How did you fare?: In Hebrew this verse opens with a word that as written in the traditional text means “since they were” (Revised Standard Version footnote), which makes no sense. The Septuagint translators apparently read a slightly different Hebrew text from the one we have, and translated as “How was it with you?” (Mitchell). Various attempts have been made by modern scholars either to understand the Hebrew as it is, or else to suggest a way to change it. But most modern English versions follow the Septuagint at this point, and they have the support of Hebrew Old Testament Text Project and Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament. Renderings include how did you fare? (Revised Standard Version, New American Bible), “what state were you in?” (Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible), “how were you then?” (Revised English Bible), and “what was your plight?” (New English Bible), which means “what sort of poor condition were you in?” It is not certain how Good News Translation has handled these words, but it seems quite probable that they have been absorbed into verse 15 and are there represented by “what has happened.” See the discussion above. If this is the case, it would have been better to join verses 15 and 16 and number them 15-16, as in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1. Edition. Other ways of saying this are “Look what has happened to you up to now!” and “you recalled what life was like in the past” (Contemporary English Version).

When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the winevat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty: The Hebrew does not state what the heap was composed of, but the context makes it clear that food is in mind, and this is brought out in Good News Translation with “pile of grain” (similarly New American Bible, New English Bible/Revised English Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh footnote). The British edition of Good News Translation has “heap of corn” and the Australian one “heap of grain.” For comments on “grain,” see the notes on 1.11.

A winevat was a container in which wine could be stored. It was usually hollowed out of rock. When the grapes were ripe they would be taken to the wine press and trodden under foot to squeeze out the juice. The press was also usually hollowed out of the rock, and was a little higher up than the vat. The two were connected by a channel or pipe, so that the juice could flow from the press down into the vat where it would ferment. If the person wishing to draw wine from the vat found less than half as much as he expected, that meant that the grapes had been of poor quality, and had yielded less juice than normal. In the same manner, the grain had been of poor quality, and when threshed, had yielded less than the farmer would have expected when he saw the crop growing. The reasons for this are given in the following verse. Winevat in some languages will be translated as “wine container,” “storage container for wine,” or “the storage place for wine.” For comments on “wine,” see the notes on 1.6.

In the case of the “grain,” the Hebrew text does not in fact contain a word for the unit of measurement. The important point is not the exact quantity involved, but the fact that the person concerned found only half as much as he expected. In the case of the “wine,” he found only forty percent, that is, two-fifths. Because proportions are in focus rather than exact amounts, it really does not matter much whether a translator uses metric units (“two hundred kilogrammes” and “a hundred litres” in the British Good News Translation), British/American units (“twenty bushels” and “fifty gallons” in the American Good News Translation), or traditional units from the language and culture of his readers. Most modern English translations use the vague term measure for both the “grain” and the “wine.” If a translator is using a well-known unit of measurement, the proportions will be shown by the figures he chooses. These should be round figures, and should be appropriate in size to a heap of grain and to a winevat. Some languages will prefer higher numbers to be put in figures rather than words; for example, the Australian Good News Translation has “200 kilograms” and “100 litres.” If for any reason there is no convenient unit of measurement, the translator should concentrate on the proportions involved. The first proportion should be easy to express in most languages, but the second one may be more difficult. If so, the translator could say something like this: “You would go to a pile of grain, but would find only half as much as you expected. You would go to draw wine from a vat, but would find even less than a half of what you expected.”

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Haggai. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .