Saying/You say to yourselves. Although you say to yourselves (so also The Translator’s Old Testament) may be a good solution in some languages, in others it is impossible to speak to oneself, and the translation may have to be “you think” or “you say.” If only part of the quotation is translated as a question, care must be taken with such a specific verb as “to ask” (so New American Bible). On the other hand, if there is a word like “mutter” (Moffatt) or “say in secret,” that would be good.
When will … be over/We can hardly wait … to be over. The choice between question or statement was discussed in 8.5-6. It depends on what is effective in the language of the translation. The important thing is for the reader to feel the impatience of the merchants without having to depend on tone of voice, etc. It may be best to make this impatience explicit in the translation: we can hardly wait, “you can’t wait.”
New moon/holy days. In many cultural situations it will be possible to say new moon in the translation although it may also be necessary to show that it is a “feast”: “the feast of the new moon.” Even if a feast of the new moon is not known, in some cases people will easily understand that certain activity was forbidden on such feast days, and they will not need a general description such as holy days (not to be confused in English with holidays!).
That we may sell grain? And the sabbath, that we may offer (Hebrew: open) wheat for sale/so that we can sell our grain. When will the Sabbath end, so that we can start selling again? The Hebrew picture is that of opening the storehouse where the wheat is kept: “that we may open our storehouses/shops to sell wheat” or simply “that we can start selling wheat again.” Generally, it is better to translate sabbath with “rest day” or “day for resting,” which has the advantage of making a meaningful contrast in this particular passage. In some languages there is difficulty with the similarity of this question to the question just above. Good News Translation has not mentioned “grain” or “wheat” the second time. Some translations may need to combine the two questions, or emphasize different features of them. For example, “… to open our shops … to sell our wheat.”
In some translations it would be best to move the end of verse 6 (and sell the refuse of the wheat) here for smoothness of the flow of ideas (see 8.5). What is done will depend on the way in which the first half of verse 5 was translated. It may be possible to say, for example, “that we may open our storehouses in order to sell the refuse of wheat (or: worthless wheat),” “that we can start selling grain again, even the refuse of wheat.” However, this solution does not emphasize the picture as much as the final balanced position in Hebrew emphasizes it, and some stronger wording might be better, like Good News Translation We can sell worthless wheat at a high price or “You even take what you sweep from the floor of the wheat bin and sell it to the hungry at a high price.” Of course, if the end of verse 6 is moved here, verses 5-6 should be numbered together.
That we may make the ephah small and the shekel great, and deal deceitfully with false balances (Hebrew: to twist the balances of falsehood)/Then we can overcharge, use false measures, and fix the scales to cheat our customers. The ephah was a measure of capacity. It was changed in one way or another so that the customer did not get all he should get. In the time of Amos money was unknown. So the shekel, a weight of limestone (probably about 11 grams) was used to weigh bars, rings, etc. of valuable metal which were used in commerce. When the weight of the shekel was enlarged in one way or another, the price the customer had to pay was too high.
The important part of the meaning is not in the particular measure and weight, but in the examples of cheating. So there is no need to keep the difficult terms ephah and shekel in the translation. Possibilities include “measures” (compare Moffatt, Good News Translation) and “weights” (Moffatt) or some cultural equivalent for ephah (compare New English Bible: “giving short measure in the bushel”); the effect of the cheating with the shekel can be indicated: “too high a price.” For example, “Then we make the measures (or cultural equivalent) small and the price of things big.”
A third possibility of cheating customers was in using false balances. One of the scales was made heavier or the beam was twisted so that the balance became false: fix the scales to cheat or “cheat by tampering with the scales” (Moffatt), etc.
In a culture where standardized measures, weights, and balances are not known, or not all known, some of these pictures may have to be combined into general expressions of cheating, or there may be some equivalent idiom or picture in the language.
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 .