Arabia and all the princes of Kedar were your favored dealers in lambs, rams, and goats: Arabia refers to the people who lived on the Arabian Peninsula. Princes in this context refers to “rulers” (Good News Translation). Kedar was a son of Ishmael (see Gen 25.13), and his descendants lived in the northern Arabian Desert. All the princes of Kedar suggests a group of tribes in the area cooperated in the trade with Tyre. It is not possible to be precise about where these Arabian tribes lived, perhaps because they were nomads who moved around. Your favored dealers is literally “the traders of your hand” (compare verse 15). This phrase seems to imply that these Arabian traders were somehow under the power or authority of Tyre. Perhaps they were Tyre’s agents, so were your favored dealers may be rendered “acted on your behalf in trading.” Revised English Bible says “were the source of your commerce.” Many translations just drop the expression (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version). These Arabian people exported lambs, rams, and goats to Tyre. The Hebrew terms for lambs and rams are not easy to distinguish—they both refer to male sheep. Translators may use a general word for “sheep” to render one of them. Sheep and goats are not found in some parts of the world, and in some areas there are only wild species. But these animals have such important symbolic roles in the Bible that translators early in their work must find a way to render these terms. However, in this context they may use a general functional expression for all these animals, for example, “domestic animals for clothing and food.”

In these they trafficked with you: The demonstrative pronoun these refers to the animals just mentioned. For trafficked see the introductory comments on this subunit.

A model for this verse is:

• The people of Arabia and the leaders of Kedar acted on your behalf in trading for sheep, rams and goats, which they sold to you.

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 .