Hades / Sheol

The Hebrew, Latin and Greek that is often translated in English as “Hades” or “Sheol” is translated in the German Luther Bible 2017 (and pre-1912) as Totenreich or “realm (or: kingdom) of the dead” in these verses. (Source: Jost Zetzsche)

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Sheol .

Translation commentary on Wisdom 2:1

For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves: Although this verse begins a new chapter, it is not the beginning of a new section. It continues the section that began at 1.16, so the connector For may be kept (see the models below). They refers back to the subject of the previous verse, “ungodly men” (Revised Standard Version) or “Ungodly people” (Good News Translation). Good News Translation does well to make the subject clear with “Wicked people” instead of they but on its choice of “Wicked” rather than “ungodly,” see the note on “ungodly” at 1.16. The following verses are not intended as the report of a conversation; we are not to imagine the ungodly people actually speaking these words. They are given as an illustration of how such people think: “For ungodly people are wrong when they think like this,” “For this is how ungodly people think—and they are wrong,” or even “For ungodly people do not think right; they have ideas like this.”

Short and sorrowful is our life: The quotation begun here continues until the end of verse 20. “Our life is short and full of sorrow” (Good News Translation) and “Life is short and sad” (Contemporary English Version) are possible models for this clause.

And there is no remedy when a man comes to his end: Good News Translation translates effectively by joining this line with the previous one: “Our life is short and full of sorrow, and when its end comes, there is no escape.” Or we may say “… we cannot escape it,” or even “… we must die.”

And no one has been known to return from Hades: Hades, as Good News Translation translates it, is a Greek word for “the world of the dead”; but here, as in 1.14, it is only a poetic term for death. Revised English Bible translates “no one has been known to return from the grave.” Another possible model is “no one has ever died and [then] come back to life.”

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.