’s national
heritage to universal wisdom would fill a monograph in and of itself.
Even once I had focused my exploration on the interplay of uni-
versalism and particularism in Sirach, the theme of election did not
immediately present itself. A central problem in the interpretation of
Sirach concerns the relation of Wisdom and Torah. Many scholarshave interpreted Ben Sira’s juxtaposition of the universal Wisdom
tradition with Israel’s particular traditions of Torah as “identifica-
tion.” Scholars have understood this identification as either a nation-
alizing of Wisdom or a universalizing of Torah. Initially, I was in-
clined to choose between the nationalizing and the universalizing
interpretations of Sirach. But as I inquired into the details of Ben
Sira’s wisdom teaching, both interpretations seemed to tell only half
of the story. In particular, it was my discovery of the election motif
in Sir 33.7–15 that proved to be the “aha!” moment. For there I found a reading of that poem that not only persuaded me of the in-
correctness of the widely held dualistic interpretation of Sirach but
also provided an interpretative key, which could make sense of other
puzzling features of the book. The purpose of my study, then, be-
came to show that the concept of election enables a profitable dis-
cussion of the relation of Wisdom and Torah in the book of Sirach.
This book is a revised and expanded version of a doctoral disser-
tation submitted to Harvard Divinity School. In the two intervening
years since the completion of the thesis, I have presented papers on parts of various chapters at scholarly conferences, benefited enor-
mously from feedback provided by several insightful readers, and
reflected upon numerous issues that remained less carefully consid-
ered in the dissertation. The addition of chapter 4 in the middle of
the study represents the single most extensive expansion. Earlier, I
had noted Ben Sira’s use of inheritance as a metaphor to describe
Israel’s possession of wisdom. The inheritance metaphor suggested
that Ben Sira views wisdom as a tradition to be preserved and
transmitted within a lineage, but I was unable at that point to de-
velop the implications of this observation. The completely new
chapter 4 on Election and Tradition investigates this subject. In ad-
dition to the new chapter 4, I have taken the opportunity afforded by
publication of the manuscript in this series to revise and expand
upon numerous other matters, large and small.
Throughout the study, all English translations are my own, unless
otherwise noted.
Charlottesville, Virginia
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Through the research for and writing of this book, I have become all
the more certain of the inherently collaborative character of scholar-
ship. Many individuals and institutions have contributed to the de-
velopment of this study, and I would like to acknowledge my in-
debtedness to them. Since this study began as a dissertation project,
I would like to thank, first and foremost, my advisor Dr. Jon D.
Levenson, as well as my committee members Drs. Peter Machinist
and Richard J. Clifford, S.J. Their influence can be discerned on
practically every page.
I am grateful to Dr. John J. Collins for accepting my manuscript
for publication in this series. His probing criticism of my work
proved valuable during the revision process. I would also like to
thank Dr. Hindy Najman, who assumed editorship of the series
while my manuscript was under revision, and especially the asso-
ciate editor of the series Dr. Benjamin G. Wright III, who read theentire manuscript twice and made many suggestions that greatly im-
proved the project. Thanks, too, is owed to the editors and staff at
Brill, especially Ms. Mattie Kuiper, Mr. Machiel Kleemans, and
Ms. Camila Werner, who saw this project through to publication.
Numerous other individuals read all or parts of the manuscript and
generously offered their feedback. Those who read the entire manu-
script include Drs. Liz Alexander and Matthew Goff, and Ms. Blaire
French. I particularly thank Dr. Eugene McGarry, who contributed
countless helpful suggestions about content, organization, and style. Among those who read parts of the manuscript are Dr. Rocco Gan-
gle, Mr. Patrick Hatcher, Mr. Geoff Chaplin, Drs. Caren Calendine,
Vivian Johnson, Martien Halvorson-Taylor, and Cynthia Chapman. I
am especially grateful to Dr. Joel Kaminsky, who offered valuable
insights on several chapters, and to Dr. Harry Gamble for his helpful
suggestions regarding chapter 7.
Many other persons contributed in various ways, large and small:
Drs. Alexander Di Lella, Nuria Calduch-Benages, Pancratius
Beentjes, Renate Egger-Wenzel, Jeremy Corley, and Matthias
xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Henze, Ms. Laura and Dr. Bill Whitney, Dr. Lesleigh Cushing, Ms.
Cathy Beckerleg, Drs. Kathryn Schifferdecker, Ellen Birnbaum,
James L. Kugel, Patrick Tiller, and Paula Richman, Mr. Ben White,
Ms. Hope Toscher, Ms. Myra Quick, Ms. Cathy Ashworth, Ms. Jill
Peterfeso, and Dr. Jodi Magness. All of the aforementioned indi-
viduals shaped and improved the project in immeasurable ways, and
without their efforts the study would have been greatly impover-
ished. Indeed, any shortcomings that remain are due in part to my
failure to heed their wise counsel.
This project was also made possible by several forms of institu-
tional support. The project began in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
where the Harvard Divinity School awarded me a Dean’s Disserta-tion Fellowship (2002–2003). The bulk of the dissertation was writ-
ten in Oberlin, Ohio, where the Oberlin College Department of Re-
ligion granted me a year-long Research Associate position (2003–
2004) and a year-long lectureship (2004–2005). I completed the dis-
sertation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where two McLestor Fac-
ulty Development Grants from the Department of Religious Studies
at UNC Chapel Hill covered the cost of travel to present my work at
several venues (2005–2006 and 2006–2007). Finally, chapter 4 and
most of the revisions for the book were completed in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a grant from the Dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences and the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies
at the University of Virginia helped prepare the manuscript for pub-
lication (2007–2008).
The greatest debt of gratitude—because of the time I stole from
them in order to complete the manuscript—is owed to my family.
During the completion of this project, my wife Dr. Jalane Schmidt
and I experienced the birth of our two children, Ana Mercedes and
Aurora Inéz. Our lives have been immeasurably enriched by their arrival. Jalane proved to be a constant source of support, both tangi-
ble and intangible. She read and critiqued the entire manuscript, and
during several periods of writing and revision she admirably as-
sumed more than her fair share of childcare and household duties.
These three constantly remind me of what is meaningful in my life.
Finally, my parents Judith and Lowell Goering first instilled in me
a love for the Hebrew Bible. In addition, they have supported me in
countless ways through the process of completing this project. It is
to them that I dedicate this book “with all my heart.”
This book follows the abbreviation system for secondary sources in
Patrick H. Alexander et al., eds., The SBL Handbook of Style: For
Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies (Pea-
body, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999). In addition, the following abbre-
viations, which do not appear in the handbook, are used:
BM Bet Mikra
JSJSup Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism
LiSa Los libros sagrados
NBE Nueva Biblia española
SAHL Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant
WISDOM, TORAH, AND ELECTION: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
ζα σοφας τνι πεκαλφθη To whom has wisdom’s root been revealed?
—Sirach 1.6
The three principal Wisdom1 books of the Jewish Bible never once
mention the cardinal events of ancient Israel’s historical tradition.
