Whoever winks his eye plans evil deeds: Compare Pro 6.12-13; 10.10; 16.30. The person who winks his eye at someone signals “You and I are together. We two know something.” Ben Sira reads this as a sign that the person winking is deceiving the person he winks at, and so he warns against being so deceived. Winking may mean different things in different cultures; in English-speaking areas a wink can be a sign of friendship. Some translations are sensitive to this; for example, for this line New Jerusalem Bible has “Someone with a sly wink is plotting mischief.” Here the adjective “sly” gives the right tone to the noun “wink.” New American Bible changes the image a bit by saying “He who has shifty eyes plots mischief,” and in a number of languages, “shifty eyes” will be the more suitable translation. To most speakers of English, someone who moves his eyes about but will not look straight at you is not to be trusted. Good News Translation loads the idea of danger and untrustworthiness into the line with the idiomatic expression “When someone starts winking at you…,” but we may also translate “Someone with shifty eyes [or, who winks slyly] is planning to do something bad.”

And no one can keep him from them: There is a textual problem here. Some Greek manuscripts (and Rahlfs’ edition) have this reading. Others (and Ziegler’s edition) read “and someone who knows him will keep away from him.” We prefer Ziegler’s reading, and recommend that translators follow it (so New Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, Revised English Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). An alternative model for this verse that follows the preferred reading is:

• Someone who gives people sly winks has something bad in mind, and anyone who knows him should stay away from him.

While New Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, and Revised English Bible have no footnote here, and while a translator can justify having none, the Handbook thinks a footnote is in order. It would read: “anyone who knows … away from him; some manuscripts have nothing can stop him from going through with it.”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Sirach. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.