"The tongue tastes delicacies as a gift,

but a discerning heart tastes delicacies as a lie"

 

"A person must acquire a companion with whom to eat, drink, read, study and sleep; to whom he can reveal his secrets, the secrets of the Torah, and the secrets of everyday life."                                 Rabbi Nathan

 

A person without a friend is like a left hand without a right                            P.C. Beentjes 

The pericope on friendship in Manuscript C is in fact a combination of Sir 6:5-17 and 37:1-6. Friendship is one of the themes Ben Sira treats in his work, and this text is his best-known passage on friendship. The first part of the text reminds the reader that one must be cautious in friendships. Ben Sira then goes on to mention three kinds of danger to friendship. Finally, he closes his pericope with a description of the faithful friend.

In Sir 6:5-17 we encounter the first in a series of several pericopes that speak of friendship. Friendship is one of the more important themes in the Book of Sirach (Sir 6:5-17; 7:18; 9:10-16; 11:29-12:18; 13:15-23; 19:13-17; 22:19-26; 27:16-21; 37:1-6), and the term "friend(ship)" occurs no fewer than 93 times, ten of these in Sir 6:5-17 alone.

Corley divides the text into three values of friendship: caution, faithfulness and the fear of God. And while faithfulness is a natural thing to expect when speaking of friendship, and the fear of God is one of the more important themes in Ben Sira's theology, the notion of caution is somewhat surprising. Sir 6:5-17 speaks to us of caution in friendship. This is particularly visible in the first part (the first three stanzas, Sir 6:5-13). The second and third stanzas (6:8-13) describe how a false friend easily becomes a traitor, and the third stanza therefore ends with a surprising piece of advice: "Keep your distance from your enemies, and be wary of those who love you." While it is normal to teach that one should keep one's distance from enemies, Ben Sira's teaching about being wary of friends is somewhat strange. He warns of the discernment needed in choosing a friend. Just as one must choose a spouse well (cf. Sir 36:26-31) or a counsellor well (Sir 37:7-11), so too one must choose a friend well (Sir 37:1).

Caution

In Sir 6:6 Ben Sira contrasts acquaintance and friendship. "Those who greet you" or "those who are at peace with you" are in fact merely your acquaintances. Ben Sira's aim is entirely clear: to warn the reader against false friends. It should be stressed that Ben Sira sets many false friends antithetically against a single chosen one. Ben Sira uses images of food as metaphors for distinguishing between kinds of people. After this introductory section, Ben Sira considers (in descending order of importance) three important choices of companion (spouse/wife, friends, counsellors).

The pericope on choosing a friend in Sir 37:1-6 consists of two stanzas. In the first stanza this is an antithesis between the supposed friend and his true character. In Sir 6:8-10 Ben Sira describes three kinds of danger arising from unfaithfulness in friendship. In the Greek text we read: ("Is there not grief even to death, when a companion or friend turns into an enemy?"). ("…[Sir 37:1b] but there is a friend who is such only in name, [Sir 37:2] who does not last until death; a true friend will be to you as yourself."). It is very difficult to work out what Ben Sira's exact original wording was, but the idea is clear: it is a great grief - unto death, or death-causing - when a close friend becomes an enemy. In Sir 6:7 Ben Sira speaks of acquiring a friend. It can therefore be said that Ben Sira, in a certain sense, equates the acquiring of a friend with the acquiring of wisdom.

Kinds of Danger

In these three verses Ben Sira speaks of a threefold danger lurking in an unfaithful friend. These are: the friend who suddenly turns against you, the friend at the table, and the fair-weather friend.

Sir 6:9b alludes to the story of the boorish Nabal and his wise wife Abigail in 1 Sam 25. It is interesting that the root of Nabal's name is connected with folly. Sir 6:8 speaks of fair-weather friends: "Every friendship depends on something; once that something disappears, the friendship disappears." In the original pericope, in verses Sir 6:11-12, Ben Sira deepens the dangers stated in Sir 6:8-10. Sir 6:12 resembles the Book of Job in its wording (Job 19:19; "those whom I loved have turned against me"). In it Ben Sira draws a clear distinction between enemies and friends - that is, between enemies and those who love us.

The Faithful Friend

Faithfulness is mentioned several times in the Book of Sirach, especially in the context of faithfulness to God and God's faithfulness to human beings. The term "faithful friend" also appears often in the Book of Proverbs, and Prov 20:6 is especially interesting, stating that a faithful person is a rarity: "a faithful man who can find?"

Sir 6:14 is a particularly interesting verse. The notion of a "shield". It means, in Sir 6:14a, either "A faithful friend is a strong shelter" or "A faithful friend is a sturdy shield". In the Greek translation, however, we find: "a faithful friend is a mighty shelter". The word for "shelter" occurs in Ex 26:7 and translates the Hebrew word for "tent". But in Ex 26:7 it refers to the tent that protects the sanctuary. "Shield" is often used in the Old Testament in a metaphorical sense, referring to someone - God or a human being - who serves as a protective shield for another. Both words, Hebrew and Greek, can in a figurative sense denote protection. We find this same sense in the Latin translation: Amicus fidelis protectio fortis (A faithful friend is a mighty protection).

In Sir 6:14b we encounter the term "wealth". Prov 8:18 says that wealth exists only where wisdom is. Wisdom tells us: "Riches and honour are with me". Sir 6:15 literally states "A faithful friend is beyond price". In Greek, "price" literally means "recompense" - that is, something given in exchange. The same Hebrew term recurs in a similar context in Sir 7:18 ("do not exchange a friend for money"). It concludes with "his goodness is beyond measure".

(Job 28:15 - "It cannot be gotten for gold, and silver cannot be weighed as its price.")  Ben Sira shows us, in a vivid way, the significance of friendship. He is a product of his own time, and so perhaps his view is best reflected in the rabbinic understanding of friendship found in the tractate Avot de-Rabbi Nathan 63: "A person must acquire a companion with whom to eat, drink, read, study and sleep; to whom he can reveal his secrets, the secrets of the Torah, and the secrets of everyday life."

This tells us enough about what significance a friend held in that age. We might well ask ourselves: what significance does friendship hold for us today?

This text has been abridged and adapted for the Hod Zajedno website