These are the statutes which the LORD commanded Moses …: This verse clearly concludes all the instructions concerning vows and pledges in chapter 30. In some languages such a summary needs to be marked in a special way: for example, Chewa begins this verse with “These very ones, they are the commands that….” As mentioned at 9.3, the Hebrew for statutes (chuqqah) can mean “task,” “obligation,” or “law.” The target language may have a specific legal term that refers to the type of regulations found in this chapter.

As between a man and his wife, and between a father and his daughter, while in her youth, within her father’s house: This literal rendering sounds awkward in English and will probably sound the same if translated correspondingly in other languages. Good News Translation offers a more natural model, saying “concerning vows made by an unmarried woman living in her father’s house or by a married woman.” For while in her youth, within her father’s house, see verse 3.

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 .