“Rejoicing in his inhabited world”: “Rejoicing” is the same word as in verse 30. “Inhabited world” is literally “in the world of his earth” and simply means “his world” or “his earth.”

“And delighting in the sons of men”: “Sons of men” refers to mankind, humanity, the people of the world. In verse 30 Wisdom dances or celebrates to give the creator delight; in this line she herself is delighted. In verse 30 the order was “delight . . . rejoice” while in verse 31 the order is reversed to “rejoice” . . . “delight”. This is a poetic device used by the author to create a chiasmus (X-structure, see the glossary at the end of this Handbook) as the closure for the poem. Good News Translation says, “happy with the world and pleased with the human race.” We may also say, for example, “I celebrated [danced and sang] because I was happy with his world, and full of joy because of the people in the world,” or more briefly “I was happy to see the world and happy to see the people in it.”

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 .