Proverbs, Job, and Qohelet betray no interest in, for example, the
promises to the ancestors, the exodus from Egypt, the theophany on
Mount Sinai, or the conquest of the land of Canaan.2 Rather than
drawing theological conclusions from traditions about Israel’s his-
torical encounter with YHWH, the biblical sages (the producers and
transmitters of the Wisdom writings) developed their understanding
of the universe and its creator through the observation of human in-
teractions and natural phenomena. These observations were summa-
rized by learned scholars in pithy sayings, which were written down,
collected, and made available for others to study. Since anyone, at
least in theory, could engage in the observation of nature and study
———— 1 In the field of biblical studies, “wisdom” refers to (1) a corpus of certain
books, (2) the teaching contained in those books, or (3) the human faculty of reason. Following the convention of Michael V. Fox, I use “Wisdom” (upper case) when referring to the literary corpus and “wisdom” (lower case) when referring to the teaching or the faculty of reason. But as Fox notes, “The distinctions cannot always be maintained” (Proverbs 1–9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commen- tary , AB 18A [New York: Doubleday, 2000], 3 n 3). In addition, I capitalize the term when it refers to the personification of wisdom.
2 Many scholars have observed the distinctively non-national character of Israelite
Wisdom literature. See, e.g., Roland E. Murphy, The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997), 1; and Jon D. Levenson, “The Universal Horizon of Biblical Particularism,” in Ethnicity and the Bible , ed. Mark G. Brett (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 149–50.
the recorded wisdom of previous generations, modern scholars gen-
erally view wisdom as having been a universal enterprise.3
The universal character of wisdom was not solely an Israelite phe-
nomenon. Works that share the characteristics of Israelite Wisdom
literature are extant from other places in Syria-Palestine, as well as
from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Similarities among Wisdom
writings from various parts of the ancient Near East (ANE) suggest
that sages shared their wisdom across national boundaries. This
cosmopolitan tenor of the wisdom tradition would seem to indicate
that wisdom was an international enterprise with a universal appeal.
The international character of the ancient Near Eastern Wisdom
tradition was likely made possible because the ancient sages treatedtopics of general interest. Sages counseled readers on such matters
as choosing a suitable marriage partner, behaving properly in the
presence of superiors, and exercising care in one’s speech. Anyone
who applied the sages’ teaching to his or her life could reap the ben-
efits of wisdom. This was thought to be true regardless of the per-
son’s nationality or religion. Some topics in Wisdom literature—such
as warnings against seductive women or guidance on how to serve
high political officials—disclose a narrower sociohistorical setting
and implicit audience.4 Nonetheless, the broad appeal of the topics addressed and the non-theistic and non-nationalistic idiom of much
ancient Near Eastern Wisdom literature suggests that the intended
audience of the Wisdom authors was the universal human being.5
Regarding the biblical Wisdom tradition, for example, James H.
———— 3 Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel , trans. James D. Martin (London: SCM
Press, 1972), 4; and James L. Kugel, “Wisdom and the Anthological Temper,” Proof 17 (1997): 9.
4

As feminist biblical scholars have pointed out in recent decades, much of Is- rael’s wisdom tradition, for example, conveys the perspective of predominantly male sages addressing their primarily young male audience. See, e.g., Claudia V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Sheffield: Almond, 1985); idem, “Woman Wisdom and the Strange Woman: Where is Power to Be Found?,” in Reading Bibles, Writing Bodies: Identity and the Book , ed. Timothy K. Beal and David M. Gunn (London: Routledge, 1997), 85–112; Carol A. Newsom, “Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom,” in Reading Bibles , 116–31; and Christine Roy Yoder, Wisdom as a Woman of Substance: A Socioeconomic Reading of Proverbs 1–9 and 31:10–31 , ed. Otto Kaiser, BZAW 304 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001).
5 Although a term such as “universal” does not occur in the ancient record, one
can infer that wisdom teachers considered their teachings to have universal applica- bility given the style and language they used to transmit their teaching.
WISDOM, TORAH, AND ELECTION 3
Breasted notes that the sages viewed their audience not as fellow
Israelites, bound by covenant to the personal God of Israel, but sim-
ply as human beings.6
WISDOM AND TORAH IN SIRACH
In the early decades of the second century B.C.E.,7 however, the
Jewish scribe Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira (hereafter Ben Sira)8
juxtaposed the universal wisdom tradition and Israel’s historical tra-
ditions. The most famous example appears in chapter 24 of his
———— 6 James Henry Breasted, The Dawn of Conscience (New York: Scribner, 1933).
In like fashion, William McKane observes that the problems that the book of Prov- erbs addresses are those that everyone faces (Proverbs: A New Approach [Philadel- phia: Westminster, 1970], 1–33). This interest in the person qua person, rather than in the person as a member of the ethnos , is related to the Wisdom tradition’s apparent lack of interest in the historical traditions of Israel. Similarly, Wilfred G. Lam- bert remarks that in Sumerian and Babylonian Wisdom literature, the primary distinction between beings in the universe was not based on ethnic or national identities, but was instead the distinction between human and divine beings (Babylonian Wisdom Literature [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960], 3).
7
The dating of the book of Sirach is not much in dispute. Based on the statement of the grandson in the prologue that he translated the book from the original Hebrew into Greek some time after he arrived in Egypt in “the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes” (132 B.C.E.), most scholars date the translation to just before (so G. H. Box and W. O. E. Oesterley) or just after (so Rudolf Smend) the death of Euer- getes in 117 B.C.E. See G. H. Box and W. O. E. Oesterley, “Sirach,” in The Apoc- rypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament , ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford: Claren- don, 1913), 1:293, 317; and Rudolf Smend, Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1906), 3. Allowing for two generations, the grandfather’s original text, then, was likely the product of the first quarter of the second century B.C.E. Such a calculation fits with the internal evidence from the book of Sirach. Sir 50.1–
21 hymns a priest, thought to be Simon II, who served as high priest from 219 to 196 B.C.E. From his description, it seems as though the author was personally fa- miliar with Simon II. Additionally, the book never refers to the turbulence that accompanied the reign of Antiochus IV (175–164 B.C.E.). Thus, it seems that the original book was composed somewhere in the period 196–175 B.C.E. For a good overview of the evidence for dating the book of Sirach, see Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira , AB 39 (Garden City, N.Y.: Dou- bleday, 1987), 8–10.
8 The author’s name is given in MS B Sir 50.27 and in a subscription following
Sir 51.30 as Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira ( yšw bn l zr bn syr ). On the text-critical problems in these verses, see Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom of Ben Sira , 557, 579– 80. Throughout the study, I refer to the author as Ben Sira and his book as Sirach. I have not altered quotations of other scholars, however, even when they use Sirach to refer to the author.
book.9 After relating personified Wisdom’s first-person account of
her origins, her pursuits in the celestial and terrestrial realms, and
the tale of how she came to dwell in the Jerusalem temple, Ben Sira
makes what many scholars refer to as the “identification” of Wis-
dom and Torah:
Sir 24.23a τατα πντα ββλος διαθκης θεο ψστου b νμον ν νετελατο μν Μωυσς c κληρονομαν συναγωγας Ιακωβ
Sir 24.23a All this [Wisdom] is the book of the covenant of the Most High God,
b the Torah that Moses commanded us
c as an inheritance for the congregations of Jacob. The interpretive problem lies in understanding precisely how Ben
Sira intends to relate Wisdom, that primordial entity which “held
sway over every people and nation” (Sir 24.6), and Torah, which he
defines as Israel’s “book of the covenant.” The Greek text simply
juxtaposes Wisdom and Torah without any verbal clues as to the
nature of the relation. In other words, the entire meaning of the re-
lation of Wisdom and Torah hinges on the copula “is” in my English
translation or, worse, on the absence of a verb in the Greek text that
might clarify the nature of the relation.
