“When your eyes light upon it, it is gone”: “It” refers back to “wealth” in the previous verse; but the Hebrew of this line is difficult. The written text is literally “Do your eyes fly to it, and it is not.” This is traditionally read aloud as “Do you cause your eyes to. . .,” but this is no easier to understand. Some take the sense to be “When [as soon as] you look at it, it is gone,” or in colloquial English “Now you see it, now you don’t!” Others take the verb “fly” in the sense of a short “blink” or “glance,” and say “Before you can look around it is gone” (Revised English Bible) or “Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone” (New International Version). This is probably also behind Good News Translation “Your money can be gone in a flash.”

“For suddenly it takes to itself wings”: This and the next line expand on the thought that riches can suddenly disappear. They picture riches as being like a bird that uses its wings and flies away. The verb construction is a form that expresses certainty or emphasis: “it will surely make. . ..” Revised Standard Version renders the element of emphasis as “suddenly”; but most others that include it say something like “It will surely grow wings” (Revised English Bible). In some languages it may be difficult to say that wealth grows wings, and the picture will have to be expressed as a simile in this line as well as in the next; for example, “Because money is like an eagle that has wings. . .” or “It is as if [your] money grows wings. . .” (compare Good News Translation).

“Flying like an eagle toward heaven”: In this picture the term “heaven” refers to the sky, not to the place where God is. So a natural translation in English is “and fly off to the sky like an eagle” (New International Version). In some languages “to the sky” or “into the sky” may be unnecessary with the verb “fly”; in this case we may say just “fly away like an eagle,” as in Good News Translation. Where eagles are unknown, “fly away like a bird” would be satisfactory in this context.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .