When heads of grain without number are sown, how great a threshing floor they will fill!: Evil is multiplying in the world like grain. Each seed produces many more grains, until there are whole fields full. A threshing floor was a hard, level surface in the open air, located outside of a town, where the blowing winds could separate the seeds of grain from the husks. People either walked on the grain or dragged a heavy board over it, and then tossed both the grain and husks into the air. The wind blew away the lighter husks, but the heavier grain fell to the ground. Threshing floor may be rendered “place where the grain is threshed/beaten.” God’s judgment is compared to the threshing of grain here. Alternative models for this verse are:

• Since then, countless evil seeds [or, evil seeds without number] have been planted. All the evil that has come up is going to fill a huge threshing floor [or, place for threshing grain]!”

• Since then, the enemy [or, evil one] has planted so many evil seeds that we can’t count them….”

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.