Behold. See 2.13.
The days are coming. See 9.11.
Says the LORD. In this section the expression indicating the speaker comes both at the beginning and at the end, as is often the case earlier in the book. See 1.3, 5. In translation, says the LORD should be kept in both places if at all possible, but if it is left out it would be better to leave it out here (where there is no change of speaker) than at the end of the passage where it is also the end of the book (see below).
When the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed/when grain will grow faster than it can be harvested, and grapes will grow faster than the wine can be made. The picture here is of great fertility. The crops will grow so fast that the plowman is hardly finished breaking up the earth for sowing before the grain is already ripe for harvest. This would be a picture of the speed of growth of the crops. On the other hand, the second part of the picture shows that the grapes will be so abundant that pressing them out to make wine will not be finished when sowing time arrives. This is not a picture of speed of growth but of the overwhelming quantity of crops. In many languages, these pictures are very difficult to translate as such because Hebrew farming is not the same as that in many other cultures. The use of long phrases for various farming words would be very disturbing, especially in translating as poetry.
From this point of view Good News Translation is a very useful model, especially in its translation of the first picture: when grain will grow faster than it can be harvested. On the other hand, it cannot be used in the translation of the second picture, since it is not the speed of growth, but the quantity of crops which is important. So in many cases, the following kind of translation will have to be made: “See, the time is coming when the fertility of the earth will make things ripe in the fields so fast that there will be no time between planting and harvest; fruit will be so abundant that no one can ever finish pressing it to make wine (or: people can never use/eat it all).”
Good News Translation translators may have wanted to translate with a parallel thought. This is certainly legitimate, but in that case the translation should have been the other way around, making abundance the point of the first picture as well. The Hebrew can easily be understood that way: the harvest, normally ripe by April-May, is so abundant that the cutting of it is not finished until October when plowing begins.
The mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it (Hebrew: shall melt)/The mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with it. The translator who consults different translations of this Hebrew picture may be rather puzzled. All agree that the mountains are connected with new or fresh wine, but whereas for some this is also true of the hills (Revised Standard Version, New American Bible, Good News Translation); for others the hills “wave with corn” (New English Bible) or “are aflow with milk” (Moffatt).
The problem is in the picture of the hills “melting.” This is an exaggerated picture. The thought may be that the grapes will hang so heavily in the mountain vineyards that the slopes will seem to drip and flow with fresh wine. Or it may picture the juice overflowing the vats in which the wine is pressed, and flowing down the slopes of the hills so that they become soft with mud. In many languages, it will be extremely difficult to translate this picture. One solution for the first half is to say “the juice of grapes (or: ripe fruit) shall drip down the mountains where they are growing” (see New American Bible). Since the same meaning is in the second picture (“the hills shall melt” and certainly not “corn” or “milk”!), translations can add “and flow down the slopes,” or the second part of the Hebrew picture can be left without stating it directly.
Quoted with permission from de Waard, Jan & Smalley, William A. A Handbook on Amos. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1979. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .