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ACCORDING TO THE ANCHOR BIBLE COMMENTARY of Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Leila, "Ben Sira provides a splendid example of didactic narrative in the long poem or hymn (44:1-50:24) entitled ... in most Greek MSS 'Praise of the Ancestors.'"1 The poem, starting with an introduction (44:1-15) and ending with a doxology (50:22-24), celebrates heroes of Israelite faith. "Beginning with Noah, Ben Sira writes a short theology of history (44:17-49:16) of the covenanted People of God, and he concludes with a lengthy panegyric (50:1-21) of the high priest Simeon II (219-196 B.c.)."2
In 1985 Burton L. Mack surveyed scholarship on the Praise of the Ancestors: "It is a curiosity of the scholarly tradition that such little effort has been devoted to solving the problems of the hymn."3 Although, during the two decades since this statement, many scholars have discussed Ben Sira's Praise of the Ancestors (here taken to be Sir 44:1-50:24), its exact structure has defied a full explanation; hence in the present article I seek to make a contribution.4 My proposal of a numerical structure for Sir 44:1-50:24 suggests that Ben Sira saw the exact providence of God at work in Israel's history, since the divine activity is precisely measured and complete (Sir 18:6; 42:21; cf. Wis 11:20), and Ben Sira wished to reflect this providential pattern by giving a careful structure to the poem.
I. Structure, Extent, and Genre of Ben Sira's Praise of the Ancestors
The problems of the structure and extent of the Praise of the Ancestors are best considered in conjunction with the question of the poem's genre. In his monograph of 1986, Thomas R. Lee surveyed proposals concerning the genre (e.g., midrash, biography, exemplary list, hymn, or encomium).5 Lee then gave reasons for regarding the passage as a kind of extended encomium of the high priest Simeon, who appears at the climax of the poem (50:1-24), since "the hymn does not treat each of the fathers equally, but... the focus of the whole is on Simon II, the high priest with whose praise the passage closes."6
Lee's suggestion has not gone unchallenged: Christopher A. Rollston has examined the nonencomiastic features of the poem, and Mack...