If you are overstuffed with food is literally “And if you have been forced with food” or “And if you have suffered violence because of food.” Some take this to mean “forced to eat too much,” but Good News Translation has a more satisfying explanation. It takes “suffered violence because of food” to refer to physical symptoms of distress: “If you do get a stomach ache from eating too much [in spite of the advice in verse 20].” We recommend this approach. We could also say “But if you do find yourself in pain from overeating.”

Get up in the middle of the meal, and you will have relief: Good News Translation adopts the reading of other Greek manuscripts (as well as the Hebrew) in translating “go off and vomit and you will feel better.” This is surely correct. We urge translators to follow Good News Translation, with no footnote. Ben Sira is not referring here to the Roman practice of getting up during a meal and vomiting so that the person could come back and eat some more. He isn’t speaking of getting up from the meal at all. He is thinking of sometime after the meal, when the unfortunate person feels physical pain. His advice to go somewhere and vomit is simply practical advice. There’s no point in suffering unnecessarily; vomit and get it over with.

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.