9:5a

They put worn, patched sandals on their feet and threadbare clothing on their bodies: It may be more natural in some languages to translate this as an independent sentence. For example:

They put on ragged clothes and worn-out sandals that had been mended (Good News Translation)
-or-
The men put worn and patched sandals on their feet and wore old clothes (New International Version)

9:5b

and their whole supply of bread was dry and moldy: The phrase their whole supply of bread refers to the bread they took with them to eat.

moldy: The Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as moldy is rarely used. Bible scholars and the English versions disagree about its meaning.

(1) It means crumbly or hard rather than moldy. This seems likely because mold requires moisture for growth, and the climate in Palestine is very dry. For example:

And all their provisions were dry and crumbly. (English Standard Version)

(English Standard Version, God’s Word, New American Bible, New American Standard Bible, NET Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures, Revised English Bible, Contemporary English Version)

(2) It means moldy. For example:

All the bread of their food supply was dry and moldy. (New International Version)

(Berean Standard Bible, New International Version, Revised Standard Version, New Century Version, New Living Translation (2004), Good News Translation)

It is difficult to know the meaning of this word because it is rare. It occurs only three times in the Old Testament (Joshua 9:5, 12, and I Kings 13:4). Both options are used by English versions. Even though Palestine generally had a dry climate, there was also a wet season and old bread could get moldy. Either option is acceptable.

© 2001, 2011, 2020, 2022, 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.