When men could not honor monarchs in their presence, since they lived at a distance: Good News Translation follows this line with line 4, but we suggest combining it with whom they honored in line 3: “When people wanted to honor [or, give face to] a ruler, but lived too far away to honor him in person.”

The word monarchs does not appear in the Greek text. It only has the pronoun “them,” referring back to “monarchs” in the previous verse. See the Revised Standard Version footnote.

They imagined their appearance far away, and made a visible image of the king whom they honored: By continuing the model above, this could be rendered “they would imagine what he must look like, and would make a visible image of him.”

So that by their zeal they might flatter the absent one as though present: Good News Translation reads as though this was a sincere effort to honor the ruler, but we think not. The faraway population knows that it is in their best interest to give the ruler lots of praise; they want to stay on his good side. A possible translation is “They did this because they were so eager to flatter the king, even though he was absent.”

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• People often wanted to honor a king [or, ruler/high chief], but lived too far away to do so personally. So they would imagine what he must look like, and would make a visible image of him. They did this because they were so eager to flatter the king, even though he was absent [or, far away from them].

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Wisdom of Solomon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2004. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.