Sirach — Chapter 44
Praise of the ancestors
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Hebrew–Greek comparison and notes · III. Wisdom
44:1 Let us now praise glorious men, our fathers according to their generations.
44:2 The Lord created great glory, His majesty from of old.
44:3 There were those who ruled in their kingdoms, men renowned for power; those who counseled with their understanding, who made declarations in prophecies;
44:4 leaders of the people in deliberations and in understanding the people’s writings, wise words being part of their instruction;
44:5 those who sought out musical melodies and related verses in writing;
44:6 wealthy men furnished with strength, living peacefully in their dwellings.
44:7 All these were honored in their generations and were a source of boasting in their days.
44:8 Some of them left a name, so that their praises might be recounted.
44:9 But there are some of whom there is no remembrance, who perished as though they had never existed, becoming as though they had never been born, and their children after them.
44:10 Yet these were men of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.
44:11 It will remain with their offspring; their descendants are a good inheritance.
44:12 Their offspring stood within the covenants, and their children did so because of them.
44:13 Their offspring will remain forever, and their glory will not be blotted out.
44:14 Their bodies were buried in peace, and their name lives through generations.
44:15 Peoples will recount their wisdom, and the assembly proclaims their praise.
44:16 Enoch pleased the Lord and was taken away, an example of repentance to the generations.
44:17 Noah was found perfect and righteous; in a time of wrath he became an exchange. Through him a remnant was left to the earth when the flood came.
44:18 Everlasting covenants were established with him, so that all flesh might not be wiped out by a flood.
44:19 Abraham was a great father of a multitude of nations, and no one like him was found in glory.
44:20 He kept the law of the Most High and entered a covenant with Him. He established a covenant in his flesh, and under testing he was found faithful.
44:21 Therefore He assured him by an oath that nations would be blessed in his offspring, that He would multiply him like the dust of the earth, raise his offspring like the stars, and give them an inheritance from sea to sea and from the River to the end of the earth.
44:22 In Isaac He established it in the same way, because of Abraham his father.
44:23 He caused the blessing of all people and the covenant to rest upon Jacob’s head. He acknowledged him with His blessings and gave him an inheritance. He distinguished his portions and divided them among twelve tribes.
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.
44:4 The source’s final phrase is literally “wise words in their instruction,” rather than an additional explicit class of “wise men.” The administrative or literary scope of γραμματεία is not narrowed beyond “writings.”
44:11 The first clause has an unexpressed singular subject. The English retains that compression rather than substituting a reconstructed “wealth” or making the preceding plural righteous deeds its grammatical subject.
44:16 “Repentance” translates μετανοίας as printed; no substitution is made on the basis of another account of Enoch.
44:17 Ἀντάλλαγμα is an exchange or equivalent; how Noah functions as such is not explained by inserting “atoning sacrifice” or another doctrinal gloss.
44:20 The subject of “established” may be Abraham continuing the sentence or God understood in the covenant action. Lowercase “his flesh” identifies Abraham’s flesh without settling that subject beyond the Greek.
44:21 “The River” is retained without inserting a proper river name. The singular offspring expression shifts to plural “them,” as in Greek.
44:23 “Twelve” is explicit. The inheritance is not given an added geographical name.