Beyond the syntactical problem lies the question of what Ben Sira
means by “Wisdom” and “Torah.” If Wisdom represents the teach-
ings of the ancient Near Eastern sages, which were considered uni-
versally applicable to all human beings, and if Torah denotes the
particular teachings of Israel’s God, which were intended for Jews
alone, in what sense could Ben Sira possibly relate these two seem-
ingly disparate entities? To state the problem abstractly, how does
the sage correlate the universal and the particular? By universal Imean something that is thought to apply to all humanity. In contrast,
something is particular if it is considered applicable only to a subset
———— 9 Ben Sira’s juxtaposition of Wisdom and Torah is just one of many such
juxtapositions in his book that require careful interpretation. Others include “fear of YHWH” and “wisdom” (Sir 1.27a), “to fear YHWH” and “to love YHWH” (2.16), “kindness to a father” and “a sin-offering” (3.14), “the commandments” and “the covenant” (28.7), “to guard oneself” and “to guard the commandment” (32.23), “to keep the Torah” and “to make many offerings” (35.1), and “the shining sun” and “the glory of YHWH” (42.16).
of humanity.10 More concretely, the problem involves the relation of
two authoritative bodies of literature, which Ben Sira inherited: the
corpus of international wisdom literature, on the one hand, and the
national literature of ancient Israel, on the other.
The problem of the relation between the universal and the partic-
ular is a problem inherent not only to Ben Sira but also to Judaism
more generally. Indeed, the matter is especially problematic for Ju-
daism because of its notion of special revelation. The problem of the
relation of the universal and particular, as I have defined these
terms, has a counterpart in the relation of general and special reve-
lation.11 A general revelation, such as one might find in a natural
religion, applies to all human beings. Anyone may have access tothe revelation, irrespective of her or his nationality, race, or reli-
gious identity. A special revelation, in contrast, applies only to the
particular group of persons to whom the revelation is given. Only a
person belonging to the group can have access to the content of the
special revelation.12 As with other religious traditions that make such
a distinction between general and special revelation, Ben Sira’s Ju-
daism must wrestle with a central theological problem: the relation
between the general revelation given to all human beings through
creation and the special revelation given to Israel through its historical experience.13
———— 10
Although I have defined the terms “universal” and “particular” somewhat differently from her, my thinking on the matter is indebted to the discussion of Ellen Birnbaum, The Place of Judaism in Philo’s Thought: Israel, Jews, and Proselytes , BJS 290 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 1–14. Her study explores two types of divine-human relationships in Philo: the quest to see God and the covenant between
God and Israel. Birnbaum (p 5) defines universalism as “the position that anyone can participate in these relationships” and particularism as “the position that only Jews can participate in these relationships.”
11 See David Novak, The Election of Israel: The Idea of the Chosen People
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 8. 12 The transposition of the problem from the relation of the universal and particu-
lar to the relation of general and special revelation is especially appropriate in the case of Ben Sira, because, as I shall show in chapter 3, he views wisdom as a kind of revelation to human beings. I shall demonstrate that Ben Sira distinguishes a general wisdom revealed to all human beings and a special wisdom revealed only to Israel.
13 Jon D. Levenson, “Response to the Papers of Stephen Geller, Neil Gillman, and David Novak” (paper presented at the Conference on Judaism and the Natural World, Harvard Divinity School, 1998), 2.
6 CHAPTER ONE
The problem occurs, to cite just one example, at the beginning of
Judaism’s scriptures, in Genesis and Exodus, which suggest that the
same God who created the universe, including all humanity, is also
the particular God of Israel.14 To put it another way, the same God
who revealed himself through his creation of the world also revealed
himself to Israel by means of the Torah. The problem arises in re-
lating the two resultant sources for knowledge of this one God: na-
ture or creation, on the one hand, and the Torah of Israel, on the
other.15 Thus, as a Jewish devotee of ancient Israel’s sacred writ-
ings, Ben Sira inherited the problem of the universal and particular.
Ben Sira’s correlation of universal Wisdom with Israel’s Torah
signals a significant development in Israel’s older wisdom tradition,which, as I noted, paid scant attention to the particularities of Is-
rael’s historical or religious traditions. The mere juxtaposition of the
two notions, however, does not solve the problem of the universal
and particular; the juxtaposition only raises the question of the rela-
tion between the two. The difficulty lies in the interpretation of Ben
Sira’s correlation of Wisdom and Torah, and on this point two di-
vergent avenues of scholarly interpretation are evident.
According to the first avenue of interpretation, Ben Sira’s correla-
tion of Wisdom and Torah nationalizes Wisdom and essentially re- stricts it to the province of God’s chosen people, Israel. Martin
Hengel argues, for example, that Ben Sira’s correlation of Wisdom
and Torah destroys
the universality of the influence of wisdom . . . The originally universal wisdom becomes the possession of a limited number of elect, the people of Israel or the pious devoted to the law.16
E. P. Sanders states the matter more moderately: in the worldview
of Ben Sira, “that wisdom which is universally sought is in fact truly represented by and particularized in the Torah given by God through
Moses.”17 Otto Kaiser interprets the relation in terms of the Torah’s
preeminence:
———— 14 See Birnbaum, Place of Judaism in Philo’s Thought , 1. 15 See Novak, Election of Israel , 6. 16 Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine
During the Early Hellenistic Period , trans. John Bowden, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 1:160–1.
17 E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 331.
The Torah, as the “law of life” (Sir 17:11; 45:5), has in [Ben Sira’s] eyes a superiority both theoretical and practical over every other source of wisdom, since it is the epitome of divine wisdom
and thereby the source of all true wisdom. 18

In the view of these scholars, Ben Sira either subsumes Wisdom into
Israel’s Torah, or he has such regard for the Torah as a document
without compare that the sage becomes a Jewish particularist with
little concern for universal wisdom.
According to the second avenue of interpretation, Ben Sira’s cor-
relation of Wisdom and Torah universalizes the Torah and defines
the Mosaic covenant in terms of the older wisdom tradition.19 Ger-
hard von Rad, for example, contends,
It is not that wisdom is overshadowed by the superior power of the Torah, but, vice versa , that we see Sirach endeavouring to legitimatize and to interpret the Torah from the realm of understanding characteristic of wisdom.20
Later von Rad continues:
The Torah is not a subject of particular interest to Sirach . . . For Sirach [the Torah] is of relevance only in so far as it is to be understood on the basis of, or as it is otherwise connected with, the
great complex of wisdom teachings.21
Put another way, Robert Pfeiffer suggests that “wisdom . . . looms
much more prominently in Sirach’s book than the Law with which
———— 18 Otto Kaiser, “Covenant and Law in Ben Sira,” in Covenant as Context: Essays
in Honour of E. W. Nicholson , ed. A. D. H. Mayes and R. B. Salters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 237. Cf. Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom of Ben Sira , 76; and Ernst Gunter Bauckmann, “Die Proverbien und die Sprüche des Jesus
Sirach,” ZAW 72 (1960): 33–63.19 See, e.g., Randal A. Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative Literary and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation and Judgment , SBLEJL 8 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 56 with n 144.
