Snow and ice withstood fire without melting: The author is still talking about the manna, which in Exo 16.14 is compared to frost, but in this verse to snow (compare also 19.21). Frost is frozen dew (similar to the frozen substance that collects in freezers of refrigerators), but snow is frozen rain, and in many languages will need to be described like that. Good News Translation explains what is meant, although it requires a long insertion. It is hard to see how we could get by with less, however, unless we could say “It was like snow and ice, but it did not melt even in the fire” or “And though the food was as frail as snow or ice, it did not melt even in the fire.”

So that they might know that the crops of their enemies were being destroyed by the fire that blazed in the hail and flashed in the showers of rain: They refers to the Israelites. These lines may be rendered “This happened so that your people might know that the lightning that was flashing in the storms of rain and hail was destroying their enemies’ crops.”

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.