There have clung to us the calamities and the curse: Calamities refers to “terrible things” or “sufferings” that would happen as a result of God’s curse. So curse means the threat or warning by God that he would cause the people of Israel to suffer these things (compare Jer 11.3-5; see also Lev 26.14-39 and Deut 28.15-68 for the curses). Most translations do not attempt to preserve the image of the calamities and the curse clinging to the people, even though it is potentially powerful. It is certainly not natural as a metaphor in English. Translators could use a simile, a simple comparison, if they could think of something appropriate for that time in history. “Disasters have stuck to us like glue” would be a good rendering if ancient Israel had used glue. A slight change might produce something like this to begin the verse:

• And now look at us! We can’t get away from disasters! These are the terrible things that God had his servant Moses threaten us with….

A land flowing with milk and honey: This was the picture of the Promised Land in the minds of the Israelites wandering in the desert after leaving Egypt. Since this is figurative language, a literal translation may be meaningless. The meaning is “a rich and fertile land,” as Good News Translation translates it throughout the Old Testament. If translators choose to keep the words milk and honey, they should know that the milk intended was goat’s milk, and the honey was really a thick, sweet syrup made from dates, the fruit of the date tree, and not the honey made by bees.

Translators may compare the wording of this verse with Dan 9.11, although the parallels are not as close as elsewhere in this passage. The sentence structure here is complicated with the following four clauses:

• there have clung to us the calamities and the curse
(which the Lord declared through Moses his servant)
(at the time when he brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt)
(to give us a land flowing with milk and honey)

Good News Translation restructures the verse by turning the last three clauses (which … honey) into a brief narrative to begin the verse: “Long ago, when the Lord led our ancestors out of Egypt, so that he could give us a rich and fertile land, he pronounced curses against us through his servant Moses.” The next sentence then translates the main clause of the Greek sentence (there … curse): “And today we are suffering because of those curses.” In both sentences Good News Translation combines the calamities and the curse into “curses.” One problem with the Good News Translation approach is that the flow and impact of the confession is interrupted by this narration that sounds like it is giving information the listeners do not already know, which is not the case. Another problem is that there is an unresolved inconsistency between the Lord wanting to give a rich and fertile land in one breath, and pronouncing curses in the next breath. New English Bible takes another approach, one in which there is a smooth transition from verse 19 to verse 20: “So here we are today in the grip of adversity, suffering under the curse which the Lord commanded his servant Moses to pronounce….” This suggests an approach by which both problems might be solved:

• And now look at us! These disasters we are suffering are the result of the terrible things that God told his servant Moses to threaten us with long ago, at the time when the Lord led our ancestors out of Egypt, so that he might give us a rich, fertile land.

The second sentence in this model is long, but it moves smoothly, making a smooth transition from the previous verse and into this verse. Explaining the Lord’s declaration through Moses as a threat rather than an actual curse is true to the biblical context and makes clear the relation between the curse and God’s real intention for his people. Another reference to the curse is made at Bar 2.1, although the word is not used there. See also Bar 2.7-8, and the comments at that point.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.