Judah and the land of Israel traded with you: Judah refers to the area around Jerusalem, where two tribes of Israel lived, and the land of Israel refers to the area where the other ten tribes of Israel used to be, which was on the southern border of Tyre.

They exchanged for your merchandise wheat, olives and early figs, honey, oil, and balm: There is no doubt about some of the goods they traded with Tyre. Wheat (see 4.9), honey (see 3.3), and [olive] oil (see 16.9) were traditional agricultural products of the land, and balm, a sweet-smelling resin of a tree that was used as a perfume and ointment, was produced in Gilead on the eastern side of the Jordan River. If readers do not know what wheat is, translators may use a generic expression such as “grain for making bread.” They have to be sure that they do not render oil in a way that could refer to petroleum. Possible renderings for oil are “oil from the olive fruit” or “cooking oil.” Balm may be translated “tree sap ointment” or “tree sap medication.” The meaning of the Hebrew words following wheat is unclear. The first word is minnith, which probably refers to the Ammonite city with that name mentioned in Jdg 11.33. Scholars suggest that an especially good strain of wheat grew near there, so that wheat from Minnith came to be known as the “finest wheat” (Contemporary English Version). Translators may say “finest wheat” or “finest wheat from Minnith.” This is more meaningful than simply transliterating the name of the town, as many translations do. Revised Standard Version has olives, which follows a conjecture that has no basis in the text. The second word is pannag, which is used only here in the Hebrew Bible, and translators have made many guesses as to what it means. In this context it is clearly some sort of food. Some translators change the text slightly to read paggag (the difference between the Hebrew letters for “n” and “g” is very small), which means “unripe figs”; compare early figs, “fancy figs” (Contemporary English Version), and simply “figs” (New Living Translation, New American Bible). But it is more likely that pannag is related to a Hittite word that means a type of grain or flour; compare “meal” (Revised English Bible), “millet” (New Revised Standard Version, New King James Version , Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), and “cakes” (New American Standard Bible). This interpretation is recommended, and translators may say “other flour [for bread]” or “other grain [for bread].”

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .