So we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be: This is spoken, of course, by the ungodly after their death, after confronting the blessed situation of the righteous people who have died. Good News Translation expresses it well: “It is the same with us—we were born, and then we ceased to be.” This has happened in the same way as the shadow, the messenger, the ship, the bird, and the arrow come and are quickly gone (compare Sir 44.9).

And we had no sign of virtue to show: Good News Translation has “We left no sign of virtue behind us,” while Contemporary English Version has “and left behind no traces of anything good.” The ungodly leave no trace of goodness just like the ship, the bird, and the arrow leave no sign of their passing. Contrast this with 4.1.

But were consumed in our wickedness: Consumed is so misleading as to be wrong. It misleads Good News Translation into translating “destroyed,” which is completely and utterly wrong. The word means “squander,” “use up wastefully.” (The Greek lexicon by Liddell and Scott gives “consume” as a meaning, but the example it gives from Xenophon’s k Anabasisk* [II.2.11] is instructive. There one general tells another general that their army cannot live off the country any longer. As they passed through, they found nothing, and what little they did find they consumed it. Nothing was destroyed. The King James Version, and the Geneva Bible before it, translated “consumed,” probably relying on the Latin, consumpti sumus, which does correctly represent the Greek.) The meaning of the line is correctly expressed in New Jerusalem Bible: “we have spent ourselves in our own wickedness!” New English Bible also expresses it correctly but more effectively: “and in our wickedness we frittered our lives away.” Translators could say “We wasted our whole lives in wickedness,” “We threw our lives away with our wickedness,” or “We were wicked, and we [just] threw our lives away [or, wasted our lives].” The translation should convey a mood of resignation, one that recognizes the inevitable with a sense of hopeless despair.

An alternative model for the verse is:

• It is the same with us—first we were born, and then we ceased to exist. We left no sign of any virtue [or, goodness] behind us. We were wicked, and we threw our lives away [or, wasted our lives].

Notice that this verse closes the quotation begun in verse 4.

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.