And Israel vowed a vow to the LORD, and said: As mentioned in the previous verse, in some languages Israel is better rendered “the Israelites” (Good News Translation). The Hebrew verb for vowed and the noun for vow come from the same root. Vowed a vow means they made a strong promise (see 6.2).

If thou wilt indeed give this people into my hand …: The archaic language thou wilt should not be imitated in other languages since it reflects nothing in the Hebrew (see the comments on 11.11). New Revised Standard Version does not use it here. The people of Israel refer to themselves in the singular with the pronouns my and I. Some languages may require plural pronouns for naturalness (so Good News Translation). Thou wilt indeed give renders an emphatic Hebrew expression, which is literally “to give you will give.” It uses an infinitive absolute and finite form of the same verb. The adverb indeed expresses well the emphasis here. Give this people into my hand is an idiomatic expression meaning “let us conquer these people” (Good News Translation). In some languages translators may be able to use this idiom or a similar one, such as “give these people into our power” or “hand these people over to us” (New Living Translation). If this is not possible, Good News Translation may be used as a model here.

Then I will utterly destroy their cities: The Hebrew verb rendered utterly destroy (charam) does not refer to mindless slaughter or ethnic cleansing, which Revised Standard Version‘s literal rendering might imply. Rather, this verb refers to a religious act of destroying completely what had been dedicated exclusively and irrevocably to the LORD. These dedicated things could not be taken as war booty or used for any other self-centered purpose (see A Handbook on the Book of Joshua at Josh 8.25-26). Good News Translation conveys well the sense of this verb by rendering this clause as “we will unconditionally dedicate them and their cities to you and will destroy them.” Other possible models are “we will execute the ban upon their cities” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), “I will put its towns under the ban” (Alter), and “we will execute the ban of destruction upon their cities.” An explanatory footnote like the one in Good News Translation might also be helpful at this point. As translators, we do not have to like everything we find in the Bible, but we do have a duty to translate it as faithfully and accurately as we are able.

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 .