Mourning for the dead lasts seven days: Seven days was the customary length of time for mourning the dead, and still is among Orthodox Jews. Compare Gen 50.10; Jdt 16.24. At 38.17 ben Sira speaks of a shorter period of mourning, but see the comments there. For this line Good News Translation has “For seven days we mourn the dead,” and Contemporary English Version says “After a death, you mourn seven days.” Both are helpful models.

But for a fool or an ungodly man it lasts all his life: In Greek a fool or an ungodly man is literally “a fool and an ungodly man,” which may be just as easily translated “a foolish and ungodly man.” The writer may be applying both words to the same individual, so New English Bible says “a godless fool.” The Handbook prefers this more than the renderings in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, and suggests “a person with no good sense and no religion” or “a foolish person who does not worship God.” Good News Translation‘s rewords it lasts all his life as “causes a lifetime of grief.” This is effective, but it makes the “lifetime” involved refer to that of the person mourning. This is not bad, but a bit more on target would be “is a source of grief as long as he lives” or “causes people grief as long as he lives.”

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.