Does not the dew assuage the scorching heat?: In Palestine summer heat can be oppressive, but during the night dew forms on the ground and plants, and this moisture provides some relief by getting the day off to a cooler start. Assuage the scorching heat means to lessen the effect of extremely hot weather. The implied answer to the rhetorical question here is “Yes.” The question may be worded as a statement, as Good News Translation has done. Good News Translation‘s phrase “a spell of hot weather” refers to a period of consecutive days in which the weather is consistently hot. An alternative model for this line is “Even dew refreshes us when the weather is very hot [or, on a hot day].”

So a word is better than a gift: What you say to a person in need is more important than any gift you give, at least insofar as it affects a person’s sense of self-worth.

Translators may find that reversing the two lines of this verse, as Good News Translation has done, makes for easier reading. There are ways to make the comparison with dew here clearer; for example, one possible model is:

• Your words are more important than what you give. They can be like the evening dew that cools the land after a hot day.

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.