Moreover it has not seen the sun: moreover is a conjunction-like word that means “also,” “furthermore,” “in addition.” It can be translated as such here, but other possible translations exist. It can be rendered as an emphatic “He has not even seen the sun,” or as a concessive “Even though….” In the present context the latter sense is certainly possible, “Even though he has not seen the sun, yet….” The phrase seen the sun again is not intended to be understood literally, though a living being generally gets to see and feel the effects of the sun. The sun, as in the phrase “under the sun,” means what we experience as human beings living in this world. Good News Translation uses an idiomatic expression, “sees the light of day,” meaning in this case “birth.”

Or known anything: here the Revised Standard Version translation does not seem correct. The grammatical structure suggests that sun is the object of this verb as well as of the previous one. In this case the stillborn child neither saw nor knew the sun. This view is made plain in New American Bible, “it has not seen or known the sun.” Like Revised Standard Version some other translations consider the object of “know” to be different from that of the verb “see,” as in New English Bible, “has never … known anything.” The first interpretation is to be preferred, however. “Know” usually has the fuller sense of intimate knowledge and experience (it is used of Adam “knowing” Eve and conceiving a child, Gen 4.1). So here too we can convey its meaning well as “Moreover it neither sees nor experiences anything of human life.” In some languages two verbal phrases may be too repetitive, in which case a simple statement can cover the two: “it has no experience of what it is like to live in this world.”

Yet it finds rest rather than he: this very short sentence is clearly an independent one. It acknowledges that rest is available only to one of two persons. The Hebrew is literally “rest [is] to this from this.” The first demonstrative pronoun “this” points to the stillborn or miscarried child; the second “this” indicates the wealthy but dissatisfied person spoken of in verses 1-3. The Revised Standard Version rendering can be improved with a translation identifying it as “the child” and he as “that wealthy person.”

Rest is used in 2.23 in the literal sense of being rested and refreshed. When applied to the stillborn child, it can only refer to the final rest of death. Rest then describes the release from toil, pain, and the enigmas of life in this world, especially if a person is unable to find satisfaction within it. After death that person enters “rest.” When Jerusalem Bible suggests “never knowing rest, the one no more than the other,” it seems to misunderstand rest as the object of the verb know. The translator should examine vocabulary in the local language that is used in describing the state after death. If the notion of “rest” does not apply, speaking of “peace” or the “sleep” of the dead may be appropriate. In some languages the context of “rest” may need to be spelled out: “Yet in death, this child finds more peace than that wealthy man.”

In translation we may say, for example:

• The stillborn is at rest, but not that rich person.

• That miscarried child and not the wealthy person is the one at rest.

• Only the stillborn knows what true rest is.

The whole verse can look something like:

• He never experienced life. He never knew what it is to live. Yet his rest is sweeter than that wealthy man’s.

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 .