Sayings for a Long Life

There was a man in Jerusalem named Jesus, the son of Sirach. He was not a prophet and not a king and never fought anybody. He spent his whole life reading — the law, and the prophets, and the other old books — and listening to people who were older than he was, and writing down what he worked out. Years after he died, his grandson took the book to Egypt and translated it out of Hebrew into Greek so that people living far from home could read it. He put a note in front of it, apologizing for his own work. “Please read it kindly, and forgive us wherever we seem to have fallen short, however hard we tried. Things said in Hebrew do not have quite the same force when you put them into another language.”

What is in it is sayings — the kind a father says to a child over and over until the child can say them back.

Once he stops the sayings and lets wisdom herself talk. She says she came out of the mouth of the Most High and went looking all over the earth for somewhere to live, and that God told her to pitch her tent in Israel and she took root there among his people. Then he goes straight back to the sayings, which is very like him.

He starts with the hardest one. He tells you what serving God is actually like before you sign up for it. “My child, if you are coming to serve the Lord, get yourself ready to be tested. Set your heart straight. Hold steady. Do not go rushing about when trouble comes. Hold on to him and do not turn away, so that you will be strong at the end of your life. Take whatever is put on you, and be patient when things go badly and bring you low. Gold gets tested in fire, and people worth having get tested in being humbled.” “Trust him and he will help you. Look back at all the generations there have been and see for yourself: who ever trusted the Lord and was let down? Who kept on respecting him and was left on his own? Who called him and was ignored?” “Better to fall into the Lord’s hands than into people’s hands — because his mercy is as big as he is.”

Then, because he is writing for a child, he goes to the two people the child sees every day. “Whoever honors his father makes up for a great many wrongs, and whoever gives honor to his mother is like somebody putting away treasure. Honor your father with what you do and not only with what you say. A father’s blessing keeps his children’s houses standing.” “My child, look after your father when he is old, and do not make his life sad while he is still in it. Even if his mind starts to fail him, be patient with him — do not shame him while you are the strong one. Being kind to your father is not forgotten. It will be remembered on your own bad day, and your wrongs will melt off you like frost in warm weather.” And two more, about pride: “The bigger you get, the smaller you should make yourself, and you will be liked by God. Do not go digging after things too hard for you or poking into what is beyond your strength. Water puts out a blazing fire, and being kind makes up for wrongs.”

There is a whole run of sayings about friends, and he is not sentimental about it. He has clearly been let down. “A pleasant voice makes plenty of friends, and a kind tongue makes plenty of people greet you. Let a great many people be at peace with you — but out of a thousand, pick one to give you advice. If you are getting a friend, get him by testing him, and do not trust him too fast. Some are friends when it suits them and will not stay near you when things go wrong. Some are friends at your table and nowhere else, and will turn round and hide from your face the day you are brought down.” And then, having said all that, he says this. “A faithful friend is a strong shelter. Whoever has found one has found treasure. There is nothing you could trade for a faithful friend, and no scale that could weigh him. A faithful friend is medicine that keeps you alive.” “Throw a stone at birds and you scare them off; say a cruel thing to a friend and you break the friendship. Even if you drew a sword on him, do not give up — there is a way back. But not after sneering, or being high and mighty, or telling his secret, or a wound given behind his back. Every friend in the world runs from those. And stay beside your neighbor while he is poor, so that you are still there when things go well for him.”

He has a set about not deciding things too fast. “Do not praise a man for being good-looking, and do not turn away from somebody because of the look of him. The bee is small among flying things, and what she makes is the sweetest thing there is. Do not show off in the clothes you happen to be wrapped in. A great many powerful men have ended up sitting on the ground, and somebody nobody ever suspected has ended up wearing the crown.” “Do not blame anybody before you have looked into it. Understand first, then correct. Do not answer before you have listened, and do not break in while somebody is still talking.”

