Wisdom and the Law

The heart of the book is a great poem where Wisdom herself takes the floor and sings her own praise. She tells that she came forth from the mouth of the Most High, covered the earth like a mist, and sought a place of rest among all peoples, until God commanded her to pitch her tent in Israel. There, in Jerusalem, she took root. Then Ben Sira reveals what this Wisdom is: the book of the Covenant, the Law given by Moses. This identity makes his whole originality. The Church, reading these pages, recognizes in this Wisdom come from the mouth of God and come to dwell among men the announcement of the Word made flesh.

Wisdom sings her own praise

As in Proverbs, Wisdom here speaks as a living person. She rises in the midst of the assembly and glories, then tells her origin: “I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and like a mist I covered the earth.” Sirach 24:3 She is from before the ages, first of all God’s works, and will never cease to be: “Before the ages, from the beginning, he created me, and never, to all eternity, will I cease to be.” Sirach 24:9 She is not a thing among things, but the origin, present to all creation, joined to the work of God, as the poem of Proverbs already said of Wisdom brought forth before the mountains. She has circled the vault of heaven, held sway over all the earth, over every people and nation, seeking everywhere a domain in which to dwell.

Established in Israel

Then comes the turning point of the poem. Wisdom, offered to all peoples, receives from the Creator the command to make her home in one: “Dwell in Jacob, take your inheritance in Israel.” Sirach 24:8 This is the very logic of election: God chooses one people, not to cast out the others, but so that through it all may one day be blessed. Universal Wisdom therefore pitches her tent in Zion, ministers in the holy Dwelling, takes root in the beloved city. Ben Sira then describes her by a cascade of images of trees and perfumes: she grows like the cedar of Lebanon, the cypress, the palm, the vine; she breathes out her scent like the incense that rises in the sanctuary. Wisdom fruitful, beautiful, life-giving, whose place is the Temple. And she invites: “Come to me, you who desire me, and be filled with my fruits.” Sirach 24:18 Yet she gives herself without ever being spent, for the desire she fills she reopens: “Those who eat me will hunger still, those who drink me will thirst still.” Sirach 24:20

Wisdom is the Law

Then falls the word that gives the whole poem its key. This Wisdom come from the mouth of God, come to dwell in Israel, Ben Sira names: “All this is none other than the book of the covenant of the Most High God, the law that Moses prescribed for us.” Sirach 24:22 Here is his unique gesture among the sages. Elsewhere, wisdom was a human art, an observation of the world open to all; here, eternal Wisdom and the Law of Moses are one. To be wise is to keep the commandments; to study the Law is to drink from the very source of all wisdom. The Wisdom present at creation has given herself to men in the concrete form of the Law, written, handed to a people, to be practiced day after day. So Ben Sira gathers the two great streams of the Old Testament, that of the sages and that of the Law, into one reality.

Wisdom come to dwell among us

The Church reads this poem in the light of the Gospel, and it opens of itself. Eternal Wisdom, come from the mouth of God, through whom all was made, is the Word, the Son: this is the reading unfolded by the great poem of Proverbs on Wisdom present at creation, and Sirach adds to it two traits of its own. First, Wisdom pitches her tent in the midst of a people. The word returns in John to say the Incarnation: “And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.” John 1:14 What Ben Sira said of Wisdom come to dwell in Israel, John says of the Word come to dwell in one man, Jesus; and the Dwelling where Wisdom ministered is fulfilled in the body of Christ, the true Temple. Then, Wisdom identified with the Law is fulfilled in Christ, the living Law, who comes not to abolish the Law but to fulfil it: “I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfil them.” Matthew 5:17 The Wisdom that had given herself as a book now gives herself as a person. This is why, finally, the liturgy reads this poem for the Virgin Mary: in her Wisdom truly pitched her tent, and the Church greets her as the seat of Wisdom, she who bore in her flesh the One whom Ben Sira could only announce from afar.