Your soul covered the earth: Good News Translation interprets this to mean that Solomon’s influence was far-reaching by saying “Your influence reached over all the world.” However, it more likely means that Solomon’s knowledge was so broad that it covered every subject, so a better model is “You knew everything there was to know [in the world].”

And you filled it with parables and riddles: Because of Solomon’s great wisdom, the earth was filled with his “proverbs and riddles” (Good News Translation). While “proverbs” (wise sayings) is better than parables, the meaning of the phrase parables and riddles (literally “parables of puzzles”) is best translated in New Revised Standard Version: “proverbs having deep meaning.”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Sirach. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.