Matthew 6:12 to Sirach 28:2
Matthew 6:12 to Sirach 28:2
Seventh: the Our Father, the prayer given to us by God Himself. Manners and Customs of the Bible, by James M. Freeman (d. 1900), breaks down the pieces of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:12) and notes that:
The second, “Forgive us,” echoes the Eighteen Benedictions, 6: “Forgive us, our Father, for we have sinned against thee; blot out our transgressions from before thine eyes. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who forgivest much.” The accompanying phrase, “as we also have forgiven,” reflects the Jewish teaching found in Sirach 28:2: “Forgive the wrong of your neighbor, and then your sins will be forgiven when you pray.”
It is not just a quote; it is an entire concept (linking your forgiveness by God to you forgiving others) that does not appear anywhere in the Old Testament except Sirach, yet appears many times in the New Testament.
Sirach was “canonical for some Rabbis,”[1] found at Qumran, the Cairo Genizah, Masada, etc.,[2] and quoted in the Talmud as Scripture.[3] And we see here that neither Jesus nor his Divinely-inspired evangelists warned readers that while this concept had been developed and apparently popularized by Sirach, the rest of Sirach (which claims to be Scripture[4]) was not to be viewed as endorsed by Jesus. In John 4:22, for example, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that her beliefs are wrong (“Ye worship ye know not what”), and later in Matthew, He tells the Sadducees that their beliefs are wrong (Matthew 22:29: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures…”). But here, He gives no warning about the book He is alluding to and taking this concept from, even as he includes the concept in the Our Father prayer.
In fact, immediately after giving us the words to pray, we have Jesus “doubling down” on the concept He is taking from Sirach:
14For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew Ch. 6).
Or at least, Jesus doubles down on Sirach’s concept in the Gospel to the Jews. That level of additional emphasis on the concept of the prayer is not made by Luke; he merely notes it once and moves on. It is only in the Gospel to the Jews that Jesus stresses and repeats the teaching first taught in Sirach, which was “canonical for some Rabbis” and which claims to be Scripture.
But also consider the beginning of the prayer and how it strengthens the case for this reference to Sirach: the words “Our Father.” We saw above that there are references in the Protestant Old Testament to God as Father, and God Himself commands us to call Him Father in Jeremiah 3:19 (“Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me”). But it is in Sirach that a prayer is first addressed to God the Father: “O Lord, Father and Ruler of my life, do not abandon me to their counsel, and let me not fall because of them! … O Lord, Father and God of my life, do not give me haughty eyes, and remove from me evil desire” (Sirach 23:14).
Here we have God Himself, varying from all “canonical” tradition by doing something first done in the Book of Sirach, as part of the opening of a prayer that incorporates a key theological concept also taken from Sirach and also not found in the Books of the Protestant canon. In the Gospel to the Jews, Jesus “doubles down” and stresses this key theological concept only found in Sirach. And neither in the Gospel to the Jews nor any other Gospel does Jesus show any concern that evoking such concepts from a book that claims to be Scripture (and that some Rabbis considered canonical, and that was found at Qumran, and is quoted in the Talmud as Scripture, etc.) would lead anyone to “wrongly” accept it as authentic Scripture.
[1] The Jewish Study Bible p. 2157
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Sirach
[3] www.sefaria.org/Yevamot.63b.13?lang=bi. Search for “Sira,” and you will see two examples; https://intertextual.bible/text/sirach-13.15-bava-kamma-92b is another.
[4] Chapter 24: 32 I will yet make doctrine to shine as the morning, and will send forth her light afar off. 33I will yet pour out doctrine as prophecy, and leave it to all ages for ever. 34Behold that I have not laboured for myself only, but for all them that seek wisdom.
