Sirach 50:20–21

In these two verses, Ben Sira reaches the liturgical climax of his portrait of the High Priest Simon II, describing his descent from the altar and the double prostration through which he imparts the Aaronic blessing upon the assembled people of Israel. The scene is a solemn act of mediation: the priest descends from the holy place, lifts his hands toward the congregation, and bows in worship — becoming the living channel through which the blessing of the Most High flows down to God's people. Together, the verses crystallize Ben Sira's conviction that the high priesthood is the supreme locus where heaven and earth meet in liturgical encounter.

Verse 20 — Descent, Lifted Hands, and Blessing

"Then he went down" marks a carefully choreographed liturgical movement. Simon has just completed the offering of sacrifice at the altar (Sir 50:14–19), and his descent is not a retreat but a procession toward the people. In the Temple liturgy of Second Temple Judaism, the high priest's movement from the altar-space toward the assembled congregation was itself a theophanic gesture: the one who had stood in proximity to the divine glory now turns outward to share it.

"Lifted up his hands over the whole congregation of the children of Israel" alludes unmistakably to the Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6:22–27, where God commands Aaron and his sons to bless Israel with uplifted hands. The gesture of raised hands (nasa' yadayim) is not merely ceremonial; in the Hebrew symbolic world, the hands of the priest are the conduit of divine power and protection. Ben Sira is emphatic that this blessing encompasses the whole congregation — no one is excluded from the reach of the high-priestly mediation. This universality anticipates the Catholic understanding of sacramental grace offered to all who are present and rightly disposed.

"To give blessing to the Lord with his lips, and to glory in his name" is a striking formulation: the priest blesses the Lord (i.e., he offers praise and doxology to God) even as he pronounces blessing upon the people. The liturgical act is simultaneously descending and ascending — a double movement of grace and praise. The "name" (shem) in question is almost certainly the divine Name (Yhwh), which in Second Temple practice was pronounced aloud by the high priest on Yom Kippur alone, producing a reverential prostration from the people (cf. Mishnah Yoma 6:2). Ben Sira thus places us inside the liturgical drama of the Day of Atonement.

Verse 21 — The Second Prostration

"He bowed himself down in worship the second time" reinforces the structured, rubrical character of the rite. The Mishnah records that on Yom Kippur the high priest's pronunciation of the divine Name occasioned multiple prostrations from the assembled people (m. Yoma 3:8; 4:2; 6:2). Simon's second bowing signals that the liturgy has reached its second great moment of reverential climax, corresponding perhaps to the second or third utterance of the Name in the Day of Atonement sequence.

"To declare the blessing from the Most High" (El Elyon) — Ben Sira's use of Most High here is deliberate. This ancient Semitic divine title (cf. Gen 14:18–20, where Melchizedek blesses Abram in the name of ) signals the universal sovereignty of Israel's God. The blessing does not originate with Simon; he is the — the one who makes known what has already been decreed in heaven. This is the essence of priestly mediation in the Old Covenant: the priest does not create grace but transmits it, lending his voice, his hands, and his posture to the purposes of God.

Catholic tradition illuminates these verses with singular depth precisely because the Church claims continuity — transformed and fulfilled — with the priestly office Ben Sira celebrates.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1544–1545) teaches that the ministerial priesthood of the New Covenant is not the abolition but the fulfillment of the Old Testament priesthood: "Everything that the priesthood of the Old Covenant prefigured finds its fulfillment in Christ Jesus." Simon's gesture of lifted hands and the pronouncing of the divine blessing is taken up and surpassed in Christ, who "lifting up his hands, blessed" the disciples at his Ascension (Lk 24:50) — an echo the Fathers could not miss.

St. John Chrysostom (De Sacerdotio III.4) marvels that the Christian priest, like the Aaronic high priest, stands between God and the people — a mediator who descends from the altar of sacrifice to shower grace on those assembled. St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae III, q. 22, a. 1) identifies the threefold office of Christ as priest, prophet, and king as the fulfillment of the Aaronic pattern: "He offered himself as a sacrifice... he blessed the people... and he governed the house of God."

The Second Vatican Council's Presbyterorum Ordinis (n. 2) draws directly on this Old Testament priestly imagery: priests are "consecrated to offer spiritual worship for the glory of God and the salvation of men." The final blessing of every Mass — hands extended, the triple invocation of the Trinitarian Name — is the Christian instantiation of exactly the liturgical moment Ben Sira describes. The Most High's blessing is still declared through human hands, human lips, human bodies bowed in worship.

For the contemporary Catholic, these two verses offer a corrective to an impoverished, merely functional view of liturgy. When you witness the priest extend his hands over the congregation at the final blessing of Mass — or when a bishop imposes hands at Confirmation or Holy Orders — you are watching the same gesture Ben Sira found so magnificent that he devoted fifty verses to describing it. The blessing is not the priest's to give; it is the Most High's to declare, through consecrated hands.

Practically, these verses invite Catholics to receive the final blessing of Mass not as a bureaucratic signal that the parking lot awaits, but as a genuine transmission of divine favor — the moment when heaven bends down to earth through the raised hands of an ordained minister. Ben Sira's description of the whole congregation bowing at the Name should restore a sense of awe to that moment. Consider making a deliberate act of faith at every priestly blessing: "Through these hands, the Most High blesses me." This is not piety for priests alone — the laity are the recipients of this ancient, unbroken liturgical grace, the same people who bowed before Simon II in Jerusalem twenty-two centuries ago.