Jacob, who is unfamiliar with the local custom, urges the herders to go ahead and water the sheep so that they can return to the pastures for the rest of the day.

Behold is used here to introduce advice Jacob wants to give the local men. He begins by pointing out to them that it is still high day. High day is not idiomatic English. The Hebrew expression is literally “big day,” which means that the sun is still high in the sky, a long while before sunset, or that a great part of the day is still before them. Good News Translation and others say “broad daylight,” which refers to any time in which the sun is still shining brightly. In translation any local term that refers to the middle of the day will be suitable here; where a meal is normally eaten at midday, for example, we may say, “It is only dinner-time.”

It is not time for the animals to be gathered together: animals translates a general word for domestic animals that may include cattle, horses, camels, and donkeys, as well as sheep and goats. In reference to domestic animals be gathered together means to be rounded up for the night and perhaps brought into folds. Some translations say “It is not time to put the sheep inside their fence” or “… to take them back to the yard.”

In the Hebrew Jacob expresses two imperatives, which Speiser says should not be taken as commands. He, like Good News Translation, translates them as questions: “why don’t you water them and go on grazing?” Water the sheep may need to be reworded to say, for example, “give the sheep water to drink.” Go, pasture them may be expressed as “take the sheep out and let them graze, eat.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .