For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow: The connector For may be omitted. This line is saying that a cloud passes overhead and provides brief relief from the sun. Then it is gone. Ungodly people think that “Our time on earth” (Good News Translation) is like the shadow of the quietly passing cloud—soon gone. Contemporary English Version is more concise with “Time fades away like a shadow.”

And there is no return from our death: When we come face to face with death, we cannot turn around and walk away. In fact, “step back from it” would be a more literal translation of the image used here than return. Another possible model is “No one can avoid dying.”

Because it is sealed up and no one turns back: Sealed up means “determined, fixed.” No one turns back means, of course, that no one can turn back (from death).

An alternative model for the verse is:

• Time fades away like a shadow. Death is inescapable [or, No one can avoid dying], and when the time for it comes, no one can step back, turn around, and walk away.

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.