20 von Rad, Wisdom in Israel , 245. Italics in original. Cf. Gerald T. Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament , BZAW 151 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 61; and Johannes Mar- böck, Weisheit im Wandel: Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie bei Ben Sira (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1971), 85–96. The latter has been reprinted in Johannes Mar- böck, Weisheit im Wandel: Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie bei Ben Sira. Mit Nachwort und Bibliographie zur Neuauflage , BZAW 272 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1999), which includes a comprehensive bibliography on Sirach, as well as a brief review of unresolved research issues.
21 von Rad, Wisdom in Israel , 247.
8 CHAPTER ONE
he identified it.”22 John Collins, in comparing Ben Sira’s views on
Wisdom and Torah to that of Bar 3.9–4.4, argues:
In the case of Sirach, however, it would be more accurate to saythat the sage was defining the Mosaic covenant in terms of the well-established wisdom tradition. He does not cite biblical laws directly; he draws on other sources of wisdom besides the Torah, and he grounds all wisdom, including the law, in the order of creation.23
These scholars see Ben Sira’s correlation of Wisdom and Torah as
an expansive move which equates Israel’s special revelation par ex-
cellence with the wisdom accessible to all human beings. In this
view, Ben Sira subsumes Israel’s Torah into the category of Wisdomand thereby takes a universalist stance.
Both of these avenues of interpretation prove unsatisfactory in that
they define one idea—Wisdom or Torah—in terms of the other. One
category subsumes the other, with the result that the subsumed cate-
gory wanes in importance. On the one hand, if all Wisdom is sub-
merged into Torah, no role remains for the former. All wisdom de-
rives from the specific revelation of the Torah.24 On the other hand,
if the Torah is defined in terms of Wisdom, no separate purpose en-
dures for the former. The special revelation of the Torah is general- ized to such an extent that Wisdom alone suffices as a guide for
life.25 Given the reductionist nature of both avenues of interpreta-
tion, a fresh approach to interpreting Ben Sira’s correlation of Wis-
dom and Torah is required.
In order to avoid the reductionism evident in the scholarly inter-
pretations cited above, I suggest that Ben Sira views Wisdom and
Torah not as identical but rather as correlated. In his frequent asyn-
detic juxtaposition of the terms, as in Sir 24.23 cited above, the sage
intends to signal the congruity of Wisdom and Torah, not the reduc-
———— 22 Robert Henry Pfeiffer, History of New Testament Times, with an Introduction
to the Apocrypha , 1st ed. (New York: Harper, 1949), 370. 23 John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age , OTL (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 1997), 55. 24 See Novak, Election of Israel , 7. 25 Some scholars who hold the universalist reading of Sirach still maintain a dis-
tinctive role for the Torah. Collins (Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age , 56–61), for example, suggests that, for Ben Sira, Torah study offers one avenue for the pursuit of wisdom, and that “the point of the identification [of Torah with Wisdom] is to accredit the Torah as a valid concretization . . . of universal wisdom.”
tion of one to the other. It is this complexity of the correlation be-
tween Wisdom and Torah that the two dominant avenues of inter-
pretation fail to appreciate.26
Additionally, I suggest that Ben Sira distinguishes two kinds of
wisdom. In his view, all wisdom originates with YHWH. As the
creator of the universe and as the particular God of Israel, YHWH
has revealed wisdom to human beings in two apportionments. In one
apportionment, YHWH gives a general wisdom to all human beings,
and in another apportionment he gives a special wisdom to his cho-
sen people, Israel. The notion of “wisdom’s root” (Sir 1.6) provides
a fitting metaphor for this core of wisdom reserved for Israel. The
two apportionments of wisdom are in essence two revelations ofwisdom: a general wisdom which is available to all human beings
through creation, and a special wisdom which is available to Israel
through YHWH’s commandments. To stretch the metaphor a bit fur-
ther, special wisdom corresponds to the root which generally lies
hidden and must be especially revealed, whereas the general wisdom
seen by all in creation corresponds to the portion of the plant visible
above ground. Thus, pursuing the title of the present book, one
might answer the sage’s rhetorical question, “To whom has wis-
dom’s root been revealed?” thus: It has been revealed to God’s elect, Israel. Understanding Ben Sira’s view of wisdom in this way
complicates any simple “identification” of wisdom with Torah. Ben
Sira does not construe wisdom as completely universal, since in his
view Israel alone received a special measure of wisdom. Nor does
he view wisdom in wholly particular terms, because all human be-
ings partake in a general outpouring of wisdom upon the created
world. Neither completely universal, nor wholly particular—that is
the conundrum of wisdom; it is also the leitmotif of the present
study.
ELECTION IN SIRACH
The preceding discussion of a general wisdom given to the nations
and a special wisdom granted to Israel will no doubt call to mind the
doctrine of Israel’s election by YHWH. The doctrine of election
———— 26 Clearly, Hengel’s statement that “in practice, wisdom and the law become
one” is too simple (Judaism and Hellenism , 1:139).
draws a similar distinction between YHWH’s relationship to humanity
in general and the particular relationship that YHWH enters into with
Israel. Thus, it is reasonable to inquire after Ben Sira’s ideas about
election, to see whether they can inform the present discussion of his
ideas about wisdom and revelation. As I will show, Ben Sira incor-
porates these apportionments of general and special wisdom into an
integrated worldview by means of the idea of election. By appropri-
ating the doctrine of Israel’s election, the sage correlates the univer-
sal wisdom bestowed upon humanity generally and the particular
wisdom bequeathed to Israel especially.27
Election tends to be thought of in terms of particularism. That is,
for many people, the idea that God chooses to enter into a specialrelationship with some persons and not others connotes exclusiv-
ism.28 And thus one may wonder how election can relate a universal
entity such as Wisdom to a particular entity such as Torah. But my
understanding of election is not identified solely with particularism.
Rather, I interpret election as a way to understand a specific rela-
tionship between part and whole. In the situation of election, one
part of a whole is set apart for a special (in this case) divine pur-
pose. I contend that Ben Sira draws on the concept of Israel’s elec-
tion to mediate the tension between the wisdom tradition’s interest in universally available knowledge of God and Israel’s own particular
traditions of special revelation.
Surprisingly, few studies on the book of Sirach treat the topic of
election. Some commentaries do not mention the theme at all.29 Of
those that do, most note allusions to the election of Israel in this
———— 27 The doctrine of election is a natural tool for Ben Sira to use, since he views
wisdom as a kind of revelation, and the doctrine of revelation is a correlate to the
doctrine of election. See Novak, Election of Israel , 8.28 See, e.g., Jeremy Cott, “The Biblical Problem of Election,” JES 21 (1984): 199–228; Regina M. Schwartz, The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Mono- theism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 17–21; and R. Christopher Heard, Dynamics of Diselection: Ambiguity in Genesis 12–36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-Exilic Judah , SemeiaSt 39 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001), 2– 4, 182–4. What all these interpretations share in common is the notion that the doctrine of election results in particularism and exclusivism.
