Sirach 7:22–26

Sirach 7:22 — Livestock: the foundation of subsistence Ben Sira opens with the most material concern — cattle — not because animals rank highest, but because they represent the economic base upon which household welfare depends. The injunction "look after them" (Hebrew: re'eh; Greek: ἐπίσκεψαι) uses language that will recur in the wisdom tradition for pastoral oversight, including of people (cf. Ezekiel 34). The conditional clause "if they are profitable to you, let them stay by you" is a proverb of agricultural discernment: sound management means neither neglecting useful resources nor retaining burdens without purpose. Far from being a mundane afterthought, this verse establishes that responsible stewardship of material goods is itself a moral obligation. The household head is a oikonomos — an administrator accountable to God for what has been entrusted to him.

Sirach 7:23 — Sons: correction as love The shift from cattle to children is deliberate and arresting — it implies that the same attentiveness owed to animals is owed, a fortiori, to one's own offspring. "Correct them (paideuon), and make them obedient from their youth" echoes the pervasive wisdom tradition that discipline is an act of love, not harshness (cf. Prov 13:24; 22:6). The Greek paideia carries rich connotations: formation of character, instruction in virtue, and the inculcation of reverence for God. The phrase "from their youth" reflects the wisdom that moral formation must begin early, before habit hardens into character. Ben Sira does not merely recommend correction when children go wrong; he envisions a proactive, ongoing formation of the whole person. This is not the correction of punishment alone, but the shaping of a soul.

Sirach 7:24 — Daughters: guarding integrity Ben Sira addresses daughters with specific pastoral urgency. "Take care of their bodies" (or "guard their bodies/flesh") reflects the cultural reality that a daughter's physical vulnerability and social honor were bound together in the ancient household. The warning against being "overly indulgent" is not about harshness but about the father's responsibility not to abdicate his protective role through permissiveness. In the wider context of Sirach (cf. 26:10–12; 42:9–14), the father of a daughter bears a particular anxiety about her moral and physical safety, rooted in the understanding that her flourishing — and the family's integrity — depends on his vigilance. Critically, the spiritual sense here transcends patriarchal culture: fathers (and, by extension, all who hold authority in the faith community) are responsible for the moral environment of those entrusted to their care.

Sirach 7:25 — Marriage: the great accomplishment "Give your daughter in marriage, and you will have accomplished a great matter" is one of the most striking affirmations of marriage in the wisdom literature. The phrase "a great matter" (pragma mega) elevates the act of a daughter's honorable marriage to a genuine moral and familial achievement. Ben Sira adds immediately: "Give her to a man of understanding (aner phronimos)." The criterion is not wealth or status, but wisdom — the capacity to lead a household well in the fear of the Lord. This presupposes that the father exercises genuine discernment in his daughter's marriage, acting as a guardian of covenant fidelity. Typologically, the father here images God the Father, who seeks for his people not worldly advantage but a covenant partner of righteousness and understanding.

Sirach 7:26 — The wife: gratitude, fidelity, and prudence The final verse is dual in structure. The first clause — "If you have a wife who pleases you, don't cast her out" — is an injunction of gratitude and fidelity: a good wife is a gift (Prov 18:22; 31:10), and to abandon her is ingratitude toward both her and God. The second clause, "don't trust yourself to one who is hateful," is a warning about remaining in a relationship characterized not merely by personal conflict but by deep incompatibility of spirit — possibly referring to a concubine or a second wife scenario common in the ancient world. Ben Sira does not counsel divorce; he counsels discernment before commitment and gratitude within it. Together, the two clauses present marriage as a realm of ordered love: cherish what is genuinely good; do not entrust your soul to what is destructive.

Catholic tradition reads these verses through the lens of the domestic church (ecclesia domestica), the family as a sacramental community ordered toward holiness. The Second Vatican Council's Gaudium et Spes (§48) and St. John Paul II's Familiaris Consortio (§21) develop precisely what Ben Sira assumes: that the family is not merely a social unit but a school of deeper humanity, a place where love is learned and practiced in its most demanding forms.

The verse-by-verse movement from cattle to children to wife traces a hierarchy of care that the Catechism of the Catholic Church endorses in its treatment of the Fourth Commandment (CCC §§2214–2231): those in authority — parents, fathers in particular — bear a genuine moral responsibility for the formation and protection of those entrusted to them. This authority is not dominion for its own sake, but diakonia (service) after the model of Christ the Good Shepherd.

St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on Ephesians, Homily 20) draws an exact parallel when he urges fathers to regard their household as a little church, their authority as priestly: "If we regulate our own households and provide for their souls with such care, we shall be fit for the management of the Church."

The insistence in verse 23 on early formation (paideia) resonates with the Council of Trent's decrees on Christian education and with the Congregation for Catholic Education's Gravissimum Educationis, both of which hold that moral and religious formation must begin in the family from the earliest years. The Catholic tradition sees parental correction not as an intrusion but as participation in God's own fatherly pedagogy (Heb 12:5–11), which disciplines out of love.

The elevation of marriage in verse 25 — calling it a "great matter" — anticipates the Sacrament's dignity. In Catholic teaching, marriage is ordered to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children (CCC §1601). Finding a spouse of "understanding" maps onto the Church's requirement that marriage partners enter freely and maturely, capable of the consent that grounds the sacramental covenant.

Ben Sira's household code challenges contemporary Catholic family life on concrete, uncomfortable fronts. First, fathers in particular — but parents broadly — are reminded that attentiveness is a moral obligation, not a personality preference. In an age of distracted, screen-mediated parenting, verse 23's call to "correct and make obedient from youth" is a summons to active, engaged, sometimes uncomfortable formation. Handing a child a device is not the same as handing them wisdom.

Second, the warning against over-indulgence toward daughters (v. 24) speaks to any parent tempted to substitute material provision or permissiveness for genuine moral and spiritual guidance. Love that never corrects is not love — it is fear of the child's disapproval.

Third, verse 26's counsel to cherish "a wife who pleases you" and not cast her out is a timely word in a culture where marriage is easily abandoned when difficult. The Catholic is called to see the goodness already present in their spouse as a gift from God — and to tend it as carefully as a farmer tends profitable cattle. Gratitude, Ben Sira implies, is a discipline of the will, not a feeling that simply arrives.