The author laments about humiliated Jerusalem, listing various facts. In 5:13, the New American Standard Bible reads :
“Young men worked at the grinding mill, And youths stumbled under loads of wood.”
The meaning is perfectly clear, the sentence referring to some kind of hard labour.
Yet the Latin Vulgate says something completely different (at least in the first part of the verse) :
Adolescentibus impudice abusi sunt, et pueri in ligno corruerunt. “They shamelessly ‘took advantage’ of young men, and youths stumbled in wood.”
The Septuagint has yet another version :
ἐκλεκτοὶ κλαυθμὸν ἀνέλαβον καὶ νεανίσκοι ἐν ξύλῳ ἠσθένησαν “Chosen ones lifted up laments and youths got sick in wood.”
Can Young’s Literal Translation help us ? It reads : “Young men to grind they have taken, And youths with wood have stumbled.”
All translators had before their eyes the same Hebrew text : b-ch-w-r-y-m (“young men”, lit. “chosen”) t-ch-w-n (“mill”) n-s-)-w (“lifted/carried”), w-n-(-r-y-m (“and-youths”) b-(-ts (“in/by wood”) k-sh-l-w (stumbled)
First, Young’s Literal Translation appears not to be so literal, because there is nothing denoting “to” (“to grind”), so the obvious literal meaning should be “Young men carried the grind mill”;
2° New American Standard Bible seems to have “adjusted” the sentence to offer a natural meaning. Working at the grinding mill was really hard work, but the text says young men “carried” the mill, not “drove”.
3° The Latin Vulgate seems to offer a “dynamic interpretation”. Hieronymus and the Romans knew well that working at the mill was hard work, often a punishment for slaves, but he alludes rather to sexual abuse. He knew maybe, or at least believed, that the Hebraic phrase could have such a meaning ? Hieronymus translated by “in” (“in wood”) the Hebraic preposition “b” that can also mean “due to”
4° The Septuagint seems to have “weakened” a meaning that would be too harsh. They preferred also “in” rather than “by”
So we can conclude : “Ah ! translation !”