29 James L. Crenshaw, for example, does not mention election in his treatment of Sirach (Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction , rev. ed. [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998], 140–64). Only when discussing the topic in Wis 3.9; 4.15; and 15.1–2 does he suggest that Ben Sira’s hymn In Praise of the Ancestors of Old “paved the way for the adoption of particularistic thinking,” by which he means the idea of election (Old Testament Wisdom , 166–7).
passage or that, or mention the theme almost in passing without de-
veloping the larger implications of election for interpreting Ben Si-
ra’s work. Certainly, no monograph-length—or even article-length—
treatment of the subject exists.
Von Rad, for example, treats the topic of election in his discus-
sion of Sir 33.7–15. He proposes that, for Ben Sira, Israel’s election
results from “a primeval decision on God’s part.”30 Nevertheless,
von Rad never develops the implications of this observation for un-
derstanding the book of Sirach. He even dismisses the allusion to
Israel’s election as “only an example” of divine determination.
Moreover, von Rad interprets Ben Sira’s “limited” interest in Is-
rael’s election in terms of a dualism between good and evil. 31
Whilehis observations about primordial determinism prove to be useful for
understanding the connection between Ben Sira’s doctrine of election
and his creation theology, von Rad’s interpretation of Ben Sira’s
notion of election in dualistic terms distorts the subtle relationship
between Jews and non-Jews envisioned by the sage.
Dualists view the world through a stark “us versus them” lens, in
which “us” connotes good and “them” signifies evil. While Ben Sira
perceives the world in terms of Jew and non-Jew, he does not asso-
ciate good with the Jew and evil with the non-Jew. Instead, as I will demonstrate later on, he sees good and evil, wisdom and foolish-
ness, both within non-Jews and in his own Jewish people (see, for
example, Sir 16.5–14; 39.4). Moreover, whereas the dualist con-
cerns himself only with his own particular people—everyone else be
damned—Ben Sira seeks the well-being of all humanity, especially
their acquisition of wisdom, which aids them in living a good life.
In this respect, Luis Alonso Schökel’s brief discussion of election
in Sirach should be seen as an improvement on the work of von
Rad. In his study of Sir 16.24–17.14, Alonso Schökel notes both the purposeful nature and the universal and particular dimensions in Ben
Sira’s understanding of election. He observes that, for the sage, Is-
rael’s “election” responds to an “exigency of mankind.” Moreover,
he notes that Israel’s election is given “not as a monopoly, but in
order that Israel may share it with others.”32 My study develops
———— 30 von Rad, Wisdom in Israel , 270; cf. 267. 31 von Rad, Wisdom in Israel , 267. 32 Luis Alonso Schökel, “The Vision of Man in Sirach 16:24–17:14,” in Israelite
Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien , ed. John G.
12 CHAPTER ONE
Alonso Schökel’s characterization of election in Sirach both as pur-
poseful and as a device by which Ben Sira correlates the universal
and particular.
Collins treats the topic of election primarily with respect to Wis-
dom’s settlement in Israel (Sir 24). Like von Rad, Collins interprets
this passage as suggesting “that the association of wisdom with Is-
rael is primordial.”33 Importantly, Collins notes the influence of
Deut 32.8–9 on Sirach 24. As I will show, this Deuteronomic pas-
sage had an enormous influence on the significance and character of
election for Ben Sira. Like von Rad, however, Collins also interprets
Ben Sira’s doctrine of election in terms of dualism.34
Leo Perdue treats the theme of election in Sirach more fully than, perhaps, any other scholar.35 He identifies allusions to Israel’s cho-
senness in Sir 16.24–18.14; 24; 33.7–15; and 44–50. Perdue ob-
serves that Ben Sira ties his doctrine of election to his creation the-
ology36 and associates Israel’s election with divine sovereignty and
determination.37 Like Collins, Perdue notes the significance of elec-
tion for interpreting Wisdom’s residence in Israel, especially in the
metaphor of “inheritance.”38 Perdue, however, suggests that Israel’s
election reveals that “God predestines some humans to be righteous
and others to be evil.”39 Thus, like von Rad and Collins, Perdue interprets Ben Sira’s understanding of election in dualistic terms.
Johannes Marböck’s literary and structural analysis of Ben Sira’s
wisdom poems locates the sage’s notion of election within a com-
———— Gammie, et al. (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press for Union Theological Seminary, 1978), 243. Alonso Schökel concludes, “Thus, the elect people becomes a model for understanding man, and as [sic ] a model from which man may learn.”
33
Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age , 51.34 Collins (Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age , 84–5) comments on Ben Sira’s views of election in his discussion of Sir 33.7–15, a passage he interprets dualistically: “v. 12 contrasts the election of Israel with the dispossession of the Canaanites . . . Finally, in 33:14–15, Sirach argues that divine election is not random, but is part of a coherent system: ‘Good is the opposite of evil, and life is the opposite of death; so the sinner is the opposite of the godly.’” In chapter 2, I argue that Sir 33.7–15 should not be understood dualistically.
35 Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom and Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 243–90.
36 Perdue, Wisdom and Creation , 269–70. 37 Perdue, Wisdom and Creation , 274. 38 Perdue, Wisdom and Creation , 269–70. 39 Perdue, Wisdom and Creation , 290. Cf. 273–4.
prehensive worldview.40 In the structure of Ben Sira’s wisdom think-
ing, the idea of election is connected to wisdom and law. Specifi-
cally, the concrete manifestation of wisdom in Israel by means of
the Torah constitutes a reappropriation of election. Marböck rightly
suggests that Ben Sira is concerned to hold Israel’s national tradi-
tions, which were based on election and history, in creative tension
with the universal wisdom tradition, which is based on the human
capacity to reason. In Marböck’s interpretation, Wisdom serves as
the device by which Ben Sira holds these traditions in tension, be-
cause for the sage, wisdom relates both to creation (universal) and to
fear of YHWH (particular). Thus, for Marböck, election stands for
the particular historical traditions of Israel, while “profane” wisdomrepresents the universal.41 My interpretation of wisdom in Sirach
resembles that of Marböck, in that I also envision both a universal
and a particular dimension to wisdom. Nevertheless, I maintain, the
idea of election stands behind Ben Sira’s two-tiered construction of
wisdom and, thus, serves to bridge the universal and particular in
Ben Sira’s thought. Moreover, like most commentators, Marböck
also interprets election in dualistic terms.42 Another drawback of his
study is its overemphasis on the wisdom poems in Sirach. As a re-
sult of this focus, it fails to take into account the wisdom sayings and instructions which take up an equally large portion of the
book.43
My study demonstrates that Ben Sira derives the doctrine of Is-
rael’s election from an observation he makes about the natural world
———— 40 Marböck, Weisheit im Wandel . Cf. Johannes Marböck, “Gesetz und Weisheit:
zum Verständnis des Gesetzes bei Jesus ben Sira,” BZ 20 (1976): 1–21; and, more recently, his collection of essays in idem, Gottes Weisheit unter Uns: Zur Theologie
des Buches Sirach (Freiburg: Herder, 1995).41 See Marböck, Weisheit im Wandel , 125. 42 Marböck, Weisheit im Wandel , 152–4. 43 While most of the book of Sirach can be classified as poetry, the wisdom po-
ems make up only a part (a significant part, to be sure) of the various genres employed by the author. Marböck relies on a group of wisdom poems (Sir 1.1–10; 14.20–15.10; 24; etc.), especially wisdom hymns, to interpret Ben Sira’s theology, at the expense of other literary forms, which are no less important for reconstructing the sage’s ideas. Beyond the wisdom poems and hymns, Sirach includes many ex- tended rhetorical constructions, what some term instructions or lectures, as well as individual sayings, prayers, and the like. On the literary genres employed by Ben Sira in general, see Walter Baumgartner, “Die literarischen Gattungen in der Weis- heit des Jesus Sirach,” ZAW 34 (1914): 161–98; and Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom of Ben Sira , 21–30.
