Sirach — Chapter 38
Physicians, Mourning, and Skilled Work
← Sirach 37 · Sirach: all chapters · Sirach 39 →
Hebrew–Greek comparison and notes · III. Wisdom
38:1 Honor a physician with his due honors according to the need for him, for the Lord created him too.
38:2 For healing is from the Most High, and the physician will receive a gift from a king.
38:3 A physician’s knowledge will raise his head, and he will be admired before dignitaries.
38:4 The Lord created medicines from the earth, and a prudent man will not reject them.
38:5 Was not water sweetened by wood, so that its strength might be known?
38:6 He Himself gave human beings knowledge, to be glorified in His wonderful works.
38:7 By these He healed and removed the sufferer’s pain; with these a perfumer will make a mixture,
38:8 and His works will certainly not come to an end; from Him there is peace upon the face of the earth.
38:9 Child, do not be negligent in your illness, but pray to the Lord, and He Himself will heal you.
38:10 Put wrongdoing away, straighten your hands, and cleanse your heart from every sin.
38:11 Give a fragrant offering and a memorial of fine flour, and make your offering rich, as one who is no more.
38:12 Give the physician a place too, for the Lord created him; do not let him leave you, for you need him.
38:13 There is a time when success is also in their hands,
38:14 for they themselves will petition the Lord to grant them success in relief and healing for the sake of preserving life.
38:15 May the one who sins before his Maker fall into a physician’s hands.
38:16 Child, shed tears over the dead and begin a lament as one suffering terribly. Lay out his body according to his due, and do not neglect his burial.
38:17 Make your weeping bitter and your lament fervent; mourn according to his worth for one day or two because of slander, and be comforted because of grief.
38:18 For death comes from grief, and grief of heart will bend strength.
38:19 In calamity grief also remains, and the poor person’s life weighs upon the heart.
38:20 Do not give your heart over to grief; put it away, remembering the last things.
38:21 Do not forget: there is no return. You will not benefit this person, and you will harm yourself.
38:22 “Remember my judgment, for yours is likewise: yesterday for me, today for you.”
38:23 When the dead rests, bring his remembrance to rest, and be comforted concerning him when his spirit departs.
38:24 A scribe’s wisdom comes through the opportunity of leisure; the one whose activity is reduced will become wise.
38:25 How will someone become wise who holds a plow, boasts in a goad’s shaft, drives oxen, is occupied with their work, and whose talk is about the offspring of bulls?
38:26 He will give his heart to making furrows, and his wakefulness to fodder for heifers.
38:27 So also every craftsman and master-builder who spends the night like the day, those who engrave signet engravings: his persistence is in varying the design. He will give his heart to making the depiction lifelike, and his wakefulness to finishing the work.
38:28 So also a smith sitting near an anvil and studying works of iron: the fire’s vapor will melt his flesh, and he will struggle in the furnace’s heat. He will incline his ear to the hammer’s sound, and his eyes are upon the pattern of the vessel. He will give his heart to completing works, and his wakefulness to finishing their adornment.
38:29 So also a potter sitting at his work and turning a wheel with his feet, who is continually anxious over his work, and whose whole labor is measured by number.
38:30 With his arm he will shape clay, and before his feet he will bend his strength. He will give his heart to completing the coating, and his wakefulness to cleaning the kiln.
38:31 All these trusted in their hands, and each shows skill in his own work.
38:32 Without them a city will not be settled, and people will neither sojourn nor walk about.
38:33 Yet they will not be sought for the people’s council or rise high in the assembly; they will not sit on a judge’s chair or consider a covenant of judgment.
38:34 They will certainly not make instruction and judgment known or be found among proverbs, but they will sustain the fabric of the world, and their petition is in the work of their craft.
Source and editorial notes
Working translation preserved from the recovered manuscript of 8 September 2026. Declared source: Septuaginta, Rahlfs–Hanhart, 2006, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, publisher’s Greek main text. Independent linguistic and critical-apparatus review remains outstanding. Source-access and reception claims in the inherited notes have not been freshly revalidated. Chapter and section headings are editorial.
The translator’s prologue is separate from the 51 chapters. Its eight source units map to publisher labels 1, 1a–1g; main-text 1:1 maps to 1h. Source 5:15 includes material often numbered 6:1, so chapter 6 begins at 6:2. Source label gaps are preserved; no text is invented.
38:2 The physician supplies the subject of will receive; healing and royal recognition are distinct clauses.
38:5 Its strength can refer to the wood’s effective power; a divine referent is also possible. The source pronoun does not expressly name either.
38:7 The sufferer supplies the referent of his pain; He is provisionally the Lord acting through medicines. Perfumer renders μυρεψός, the maker of compound preparations.
38:8 The source’s divine and human agency is compressed; capitalization follows the provisional divine subject in 38:6–7.
38:11 The phrase ὡς μὴ ὑπάρχων, “as one who is no more,” is visually confirmed in Swete, p. 721. Whether it implies one facing death or an unstated lack remains open. The surrounding paragraph commends both prayer and a physician; no practical medical regimen is added. [SWETE-SIR]
38:14 Their refers to physicians, whose prayer accompanies their work.
38:15 The optative wish is retained, including its tension with the preceding praise of physicians.
38:17 One day or two and the motive concerning slander are explicit; this is not harmonized with the seven days in 22:12.
38:19 Weighs supplies the force of the final against-the-heart phrase.
38:22 The first-person voice is read as the dead person’s reminder; quotation punctuation is editorial.
38:25 The author’s contrast concerns leisure for learned study; each agricultural activity is retained.
38:27 The shifts between plural engravers and singular his follow the source’s collective description.
38:28 All sensory and labor details are retained; melt his flesh preserves the heat image.
38:30 Coating renders χρῖσμα in pottery context; no particular glaze chemistry is asserted.
38:33 The limiting social judgment of the ancient author is retained alongside his praise of their indispensable work.
38:34 Fabric of the world represents κτίσμα αἰῶνος; petition retains δέησις rather than silently changing prayer into mere intention.