wisdom

Click here to view graphically

The Hebrew, Aramaic, Ge’ez, Latin, and Greek that is translated as “wisdom” in English is rendered in various ways:

  • Amganad Ifugao / Tabasco Chontal: “(big) mind”
  • Bulu / Yamba: “heart-thinking”
  • Tae’: “cleverness of heart” (source for this and all above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
  • Palauan: “bright spirit (innermost)” (source: Bratcher / Hatton)
  • Ixcatlán Mazatec: “with your best/biggest thinking” (source: Robert Bascom)
  • Noongar: dwangka-boola, lit. “ear much” (source: Portions of the Holy Bible in the Nyunga language of Australia, 2018 — see also remember)
  • Kwere “to know how to live well” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
  • Dobel: “their ear holes are long-lasting” (in Acts 6:3) (source: Jock Hughes)
  • Gbaya: iŋa-mgbara-mɔ or “knowing-about-things” (note that in comparison to that, “knowledge” is translated as iŋa-mɔ or “knowing things”) (source: Philip Noss in The Bible Translator 2001, p. 114ff. )
  • Chichewa: nzeru, meaning both “knowledge” and “wisdom” (source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
  • Uma: “clearness” (source: Uma Back Translation)

In Hungarian Sign Language it is translated with a hand gesture referring to God to indicate a human quality to communicate that wisdom does not originate from man but is linked to and connected with the fear of God (source: Jenjelvi Biblia and Andrea Bokros):


“Wisdom” in Hungarian Sign Language (source )

See also wisdom (Proverbs) and knowledge.

Translation commentary on Sirach 24:28

Good News Translation has a paragraph break here since the topic changes slightly. However, translators may decide not to do this since the change in topic is not that great and verses 23-29 are not overly long as a single paragraph.

Just as the first man did not know her perfectly, the last one has not fathomed her: Rather than a Just as clause followed by a main clause, Good News Translation translates both these clauses as main clauses. Two opposites are set up in this verse: the first man and the last one. The Greek does not actually use the word man. Good News Translation uses “human being” in the first line since it fits better with “person” in the next line. The first reference may not be specifically to Adam, and the second reference may not be to the future (as Good News Translation has it). The Greek text actually has the past tense in the second line. Further, the idea of “the last person on earth,” as Good News Translation clearly says and others imply, is an idea more derived from modern science fiction than from anything biblical. What we have here is a Hebrew figure of speech in which entirety is represented by stating the extremes (see the comments on 18.8). More simply stated, this verse means “No human being has ever known perfect wisdom.” Revised English Bible translates it nicely with “No one has ever known wisdom fully and from first to last no one has fathomed her.”

Translators will find it helpful to translate the pronoun her as “Wisdom,” as Good News Translation has done. The Greek verb rendered fathomed is used in 1.3 and 18.4, 6, where Revised Standard Version translates it “search out” or “trace.” See the comments on this word at 1.3.

An alternative model for this verse is:

• No human being has ever lived who has learned all there is to learn from Wisdom.

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.