Good News Translation places this line at the end of its verse 19, then numbers verse 21 as verse 20, and has no verse 21. We can only assume that this is a mistake, made somewhere in the process of translating or editing. For the convenience of readers we will show the Good News Translation text here alongside the Revised Standard Version text to which it corresponds.

Or rather, being good, I entered an undefiled body: Solomon backs up, and states what he means in verse 19 more precisely, so that he identifies the soul, which is the real self, as superior to the body. The author intends entered literally; in this line of thinking the soul entered the body and lived within it. A similar passage is found in a Jewish document from about the same time as this book. The passage comes from k The Testament of Naphtalik* 2.2: “For just as a potter knows the pot, how much it holds, and brings clay for it accordingly, so also the Lord forms the body in correspondence to the spirit, and instills the spirit corresponding to the power of the body” (Charlesworth). The line could be worded in this way: “Or to put it more exactly, since I myself was good, I entered a body that was free of any defects.”

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.