He who is not clever cannot be taught: Good News Translation “You have to be intelligent to learn” misses the point in this line. The Greek word translated clever and cleverness suggests actual ability rather than intelligence. While a person might pretend to be intelligent and fool some people, he cannot really pretend to have abilities or skills that he does not have. Clever and cleverness are good terms here, because they can be used in both a positive and a negative sense. In this first line we could say “You have to be clever [or, smart] [in order] to learn anything.”

But there is a cleverness which increases bitterness is more literally “but there is a cleverness which makes bitterness more abundant.” In this line cleverness has a negative sense. It is not, as Good News Translation suggests, pretending anything, but actually using one’s mental ability in a bad way, probably in a slick, tricky way. People who are deceived in this way feel bitter. Perhaps for this line we could say “but cleverness can also be used to make people resentful” or “but some kinds of cleverness only make other people resentful [or, bitter].”

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.