For it is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists: Again the connector For may be omitted. Unerring may be expressed as “sure, accurate, reliable.” What exists is translated by Good News Translation as “the forces of nature,” which is not a bad summary of the details mentioned in verses 17b-20. Other possibilities are “the world of nature,” “things as they are” (New English Bible), and even simply “things.”

Notice that the second line is the first in a series of lines going through verse 20 which name various subjects of knowledge. So it is appropriate for the first line to end with a colon or dash or some such way of indicating that what follows is essentially a list. In verses 18-20 there are no verbs in the Greek text as the list continues. We will provide a translation model for verses 17-20 at the end of discussion on verse 20.

To know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements: It may not be necessary and could be harmful to represent the phrase to know in this line. It is clearly expressed in the first line; notice that Good News Translation gets by without it. Other versions represent it by a noun; for instance, Revised English Bible has “a knowledge of the structure of the world and the operation of the elements.” By the elements the author refers to earth, air, fire, and water, which were the four elements that composed the whole world of nature in ancient thought. It is the activity of the elements that gives structure to the world. Translators could express the meaning of the line as “what the world is made of and how it works” or “how the elements work to make up the world.”

The whole verse can be translated:

• It was he [God] who gave me a true understanding of things: what the world is made of and how it works.

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.