16:21a

And great hailstones weighing almost a hundred pounds each rained down on them from above: The Greek clause emphasizes the phrase great hailstones weighing almost a hundred pounds each. If possible, emphasize this phrase in your language. For example:

And, indeed, huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell from the sky

hailstones: This word refers to clumps of frozen rain. Some languages do not have a word for “hail” or hailstones. If that is true in your language, you may want to:

• Use a descriptive phrase. For example:

clumps of frozen rain
-or-
rain turned into ice
-or-
balls of ice

• Use the major language word. If people are not familiar with this word, you may want to explain it in a footnote. An example footnote is:

Hailstones are pellets or clumps of frozen rain.

See how you translated the word “hail” in 8:7.

weighing almost a hundred pounds each: The Greek words are literally “weighing about a talent.” The word “talent” is a measure of weight which people of the time defined variously to be about 26 or about 36 kilograms (58 or 80 pounds). Since hail is made of water, the size of these hailstones is about 26 liters or 36 liters (7 or 10 gallons).

The exact weight is not important. The important thing is that they were much bigger than normal hail. Hail rarely exceeds half a kilogram (one pound) in weight. You may want to:

• Use the method of measuring weight in your culture. For example:

of about 30 kilograms each
-or-
each weighing seven stone

• Use the method of measuring volume in your culture. For example:

of about 30 liters each
-or-
of about 8 gallons each
-or-
of about 6 ⌊imperial⌋ gallons each

• Use something familiar in your culture that is about that weight or size. For example:

each about the size of a bale of rice
-or-
each about the size of a bag of feed

You may then want to include a footnote to explain the literal word. For example:

Literally: “about a talent each.” A talent was 26 kilograms or sometimes 36 kilograms.

rained down: The words rained down here indicate that the hailstones came down from the sky. For example:

dropped (Revised Standard Version)

The Greek grammar probably indicates that the hailstones rained down for some time. For example:

began falling

16:21b

men: Here this word refers generally to people. For example:

people (New Revised Standard Version)

cursed God: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as cursed can also be translated as “blasphemed.” It is the same word as in 16:9a. Translate this word as you did there.

for the plague of hail: This phrase explains why the people cursed God. For example:

for sending a plague of hail (New Jerusalem Bible)

plague: This word refers to disasters that harm a lot of people. Here the word refers to the suffering and death caused by the hail. For example:

disaster (New Century Version)

16:21c

because it was so horrendous: This clause tells the reason why the people cursed God. The Greek clause is literally “its plague is very great.” For example:

its plague was extremely severe (New American Standard Bible)

General Comment on 16:21b–c

In Greek, the word “plague” is used in both 16:21b and 16:21c. In both places, it refers to the hail. In some languages it is more natural to mention the plague only once, as the Berean Standard Bible does. Here is another way to say this:

They cursed God because of the terrible plague of the hailstorm. (New Living Translation (2004))

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