לִקְנ֤וֹת בַּכֶּ֨סֶף֙ דַּלִּ֔ים וְאֶבְי֖וֹן בַּעֲב֣וּר נַעֲלָ֑יִם וּמַפַּ֥ל בַּ֖ר נַשְׁבִּֽיר׃
6buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “sandal” or “shoe” similar in English is translated in Noongar as djena-bwoka or “feet kangaroo skin” (source: Bardip Ruth-Ang 2020) and in Mairasi as “foot thing” (source: Enggavoter 2004).
See also cloth.
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “sell” in English is translated in Noongar as wort-bangal or “away-barter.” Note that “buy” is translated as bangal-barranga or “get-barter.” (Source: Bardip Ruth-Ang 2020)
See also buy and buying / selling.
In Gbaya, the notion of chaff or other items being blown by the wind is emphasized with the ideophone pumyulu.
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “sandal” in English is illustrated for use in Bible translations in East Africa by Pioneer Bible Translators like this:
Image owned by PBT and Jonathan McDaniel and licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
See also untie sandals.
Two kinds of wild wheat have grown in the open deciduous oak woodland in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent for several thousand years: Einkorn Wheat Triticum monococcum and Emmer Wheat Triticum dicoccum. Both came into cultivation together with barley. Just before the time of the Romans, the Naked Bread Wheat or Hard Wheat Triticum durum started replacing the hulled varieties. This then became the favorite type of wheat for bread and macaroni. Spelt is a sub-member of the Triticum aestivum species.
In New Revised Standard Version, updated edition and some other versions, the generic Hebrew word bar has been rendered “wheat” in Jeremiah 23:28 et al. This is legitimate, since the grain referred to by bar was probably wheat. However, it might be better to say “grain” in these passages.
The most important early wheat for the Israelites was emmer, probably the only wheat known in Egypt, and referred to in Hebrew as chittah. However, according to Hepper (Baker Encyclopedia of Bible Plants: Flowers and Trees, Fruits and Vegetables, Ecology. Baker Book House, 1992), the seven-headed wheat of the Egyptian king’s dream (Genesis 41:5ff.) suggests that there may also have been Triticum turgidum (rivet wheat) in the emmer group. The Hebrew word kusemeth probably refers to a type of emmer wheat that the Egyptians called swt.
Wheat is a type of grass like rice and barley, growing to around 75 centimeters (2.5 feet) in height and having a head with many small grains in rows.
Bread made from wheat was the staple food for the people of ancient Israel, so God punished them by breaking “the staff of bread” (see, for example, Ezekiel 4:16).
If wheat is unfamiliar, translators can transliterate from a major language in non-rhetorical contexts (for example, English witi, Portuguese trigo, French ble or froment, Swahili ngano, Arabic kama/alkama). The transliteration may add a generic tag such as “grain.” The New Testament passages are mostly rhetorical, opening the possibility for a metaphorical equivalent.
Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Amos 8:6:
An alternative place for and sell the refuse of the wheat (end of the verse) is at the beginning of verse 6, as in Good News Translation and New English Bible (see also 8.5-6; 8.5).
That we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals/We’ll find a poor man who can’t pay his debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and we’ll buy him as a slave. This picture is very much like that of 2.6 except that here it speaks of buying rather than selling, and here it is the poor rather than the righteous who are being described. According to the explanations given in 2.6, the translation here might run something like “We will buy poor people as slaves because they cannot pay their debts, even if the debt is so small as that of a pair of sandals.”
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 .
8:6a Let us buy the poor with silver
⌊We will⌋ use silver to buy poor ⌊people as our slaves⌋ .
-or-
And the poor people we will buy ⌊as slaves⌋ .
8:6b and the needy for a pair of sandals,
Also, ⌊we (excl.) ⌋ would use ⌊the price of⌋ a pair of sandals to buy the needy ⌊people, as our slaves⌋ .
-or-
and ⌊we (excl.) will⌋ buy the needy ⌊people to be our slaves⌋ with the ⌊small price⌋ of a pair of sandals.
8:6c selling even the chaff with the wheat!”
⌊We (excl.) will⌋ sell, even the chaff mixed with the wheat.”
-or-
⌊We (excl.) can mix⌋ the wheat and the waste product and sell it ⌊like it’s all wheat⌋ .”
8:6a–c (Combined)
⌊We (excl.) will⌋ sell the wheat mixed with the chaff and use silver ⌊worth the price of⌋ a pair of sandals to buy the needy ⌊people, as our slaves⌋ .”
-or-
⌊We (excl.) can mix⌋ the wheat and the waste product and sell it ⌊like it’s all wheat⌋ and buy the needy ⌊people to be our slaves⌋ with the ⌊small price⌋ of a pair of sandals.”
© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.
No comments yet.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.