Almost certainly this verse is a proverb that Qoheleth quotes. We cannot at present discover its source. It is structured as two parallel statements, and the translator should strive to retain this form as far as possible. It can be indented or enclosed in quotes to show that it is a peculiar literary form.

What is crooked describes the state of an object: it twists and turns. Such an object cannot be made straight, says the quotation. Of course there are many things that are crooked and bent which can be straightened or smoothed out without any difficulty. But there are also many other things that cannot be straightened. It is only these latter that Qoheleth is thinking about, so translators should note that this saying is not meant to describe every possible situation; it is only a generalization. Also we should avoid giving the impression that something “crooked” is actually “faulty,” or “wrong.” (This is the difficulty with the Living Bible paraphrase “What is wrong cannot be righted.”) A crooked tree is simply a crooked tree, and it may be all the more attractive because it is crooked. In many languages “crooked” does refer figuratively to corrupt, immoral, or evil people and practices. This associated meaning may require us to choose a different adjective, or a phrase such as “twists and turns” or “has many curves in it.”

What is lacking (or Good News Translation “things that are not there”) describes a vacuum, or nonexistence. Naturally if something is not there it cannot be numbered. This states another very obvious fact: you cannot count something that does not exist.

What both halves of the saying demonstrate is that, in the natural world as well as in human life, certain facts cannot be altered; they simply have to be accepted. The problem to be avoided in translation is giving the impression that this situation is necessarily bad or negative. The quotation itself is neutral. It simply points to the conclusion that Qoheleth has come to about life, that sometimes we must accept certain things as they are. If the translator’s language has a proverbial saying expressing similar ideas, then that can be used. It may also be necessary to supply the subject of the clause. We may say “A person cannot straighten out something that twists and turns,” “You [singular or plural] cannot straighten something with many curves in it,” or “We cannot make straight what is crooked.” For the second clause we can say something similar: “A person [you, one] cannot count something when there is nothing there [to be counted].”

The point being made does not depend on the order of these two clauses, so if it proves more natural to express the second clause first, the clauses may be reversed.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Ecclesiates. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .