- English translation
Why are you meddling in the harvest, you worthless hanger-on?
- Literal wording
What have you to do with the crops, Ja‘būb?
- Meaning and lesson
This is a rebuke to someone who intrudes into business that belongs to others, especially when they have no recognized stake in it. The question implies that the person is pushing into a discussion or benefit from which they are excluded.
The form of address is contemptuous, so the phrase does more than reject interference: it humiliates the meddler. Its traditional belittling social characterization is not an endorsement of that characterization, and the expression can be personally insulting.
- When it is used
Use it only to describe or quote a sharp, mocking dismissal of an outsider who inserts themselves into another party’s affairs or tries to claim an interest in something not theirs. The agricultural image can refer broadly to others’ property or concerns, not only literal farming.
- Register
- derisive
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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