Our name will be forgotten in time, and no one will remember our works: Ungodly people, who reason falsely (verse 1), believe that everyone is destined to be completely forgotten. Good News Translation, which reserves the most forceful of the two statements for the end, reverses the two lines. A possible alternative is “People will eventually forget our names, and no one will remember what we have done.”

Our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud: As clouds vanish, they shrink to tiny fragments (traces) of what they were before disappearing completely. So it is with human life; there may be some memory of a person for a while after his death, but eventually even that dissolves, and it is as though the person had never existed (verse 2).

And be scattered like mist that is chased by the rays of the sun and overcome by its heat: Overcome by its heat is literally “weighed down by its heat.” The picture is of a morning mist that gradually disappears as the sun rises higher and the air becomes warmer. Good News Translation is good: “vanish like fog in the heat of the sun.” So also is Contemporary English Version with “it melts away like mist in the heat of the sun.”

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.