remember that long discipline in the duties spoken of has produced some of the finest qualities in the Jewish character.
(b) Happy the man who has not offended in his speech,
and is not pricked with grief for sins (xiv. 1).
(c) Gain credit with thy neighbour in his poverty,
that thou mayest rejoice in his prosperity;
abide stedfast unto him in the time of his affliction,
that thou mayest be heir with him in his heritage (xxii. 23).
(d) Nine things I in my heart pronounce happy, . . .
and he that lives to see the fall of enemies
(xxiv. 7; comp also xii. 10-12, xxx. 6).
(e) Who will praise the Most High in Hades,
instead of those who live and give praise? (xvii. 27.)
For man cannot do everything,
because the son of man is not immortal (xvii. 30).
With the latter saying, contrast Wisd. of Sol. ii. 23, 'For God created man for immortality.'
(f) (Give me) any plague but the plague of the heart,
and any wickedness but the wickedness of a woman &c.
(xxv. 13-26).
This opening verse might perhaps be otherwise rendered,
Any wound but a wound in the heart,
and any evil but evil in a wife.
The misfortune of having a bad wife is often touched upon in the Talmud. Ewald's sentence is however just, that Sirach's 'estimate of women, and sharp summary counsel concerning divorce (see ver. 26], place [him] far below the height of the Hebrew Bible.'[1]
I admit the imperfection of these moral statements; but can they not several of them be paralleled from the Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes? And can we not find as many more anticipations of the moral teaching of the Synoptic Gospels and St. James (e.g. iv. 10, vii. 11, 14, xi. 18, 19, xv. 14, xvii. 15, xxiii. 4, 11, 18)? Do not let us undervalue any foregleams of the coming dawn.
- ↑ Ewald, Revelation, p. 364 n.
