The scenario Qoheleth describes in verse 13 continues here. Having tried to hold onto his wealth, a person may yet find that he loses it all. Thus we should translate the conjunction and as the contrastive “but….” Those riches refers back to the riches mentioned in verse 13. Were lost pictures the total destruction of all the man had. The loss was brought about by what Qoheleth calls a bad venture. The phrase has been used before in 1.13 (see comments there) describing “an unhappy business.” It refers there to the demanding task that God assigns people. What kind of venture it was we cannot determine, since Qoheleth uses only this very broad category. However, how he lost his money is less important than the fact that the wealthy person now faces financial ruin. The translation should not convey the sense that it was necessarily his fault or that he foolishly squandered the money. Good News Translation “unlucky deal” is a possible meaning, though it may limit the meaning more than the Hebrew intends. “Misfortune” is probably a better term, for there is no certainty that the Hebrew term refers to a commercial venture. We can render its meaning as “misfortune overtook him and he lost all he had” or “but unfortunately he lost everything.”
In the Hebrew the link between this clause and the previous one is very close. Some languages will prefer to highlight the repetitive vocabulary: “There was a man who was guarding his riches against some misfortune, but he lost those riches through an unfortunate event….”
In order to translate the second half of this verse adequately, we need to recognize its literary unity with verse 15. Two important phrases, “nothing” and “in his hand,” bind the unit together, as do the paired actions “go out … return” and “come … go” as metaphors for birth and death. There are no textual problems to concern us, and the translation seems to be without difficulty until we ask who the various occurrences of “he” refer to. Do they refer to the father, or to his son, or even to a third person? The majority of translations conclude that verse 15 describes the son born to the rich person mentioned in this verse. Another suggestion is that it is the father. Good News Translation side-steps the issue by using the general term “people” in verse 13 and the inclusive “we” in verse 15.
This confusion may be the result of Qoheleth’s writing style. We learn first that there is a man whose riches are lost in an unfortunate business venture. Then suddenly Qoheleth introduces a father and his son. The mention of the son’s birth breaks into the text, having nothing directly to do with the father’s loss of wealth. Verses 15-16 comment further on this child, while the father is not mentioned again.
These aspects of verses 14b-15 suggest that it forms what we shall call an “illustrative aside,” an independent example from life, which Qoheleth inserts to make a point. For this reason we determine that the story line jumps from verse 14a down to verse 16. This conclusion will clearly have an impact upon our translation. The “illustrative aside” refers to birth and death in the most general of ways, and so “he” in this section will be rendered as the general “a person,” or “a child.” In verse 16 we return to the situation of the impoverished father, so “he” in verse 16 can be translated “the father,” or “the owner.”
The above interpretation suggests that the thing that is puzzling is not the father’s loss of wealth, but the fact that at death all earthly labor seems to be of no value. This problem is the perfect way for Qoheleth to lead up to the key question about “lasting benefit.”
After these comments about the passage as a whole, we return to the text of verse 14b.
And he is the father of a son: this sudden mention of a son being born signals a temporary break in the story, as discussion of the father’s problems will not resume until verse 16. We suggest that the introductory conjunction and be rendered as “Now, …” to mark the fact that the story suddenly changes direction. The translator should look for an appropriate way to mark such a change. Most often this will be a particle or a conjunction. Literally the phrase is “he gave birth to a son [or, child],” this being the normal way in which Hebrew expresses the fathering of a child. The relationship in time between the material in the earlier part of the verse and the child’s birth is irrelevant once we admit that this is an aside, a piece of information not directly connected to the story. Son in Hebrew can mean a child of either sex, so we prefer “child,” as the reference is general.
But he has nothing in his hand is a literal rendering of the Hebrew. Its meaning is clear: a child when born has nothing in its hand, which is to say it does not bring material possessions with it. Languages may have a similar idiom like “coming into the world empty-handed.” The translation should not anticipate the next verse, where the child is described as “naked.” We should make he clear by rendering it as “a child.” Since the reference is to the child’s situation at the moment of birth, we can also make that clear in our translation.
Since the “illustrative aside” is a general example we can consider the following models:
• Now, when a man fathers a child, the child brings nothing into the world.
• Now, if a man has a child, that child comes into the world empty-handed.
Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Ecclesiates. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .