Read & explore together
Anxiety, toil, and death are a common human burden
Sirach 40:1–11 describes the weight many people feel in life. It speaks of burden, fear, broken rest, calamity, and death, and says these are not limited to one class of people.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
This passage is from Sirach, a wisdom book in the Catholic additional books. Here the writer reflects on the human condition in ordered sayings, moving from birth and burial, to fear and sleeplessness, to calamities, and finally to the return of earthly things to their place.
Sirach 40:1–11Main takeaway
Sirach 40:1–11 teaches that trouble and death belong to the shared human condition, and it ends by reminding readers of human mortality.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Burden from birth to burialThe passage opens by saying great travail is created for every person. A heavy yoke pictures a load carried through life.
Explanation
The passage opens by saying great travail is created for every person. A heavy yoke pictures a load carried through life. Sirach marks the whole span, from coming from the womb to burial, calling the grave "the mother of all things" in the text’s own poetic language.
02Fear reaches every rankSirach says expectation of the future and the day of death trouble people’s thoughts and hearts.
Explanation
Sirach says expectation of the future and the day of death trouble people’s thoughts and hearts. It then contrasts a person on a throne with one in ashes, and one in purple with one in burlap. Status changes clothing and position, but not this human trouble.
03Even sleep can be disturbedThe writer lists wrath, jealousy, trouble, unrest, fear of death, anger, and strife. Rest in bed does not necessarily bring peace.
Explanation
The writer lists wrath, jealousy, trouble, unrest, fear of death, anger, and strife. Rest in bed does not necessarily bring peace. Sleep is described as broken and fearful, like the strain of keeping watch or escaping battle, until waking reveals that the terror was not real.
04Calamity, judgement, and returnThe scope widens to all creatures, with sinners said to receive these things sevenfold more.
Explanation
The scope widens to all creatures, with sinners said to receive these things sevenfold more. Death, bloodshed, famine, suffering, and plague are named, and the flood is linked with the wicked. The closing line returns to mortality: what is of earth returns to earth.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01How does Sirach show that human trouble affects both the powerful and the lowly?
Look at the paired contrasts of throne and ashes, and purple and burlap.
02What words in the passage describe fear reaching into a person’s inner life?
Notice the references to troubled thoughts, fear in the heart, little rest, and fearful visions in sleep.
03How does the end of the passage connect with its opening?
Compare the opening span from birth to burial with the final statement that earthly things return to the earth.
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Sirach 40:1–11
1Great travail is created for every man. A heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam, from the day of their coming forth from their mother’s womb, until the day for their burial in the mother of all things.
2The expectation of things to come, and the day of death, trouble their thoughts, and cause fear in their hearts.
3From him who sits on a throne of glory, even to him who is humbled in earth and ashes,
4from him who wears purple and a crown, even to him who is clothed in burlap,
5there is wrath, jealousy, trouble, unrest, fear of death, anger, and strife. In the time of rest upon his bed, his night sleep changes his knowledge.
6He gets little or no rest, and afterward in his sleep, as in a day of keeping watch, he is troubled in the vision of his heart, as one who has escaped from the front of battle.
7In the very time of his deliverance, he awakens, and marvels that the fear is nothing.
8To all creatures, human and animal, and upon sinners sevenfold more,
9come death, bloodshed, strife, sword, calamities, famine, suffering, and plague.
10All these things were created for the wicked, and because of them the flood came.
11All things that are of the earth turn to the earth again. All things that are of the waters return into the sea.