14 CHAPTER ONE
and from sources in the Hebrew Bible. In various biblical texts, God
inexplicably chooses certain figures over others for special roles in
the divine economy. Sometimes this choosing of a particular person
(or in the case of Israel, a nation or people) is considered to have
universal implications. In Gen 12.1–3, for example, YHWH chooses
Abram to father a great people and to inherit a particular land. But
the effect of choosing the particular person of Abram has universal
implications: all the nations of the earth will experience blessing
through Abram.44 Similarly, Ben Sira’s notion of Israel’s election
has a universal purpose: like rivers which channel water to the
ocean, the elect play a role in the distribution of wisdom to the lar-
ger world (Sir 24.10–22; cf. Deut 4.6–7). 45
By appropriating Israel’s election tradition, Ben Sira maintains a
focus upon the universal concern of the wisdom tradition for the
well-being of all humanity and also upon the particular traditions of
Israel’s own national heritage contained within its ancient literature.
Moreover, the tradition of election offers Ben Sira a means for
bridging these two concerns. For Ben Sira, the election of Israel
suggests not only that the universal and the particular—the distinct
phenomena of Wisdom and Torah—are correlated, but that there is a
purposefulness to the relation. Whereas the correlation of general and special revelation simply suggests the whole and the part, elec-
tion maintains that the special revelation is given with the intent of
providing universal benefits.
———— 44 On the long-standing debate over the proper translation of the Niphal of brk in
Gen 12.3b, see Claus Westermann, Genesis 12–36 , trans. John J. Scullion (Minnea-
polis: Fortress, 1995), 151–2, and the literature cited there. Whether the passive meaning (“be blessed”) or the reflexive meaning (“bless themselves”) of the Niphal should be read is, in one sense, a moot point. On either interpretation, the nations partake in the blessing accorded Abram. Ben Sira, along with LXX, Vulg., and Tg., understands the verb in a passive sense. Sir 44.21 suggests that YHWH elected Abram “in order to bless the nations by his offspring (lbrk bzr w g w y m).” In Ben Sira’s case, this is all the more interesting, since his allusion to the blessing has more affinities with Gen 22.18 and 26.4, where MT uses the Hitpael, which does not have a passive sense.
45 Ben Sira’s view of Israel as a dispenser of wisdom to the nations corresponds to his portrayal of Solomon in Sir 47.14–15. According to the tradition of 1 Kings, the nations come to Solomon to experience his wisdom (1 Kgs 5.14 [Eng. 4.34]; 10.1–13, 24–25). In Ben Sira’s depiction, however, the king’s wisdom radiates out- ward to the nations. I am indebted to Eugene McGarry for pointing out this parallel.
PLAN OF THE PRESENT STUDY
The famous complexity of the textual history of the book of Sirach
presents numerous challenges to the textual critic. Although Ben
Sira composed his work in Hebrew, only some 68 percent of the
Hebrew text is extant. In addition to the Hebrew text, various
Greek, Syriac, and Latin manuscripts provide important witnesses to
the text of Sirach. Hence, my attempt to grapple with Ben Sira’s
arguments and reasoning has required frequent attention to the multi-
farious manuscript evidence for his book, as the footnotes will indi-
cate. In addition, textual reconstructions of four principal passages
treated in the study, accompanied by my translations, appear in a setof appendixes at the end of the book. The appendixes are intended to
serve as a convenient reference for the reader who wishes to see
how I handle each of the four passages as a whole. Footnotes to the
text-critical appendixes are duplicated in the footnotes to the chap-
ters, where relevant to my argument; thus, it is possible to read the
chapters without consulting the appendixes. Finally, a brief intro-
duction to the witnesses and modern editions and reference tools
precedes the appendixes.
In my attempt to recover Ben Sira’s arguments and to reconstruct his conceptual framework, I have naturally had to pay close attention
to philological matters. I construe philology not simply in the nar-
row, lexicographic sense, but more broadly to include the task of
studying lexical items and their textual context with the goal of in-
terpreting literature.46 Since words take on meaning within larger
literary contexts, I also have had to ascertain carefully the literary
features of his text. The analysis of literary structures and styles is
essential for understanding the sense of larger units in Ben Sira’s
discourse. In addition to the analysis of genre, I pay attention to literary figures, such as metaphor and chiasmus; to poetic features,
such as parallelism; and also to rhetorical techniques, such as analo-
gy and amplification. I aim to interpret Sirach in a holistic manner,
taking into account his wisdom poems as well as his sapiential dis-
courses. For example, in my discussion of a chiastic structure in
———— 46 See Jan Ziolkowski, “‘What is Philology’: Introduction,” in On Philology , ed.
idem (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990), 5–7, and the other essays contained in the same volume, especially those of W. Clausen and C. Watkins.
16 CHAPTER ONE
Sirach 32 (see chapter 5), I show that Ben Sira sometimes argues in
a formally complex way. Frequently, the literary and stylistic fea-
tures of Ben Sira’s work provide clues to or confirmations of his
argumentative content. At the same time, because Ben Sira writes in
the parallelistic Hebrew “poetic” tradition, he sometimes uses con-
structions whose precise meaning is difficult to elucidate. Such are
the asyndetic expressions juxtaposing Wisdom and Torah in Sir
24.23 that I mentioned at the beginning of this introduction.
Such asyndetic juxtapositions and Ben Sira’s uses of poetic paral-
lelism provide certain challenges in the interpretation of the book.
The sage juxtaposes or parallels many of the terms that prove most
significant for understanding the book: Wisdom and Torah, Wisdomand the fear of YHWH, fear of YHWH and observance of the com-
mandments, fear of YHWH and love of YHWH. One shortcoming in
the history of interpreting the book, I believe, is the frequent failure
of scholars to consider the precise relationship intended by the sage
through juxtaposition and parallelism. A literal interpretation of a
statement such as “Wisdom is Torah” results in a tautology, and,
were this all that Ben Sira intended to communicate by the juxtapo-
sition, his book would turn out to be quite dull. One could simply
summarize his message using a mathematical equation in which all the important terms were linked with a series of equals signs. Based
on my appreciation for Ben Sira’s complex arguments elsewhere in
his book, I operate on the assumption that his uses of juxtaposition
and parallelism can express something other than mere equality or
identity.47 I therefore look for contextual clues that might help me
understand the precise relation intended between two asyndetically
related objects or two terms appearing in poetic parallelism. It must
be admitted that a precise understanding of the intended relation
cannot always be securely deduced. Nevertheless, I have tried to extract as much meaning from the text and context without injecting
meanings of my own.
