Purple and linen: The Greek word for purple refers to a dye, but the word is often used to refer to cloth or fabric dyed with it. The Greek word for linen is actually “marble,” but it is undoubtedly a translator’s error for “fine linen.” The same Hebrew word can mean both. All versions accept this change and a footnote, such as in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, is in order. Linen was a white cloth made from flax fibers. In areas where linen is unknown, translators may have to use a general expression such as “fine white cloth.”

The Greek speaks of purple and linen as two items. The “purple goods” and “fine linen” here may refer to two different kinds of material, but can as easily refer to linen dyed purple, as Good News Translation has taken it with “purple linen robes” (also Contemporary English Version). See verse 12 and the comments there.

You will know that they are not gods may be rendered “this also proves they are not really gods” (Contemporary English Version).

They will finally themselves be consumed: Good News Translation is helpful in telling us “they will be eaten by termites” (compare verse 12). But unfortunately, its ambiguous pronoun “they” leads us to think we are talking only of the garments; the reference is almost surely to the idols themselves. So Contemporary English Version has “Someday the idols themselves will waste away to nothing.”

Be a reproach in the land: Since the idols have repeatedly been pictured as dead, this cannot mean that they suffer from any disgrace. It could mean that when they rot away, it is a source of shame or disgrace to their owners or worshipers, but this is not likely. If you have an idol and it rots away, you get another one. Good News Translation probably interprets it correctly: it becomes a thing that not even idol worshipers have any use for. In the land, however, probably means “in the country,” that is, the land where they are worshiped. The Good News Translation translation “anywhere” could be improved since the Greek word for land points to a particular place or area rather than the whole world. An alternative model then is “the worshipers will no longer have any use for them.”

The term reproach will be echoed in the next verse.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.