1:7a–b
“Come!” said the sailors to one another. “Let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity that is upon us.”: There is a jump in the narrative at this point. The Berean Standard Bible just moves to the next action but in your language it may be necessary to fill in some of the missing steps. Between 1:6 and 1:7, the sailors had noticed that their prayers did not seem to be working. Also, the captain and Jonah had had time to get back to the deck of the ship. Decide whether you need to make any of these steps explicit in your translation.
“Come!”…“Let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity that is upon us.”: As the situation became more dangerous and their prayers didn’t work, the sailors decided that the storm had happened because someone on the ship had done something to offend one of the gods. So they decided to cast lots to find out who the guilty person was.
“Come!”: You should probably not translate this literally. The Hebrew word here has the sense in English of “come on, let us do something.” Good News Translation and Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures just omit it.
cast lots: People often cast lots to determine the cause of events which puzzle them. The way the lots were actually cast on this occasion is not known. Perhaps the sailors threw dice or drew straws. Another possibility is that each person’s name was written on small tablets or pieces of wood. One of these tablets was then picked at random. The person whose name was on the chosen tablet would be the person who was at fault. You should try, if possible, to use an expression which does not identify a particular method of casting lots.
1:7c
the lot fell on Jonah: Jonah was picked out by lot. This proved to the others on the ship that he was the one responsible for the storm, or at least that he knew something about why it had happened.
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