On the third day Eliab the son of Helon, the leader of the men of Zebulun …: Verses 24-29 are almost identical to verses 12-17 (see the comments there). For Eliab the son of Helon, the leader of the men of Zebulun, see 1.9. Instead of referring to “the tribe of Zebulun” (compare verse 12), the text here says the men of Zebulun (literally “the sons of Zebulun”), which may be rendered “the people of Zebulun” (New International Version) or simply “the Zebulunites” (New Jerusalem Bible).

There are no verbs corresponding to the verb was in the Hebrew of verses 25 and 29 (compare verse 17), which is in line with the list character of the text where there is a tendency to include a certain amount of condensation as the sequence progresses. By including the verb was in these verses, Revised Standard Version somewhat changes the text from a list to a narrative. The Revised Standard Version rendering of verses 24-29 could be adjusted and cast into a list as follows:

24 On the third day: Eliab the son of Helon, the leader of the people of Zebulun.
25 His offering:
one silver bowl (weight: a hundred and thirty shekels),
one silver basin (weight: seventy shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary),
both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a cereal offering;
26 one golden bowl (weight: ten shekels),
full of incense;
27 one young bull, one ram, one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering;
28 one male goat for a sin offering;
29 and for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five male goats, and five male lambs a year old.
The offering of Eliab the son of Helon.

This model could be used for the other eleven paragraphs in verses 12-83. By using it, the form calls attention to its function as an official record or list, even though it occurs within the context of a narrative report. However, in some languages a verb meaning “offer” may still be needed in connection with each leader (for example, verses 24-25a may be rendered “On the third day Eliab the son of Helon, the leader of the people of Zebulun, 25 offered these things:…”). In other languages there may be some type of discourse marker or technical term that immediately signals the genre of such a listing of items. In any case, the same discourse genre should be used in translation if one is available in the target language.

Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .