It was he who created man in the beginning: In the Hebrew ben Sira seems to have consciously quoted the first word of Genesis, which is rendered in the beginning. Good News Translation‘s structure of this line seems to accent that, which is a nice touch: “When, in the beginning, the Lord created human beings.” Good News Translation also renders man well with “human beings.”

And he left him in the power of his own inclination: The word inclination seems to represent an idea found in ancient rabbinic literature that God gave humans a “good tendency” and an “evil tendency,” but humans largely followed the evil tendency. This idea may also be found at 37.3 (where, however, the Greek uses a different noun rendered “imagination” in Revised Standard Version and there are textual problems in Hebrew). The author does not seem to be using the word with any overtones of evil here, so New Jerusalem Bible properly translates this line as “and then left them free to make their own decisions.” Good News Translation has “he left them free to do as they wished,” and Contemporary English Version says “he gave us the ability to choose how we will live.” Because the New Jerusalem Bible rendering focuses on decisions to be made, it provides the better model.

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.