She fills their whole house with desirable goods, and their storehouses with her produce: Good News Translation has placed both their whole house and their storehouses on the first line (“our homes and our barns”), and in the second line it concentrates on desirable goods (the Greek noun here means “things that people want”), which it translates “all that our hearts can desire.” Good News Translation is here following through on its use of the pronoun “us” in verse 16 to refer to those whom wisdom satisfies. This verse appears to mean that the wise will be rewarded with material goods; their homes will be nicely furnished and their barns will be full of the harvest that they were wise enough to plan for. New American Bible maintains the food imagery throughout the verse by translating desirable goods as “choice foods,” but the Greek is really not that specific. New Jerusalem Bible expresses it better with the broader term “treasures.”

There is a serious textual problem here, however, which neither Revised Standard Version nor Good News Translation reveals. Only a minority of manuscripts read their whole house. Most manuscripts, including the important ones that are most relied on for Sirach, read “her whole house,” which gives a whole new meaning to the verse. It would then literally read “She fills her whole house with desirable things, and fills her storehouses with what she produces.” This is much like the picture of Wisdom’s house in Pro 9.1-6. This reading says that people who aspire to wisdom can look forward to sharing Wisdom’s bounty, but it does not indicate, as does the other reading, that everyone who is wise will be rich. New English Bible, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, and Box and Oesterley prefer this reading. So does this Handbook. A model that expresses this is:

• Wisdom fills her house with beautiful things
and what she produces fills her barns.

However, for translators who cannot personify Wisdom, we may say something like:

• People who are wise like this [by revering God]
will have their entire house filled with beautiful things
and their storerooms [or, barns] filled with produce.

Those who follow this recommendation do not need a textual footnote since they will be following the usual manuscripts relied upon. Those who choose to follow Revised Standard Version or Good News Translation, however, really do need a footnote to present the reading in the other manuscripts (so New Revised Standard Version).

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Sirach. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.