Amos continues as the speaker here. The verse is composed of two questions to which the answer is “no” (verse 12a) and two statements (verse 12b). The first part of the verse asks if the impossible could happen, the latter part says that the impossible is happening, that the leaders of Israel are doing it, and that this is a terrible evil. The effect is very powerful. One should look for a good way of creating the same effect in the receptor language even if questions cannot be used in this way. Keep in mind the discussion on 3.3-8.
Do horses run upon rocks?/Do horses gallop on rocks? The answer to the first question is “Of course not.” Horses do not run on cliffs or rocks because of their hoofs. The word used for rocks should not mean small stones, but great boulders or expanses of rock. Besides, in those days horses were used only for pulling war chariots in the lowlands. One may have to translate “Horses cannot run on rocks/cliffs, can they?” or “Horses cannot run on rocks/cliffs.”
Horses. See 2.15.
Does one plow the sea with oxen?/Do men plow the sea with oxen? The Hebrew is “does one plow with oxen?” but that does not fit, because the answer to that would be “Of course one does!” Most scholars and nearly all translators solve the problem by dividing the consonants of the last Hebrew word in such a way that they mean “with oxen the sea.” If oxen are unknown, or plowing with oxen is unknown, the translator may have to use the name of another, somewhat related animal or even an entirely different animal, but one which can be used for plowing, or he may say simply “Do you plow the sea?” In other cases, he may be obliged to use a borrowed word, showing that it is the name of an animal, and then explain something about the animal in a footnote, such as: “An ox is an animal about (so many times) the size of (another animal of the receptor culture). It is taken care of by men and is used to pull heavy loads and plows.”
Where animals are not used for agricultural work and plows are unknown, a possible translation would be: “People do not make a garden in the sea/water/river (do they?)” or “Animals do not work for men in the sea.” A short explanation of Hebrew farming custom may then be put in a footnote if necessary.
But you have turned justice into poison/Yet you have turned justice into poison. See the similar statement in 5.7 However, there justice was turned to wormwood and here wormwood comes at the end of the next statement. Here it is not fully clear from the Hebrew just what justice is turned into. The Hebrew word occurs elsewhere as the name of a plant which people thought was, and may have been, poisonous. It is also used with the meaning “snake poison.” Poison, therefore, is the meaning which should be translated.
And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood/and right into wrong. Wormwood. See 5.7. A parallel solution may be found here. There is a slight difference, however, since in 6.12 there are two pictures, fruit and wormwood: “Righteousness, which is like a pleasant tasting fruit, is changed into bitter wormwood.” It may sometimes be possible to give a rather literal translation of the Hebrew in which a particular bitter plant known to the readers is used for wormwood. However, in that case the meaning of the picture must still be clear. In other cases it will be necessary to translate the meaning directly. Good News Translation understands fruit as a metaphor for “result” and translates and right into wrong.
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 .