There is a run about the mouth, and he does not think it is a small subject. “Do not spoil a good deed by saying something hurtful along with it. Does the dew not cool the heat? A kind word is better than a present. Learn before you speak, and take the medicine before you are sick.” “Blow on a spark and it lights up; spit on it and it goes out — and both of those come out of your own mouth. A whip leaves a bruise, but a blow from the tongue breaks bones. Put a balance and a set of scales on your words, and put a door on your mouth with a bar across it.”

And a run about letting a thing go, which is harder than any of it. “Forgive your neighbor the wrong he did you, and then, when you pray, your own wrongs will be let go. One man holds on to his anger against another, and then goes and asks the Lord to heal him? He will not show any mercy to somebody exactly like himself, and then he pleads about his own sins? If a man who is only flesh keeps hold of a grudge, who is going to make it up for him? Remember how it ends. Stop being somebody’s enemy.”

He has a good deal to say about money, and none of it is about getting more of it. “Lend to your neighbor when he needs it, and if you have borrowed, pay it back when you said you would. Be patient with a poor man, and do not put off being kind to him. Lose your silver for a brother or a friend rather than let it go rusty under a stone. Store up kindness in your storerooms; it will fight for you better than a heavy shield or a strong spear.” He is honest about the other side of it too. Plenty treat a loan as a gift and give the man who helped them nothing back but trouble; and plenty refuse to lend, not because they are mean, but because they were cheated once already. Then he says what a person actually needs: “Water, bread, clothes, and a house with a door you can shut. A poor man’s life under his own roof beams is better than fine food in somebody else’s house.”

Then he has sayings about doctors. “Give the doctor the honor he has earned, because the Lord made him. Healing comes from the Most High. The Lord made medicines out of the ground, and a person with any sense will not turn his nose up at them. God gave people knowledge so that he could be shown off through the wonderful things they do, and with these the doctor takes the pain away.” “My child, when you are sick, do not just ignore it. Pray, and he will heal you. And then make room for the doctor, because the Lord made him too, and you need him. There are times when it is in the doctor’s hands whether a thing goes well. And they pray too, that they will be given the healing.” Then he turns and talks about the other end of it. Cry for the dead, he says, as though you had been hurt yourself. Wrap the body the way it should be wrapped, and do not neglect the burying. Weep hard, and mourn the way the person deserves — and then let yourself be comforted, because grief can kill you and sorrow bends a man’s strength. Do not hand your whole heart over to it. You will not do the dead any good, and you will do yourself harm. Then he says this: “Remember what has happened to me, because it will be the same for you: yesterday it was my turn, today it is yours.”

And there are sayings about working people. A plowman cannot sit and think all day, he says; his mind is on cutting a straight furrow and he is up half the night feeding the young cows. Nor can the carpenter, or the man who cuts seals and carves the same tiny pattern until it is exactly right, or the blacksmith by his anvil with the furnace heat burning him and his ear turned to the hammer, or the potter with the wheel going round under his foot, watching the glaze, sitting up to clean the kiln. “All of them trust their hands, and every one of them is wise in his own work. Without them nobody could live in a city. People could not settle there and could not travel through. And nobody asks them into the council or gives them a high seat, and they do not sit as judges — but they hold the world up, and their prayers are about the work of their craft.”

He has sayings about daughters, too, and about servants. And then he says this.

“Let us now praise famous men — our own fathers who came before us. Some of them ruled kingdoms and were known for being strong. Some gave advice, and some spoke what was coming. Some led the people. Some made up music, and some wrote poems down. Some were rich, and lived quietly at home. Every one of them was honored in his own time and was the pride of his own day.” “Some of them left a name behind, so that people still tell about them. And some have no memorial at all. They are gone as though they had never been here, and so are their children after them. And yet those were kind men too, and the right things they did have not been forgotten. Their bodies were buried in peace — but their name goes on living, one generation after another.” And then he starts the list. Enoch, who pleased the Lord and was taken. Noah, found perfect in a bad time, who is the reason there was anybody left on the earth. Abraham, tested and found faithful, and Isaac after him, and Jacob, and the twelve tribes divided out of him. The list goes on — Moses and Aaron and Joshua, the judges, David, the prophets — all the way down to a high priest he had watched with his own eyes coming out of the temple. He puts every one of them in.