Whose appearance arouses yearning in fools: The yearning is a religious sentiment. We may render this line as “Fools can look at such things and feel drawn toward them [or, their emotions are all stirred up].”

So that they desire the lifeless form of a dead image: Desire does not mean a desire to possess the image. It refers to a religious attraction; they want to worship the image. At the risk of being wordy, translators could say “so that they devote themselves to the worship of….” The Revised Standard Version footnote here indicates that the Greek has “he desires” instead of they desire. Translators should follow Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation in shifting to the plural. This is a translational change and no footnote is necessary. The lifeless form of a dead image must not suggest that the image once was alive. New English Bible reads “a mere image without life or breath.” This is a good approach, and “without … breath” is a better representation of the Greek. For image we ideally need a word that would cover both a picture and a statue; see the note at 13.16. This line may be rendered “and devote themselves to the worship of something with no life, no breath; it’s nothing but an image.”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Wisdom of Solomon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2004. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.