As a scribe versed in the national traditions of Israel, Ben Sira
frequently refers to texts from the Israelite literary heritage. For this
reason, I examine similarities and differences between Sirach and
other cognate texts and explore his citations of, allusions to, and re-
———— 47 In this respect, James L. Kugel’s critique of the interpretation of biblical paral-
lelism as indicative of synonymity is instructive (The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Paral- lelism and Its History [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1981], 1–58).
workings of texts which were, or later became, biblical.48 In this
way, I can observe the distinctive ways in which Ben Sira develops
antecedent traditions.
In the end, Ben Sira was a Jewish scribe who flourished in the
first quarter of the second century B.C.E. in Jerusalem. Therefore, I
also attempt to locate Ben Sira in his sociohistorical context. As a
scribe, he likely served high officials, and he seems to have had
close associations with Jewish priests. He lived during a relatively
stable period between the Seleucid conquest of Palestine (200
B.C.E.) and the turbulence associated with Antiochus IV (175–164
B.C.E.). Nonetheless, Ben Sira resided under foreign occupation in
the city considered by many of his fellow Jews to be their God’sholy dwelling place. All of these factors contribute to Ben Sira’s
worldview and, therefore, must be taken into account in any inter-
pretation of the book of Sirach.
I present my exposition of Ben Sira’s doctrine of election and its
implications for interpreting his book in chapters 2 through 7. In the
overall design of the book, I have arranged the chapters with a cer-
tain symmetry in mind. Chapter 7—where I synthesize my findings—
corresponds to the present chapter, in which I have established the
initial problem. Chapter 2 on Ben Sira’s creation theology finds its counterpart in chapter 6, where I explicate the sage’s eschatology.
Chapter 3’s distinction between general wisdom and special wisdom
mirrors chapter 5’s discussion of non-Jewish piety and Jewish piety.
At the center of the book stands chapter 4, where I analyze the tra-
dition of transmitting wisdom from generation to generation. Thus,
———— 48 Describing the status of texts alluded to by Ben Sira is problematic. Clearly
some of the sage’s allusions are to traditions that eventually became part of the biblical tradition. Whether those traditions were regarded by Ben Sira as biblical is another matter. Some scholars are more willing to conclude that Ben Sira was citing texts that he regarded as canonical; see, e.g., Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct , 109–16; and Pancratius C. Beentjes, “Canon and Scripture in the Book of Ben Sira,” in “Happy the One Who Meditates on Wisdom” (Sir. 14,20): Collected Essays on the Book of Ben Sira , CBET 43 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 169–86. Other scholars are more guarded on the question; see, e.g., Robert A. Kraft, “Scripture and Canon in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation , ed. Magne Sæbø, Christian Brekelmans, and Me- nahem Haran (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 1:199–216; and Benja- min G. Wright III, “Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Ben Sira,” in Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism , ed. Matthias Henze (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, forthcoming).
18 CHAPTER ONE
chapter 4 forms a bridge from the idea of special wisdom developed
in chapter 3 to the discussion of Israel’s special piety in chapter 5.
In addition to this overall chiastic structure, several of the chapters
form natural pairs. Together, chapters 2 and 3 explain how general
and special wisdom are revealed to their respective recipients. And
chapters 5 and 6 elucidate how Ben Sira thinks Israel and the nations
should act, each on the basis of its respective apportionment of wis-
dom. Before moving on, let me briefly summarize the contents of
each chapter.
In chapter 2, I demonstrate that Ben Sira distinguishes human be-
ings on the basis of two unequal apportionments of divine wisdom.
The first apportionment involves a general outpouring of wisdomupon all creation, including all humanity. The second consists in a
special distribution of an extra measure of wisdom to a select group
of humanity. While most scholars interpret this classification dualis-
tically, I argue that Ben Sira bases the distinction on the idea of
election with no implication of dualism. That is, Israel’s election
does not include a rejection of the non-elect. The sage derives his
notion of Israel’s election from older biblical traditions, as well as
from his theology of creation. For Ben Sira, the wise creator YHWH
established his mastery through the confinement of chaos in the pri- mordium. As a result of his sovereignty, YHWH dispenses wisdom to
whomever he chooses and in whatever amount he chooses. Accord-
ing to Ben Sira, YHWH made a primordial decision to elect Israel to
receive a special dispensation of wisdom.
In chapter 3, I show that Ben Sira views the two apportionments
of wisdom discussed in chapter 2 as forms of divine revelation. The
outpouring of wisdom upon all creation constitutes a “general wis-
dom” that is available to all humanity through the natural world.
Analogously, the lavish distribution of wisdom upon the elect constitutes a “special wisdom” to which Israel alone is privy. Recog-
nizing that the sage distinguishes between general wisdom and spe-
cial wisdom complicates most scholars’ facile description that Ben
Sira characterizes wisdom as either universal or particular. The sage
develops his understanding of the relationship between the elect and
special wisdom through the metaphor of inheritance. As it is used by
Ben Sira, the metaphor suggests the relation of part to whole: YHWH
set apart the land of Canaan (part) from all the earth (whole) as a
place for Israel to dwell in. In the same way, the deity separated
special wisdom from universal wisdom and bestowed it upon the
Jewish people as a special inheritance.
Ben Sira’s description of Israel’s special wisdom as an inheritance
suggests a portion to be preserved and transmitted within a lineage
from generation to generation. Chapter 4 seeks to identify the mech-
anisms that the sage envisioned as the proper means of safeguarding
special wisdom and handing it on from generation to generation
among the elect. I compare the various institutions for guarding and
transmitting wisdom evident in the book of Proverbs to those alluded
to in the book of Sirach. Such a comparison allows me to measure
the significance Ben Sira attaches to each institution relative to the
significance placed on the same institutions by the compilers of the book of Proverbs. I argue that Ben Sira marginalizes the role of the
king and, to a certain extent, the family, while he elevates the im-
portance of the scribe and introduces the role of the priests as pre-
servers and transmitters of wisdom. These sociological changes ma-
nifested in the book of Sirach reflect the new political configuration
of early-second-century B.C.E. Jerusalem.
Chapter 5 probes the content and purposes of the special wisdom
that the elect receive and transmit to future generations. I show that
Ben Sira uses “fear of YHWH” primarily to refer to a piety that I characterize as Jewish. According to the sage, this Jewish piety has
primordial roots, along with wisdom, and was associated from the
beginning with the pious elect, that is, with those who fear YHWH.
