I smote you with blight and mildew/I sent a scorching wind to dry up your crops. Blight and mildew (even if they are known) give the impression that some sort of diseases are intended, and smote you seems to refer to human diseases.

But in fact in this picture people are only indirectly the victims, and the diseases are diseases of the crops: “I caused blight and mildew to destroy your crops.” In some languages it may be possible to have such technical terms like blight and mildew in the translation and to give an explanation in a glossary. However, in most cases there will be no such terms, or they will be known only by crop specialists. The blight was caused by the hot desert wind. The cause of the mildew is not as certain, but there is a strong possibility that it was caused by worms. This makes it possible to translate: “I sent a hot wind and worms to destroy your crops.” Good News Translation has only a scorching wind (compare also The Translator’s Old Testament: “a burning wind” and New American Bible: “searing wind”).

I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards/all your gardens and vineyards. The majority of scholars change the Hebrew slightly to something which means “I dried up” or I have laid waste (see Smith-Goodspeed, Moffatt, New English Bible, The Translator’s Old Testament). With this change the text to be translated is: “I have dried up your gardens and vineyards.”

In some languages vineyards can be translated by such expressions as “field/garden with vines,” “grape garden,” “place-for-grapes,” “wine garden,” etc. In other places a word for vineyards may have to be introduced as a loan word from the dominant language in the area. Elsewhere it may be necessary to use a cultural equivalent such as “field/garden of palmwine-trees,” in which case the expression should correspond if at all possible with the word for “wine” used in 2.12 (see the commentary there). Sometimes the closest equivalent will simply be general terms such as “gardens and plantations” or “fields and gardens” or “vegetable gardens and fruit gardens.” Sometimes both expressions will have to be contained in one word “gardens.”

Likewise, fig trees and olive trees may be unknown, and it is often necessary to borrow the meaningless names for these trees from the dominant language in the area. An explanatory word such as “tree” should be included as well. Some languages may have a general term for all kinds of cultivated fruit trees, though no specific name for olive trees and fig trees, in which case such a term can be used: “the locusts ate up your fruit trees.” Sometimes a kind of wild fig tree or olive tree is known, but since they are never cultivated, the words for this kind of tree cannot be used.

Where locusts are unknown, one can use an explanatory word such as “insects called locusts” or simply a general term “a kind of insect.”

For the repeated parts of this paragraph, see 4.6-11.

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 .