Fear of YHWH implies loyalty to the covenant relationship between
Israel and God. A Jew demonstrates loyalty to YHWH’s covenant
through observance of the covenantal stipulations, which for Ben
Sira are the pentateuchal commandments. These commandments in-
clude ethical and cultic requirements, both of which are important
for the sage. By enacting the ethical and ritual commandments of the Torah, the elect bring their lives into harmony with the primeval
order. Such harmony with the primeval order bestows benefits upon
the elect and leads to yet greater wisdom. The benefits are not re-
stricted, however, to the elect. Observance of the Torah’s covenantal
commandments renews and sustains the primeval order upon which
the world is built. In this way, the elect play an active role that ben-
efits the whole of humankind, indeed the whole world. While in one
sense fear of YHWH designates a Jewish piety and, thus, applies to
Jews, in a general way it may refer also to literal fright or awe, and
20 CHAPTER ONE
in this sense connotes a universal kind of piety applicable to non-
Jews.
Chapter 6 explores the implications of Ben Sira’s understanding of
Israel’s election for his eschatology. Ben Sira’s generally positive
attitude toward non-Jews derives from his view that they are the re-
cipients of general wisdom. As such, the nations have the capacity
to fear YHWH in the general sense of experiencing awe at creation
and, as a result, recognizing his sovereignty as creator of the world.
If, however, the awesomeness of creation does not move the Gen-
tiles to fear YHWH, then God’s miraculous rescue of his oppressed
people becomes necessary. In this way, the elect, as recipients of
divine deliverance, play a passive role in bringing about the escha-tological reality in which all nations recognize YHWH as sole deity.
Ben Sira does not, however, expect the nations to practice a Jewish
piety. The sage views YHWH as a supergod or emperor who rules
directly over Israel alone. Since he appoints intermediaries to rule
over other nations, non-Jews are required to practice only a univer-
sal piety.
Chapter 7 synthesizes the findings of my study. I compare Ben
Sira’s view of Israel’s election to that of the book of Jubilees , on the
one hand, and to that of Philo, on the other. In general, I show that Philo tended toward a universal view, in which anyone could de-
velop an intimate relationship with the Jewish God through the phi-
losophical quest of seeing God. Nonetheless, Philo, like Ben Sira,
inherited the biblical tradition of Israel’s covenant with YHWH and
also had particularistic understandings. Jubilees , in contrast, has a
radically particularistic understanding of Israel as the elect people of
YHWH. Like Ben Sira, Jubilees attributes Israel’s election to a pri-
mordial decision on God’s part to charge one people with the task of
practicing a particular piety. From such comparisons, one can see that other Jewish authors of the Second Temple period also struggled
with the problem of universalism and particularism and offered a
range of solutions.
CHAPTER TWO
ELECTION AND CREATION: THE SUN, THE MOON, AND ISRAEL’S CHOSENNESS
Israelite sages classified human beings into two groups. According
to the sapiential tradition, a person was either wise or foolish. The
wise person possessed wisdom, that is, had mastered the accumu-
lated insights of previous generations on how best to live one’s life. The fool, in contrast, lacked such knowledge. In this way, the wis-
dom tradition generated an anthropology that contained a rather sim-
ple typology.
The second-century B.C.E. Jewish sage Ben Sira also categorizes
human beings into two groups. As I shall relate, many scholars de-
scribe the nature of the distinction between the sage’s two groups as
“opposition.” In this chapter, however, I argue that Ben Sira distin-
guishes human beings based on a nonoppositional understanding of
election, a notion he derives from older biblical traditions and from
a cosmological observation. His doctrine of election emerges from
his theology of creation, in which YHWH as wise and sovereign
creator dispenses wisdom to whomever he chooses, in whatever
amount he chooses. Moreover, in contrast to most biblical authors,
who portray Israel’s election as a historical event, Ben Sira grounds
his election doctrine in the creation of the world.
TWO APPORTIONMENTS OF WISDOM
In the poem that opens his book (Sir 1.1–10; see appendix A), Ben
Sira distinguishes two apportionments of divine wisdom:
Sir 1.9b κα ξχεεν ατν π πντα τ ργα ατο 10a μετ πσης σαρκς κατ τν δσιν ατο
b κα χοργησεν ατν τος γαπσιν ατν1
———— 1 In place of “those who love him,” a few Gk. MSS (and Syr.) read φοβουμνοις
ατν (those who fear him). For my purposes the question is moot, since, as I shall show in chapter 5, for Ben Sira, those who love God are those who fear him.
22 CHAPTER TWO
Sir 1.9b He poured out [wisdom] upon all his works, 10a among all flesh according to his largess,
b and he lavished her upon those who love him.
According to Ben Sira, YHWH “poured out” a first allocation of
wisdom upon all of his creations, including all human beings (vv 9b,
10a). The deity then “lavished” a second allotment upon a particular
subset of humanity , referred to here by Ben Sira as “those who love
him” (v 10b; see my discussion in n 1, above). As I will discuss in
chapter 3, the sage uses this same verb (χορηγω) in Sir 1.26 to de-
scribe the extra wisdom that YHWH lavishes on those who keep the
divine commandments.
Ben Sira’s mention of these two apportionments of divine wis-dom—which in the next chapter I will call general wisdom and spe-
cial wisdom, respectively—occurs at the very end of this opening
poem, in which the sage recounts wisdom’s origin. In the poem as a
whole, he affirms that all wisdom originates with God (v 1). Ben
Sira considers Wisdom herself to be a creation of God and, further-
more, the first of all divine creations (v 4; cf. v 9a). In order to em-
phasize the exceeding wisdom of God, Ben Sira uses a series of
rhetorical questions (vv 2, 3, 6), asking, for example, who can fath-
om “the height of heaven, the breadth of the earth, the abyss, and wisdom” (v 3).2 The presumed answer to all these rhetorical ques-
tions is, of course, no one—except for God. If, as Ben Sira suggests,
God is the original possessor of wisdom, it follows, then, that God
can dispense wisdom to whomever he chooses, and in whatever
amount he chooses. In the final three cola of the poem, quoted
above, Ben Sira narrates that YHWH chose to dispense wisdom in
two apportionments (Sir 1.9b–10b).
Moreover, Ben Sira’s language suggests that he viewed these two
divine apportionments of wisdom to be uneven. The unevenness results not from a qualitative difference in the wisdom of the two al-
lotments, but rather from a quantitative disparity. Upon all his crea-
tions and upon all humanity, Ben Sira relates, YHWH dispensed (κ- χω, literally “to pour out [like water]”) wisdom in a calculated
amount. Thus, according to Ben Sira, all human beings receive a
certain measure of wisdom by virtue of their created status. In the
———— 2 In place of most Gk. witnesses, which read “abyss, and wisdom,” Lat., Copt.,
and Eth. read “depths of the abyss,” while Syr. reads “the great ocean.” Skehan and Di Lella, Wisdom of Ben Sira , 137.
next colon, however, he indicates that God has granted wisdom
more generously to a select group. Upon those who love him,
YHWH bequeathed wisdom profusely (χορηγω, literally “to furnish
abundantly”).3 While the former verb suggests a simple, deliberate
pouring of wisdom on all creation equally, the latter indicates that
Ben Sira had in view a more bountiful outpouring of wisdom upon a
select group of persons.4

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