From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom: The Israelites had to turn south in the direction that they had come from to go around the country of Edom, which explains why they complained. Both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation omit the Hebrew waw conjunction (literally “And”) at the beginning of this verse, but New Living Translation renders it “Then” to introduce the next event, which other languages may find helpful. Another possible connector is “After that.” For Mount Hor, see 20.22. The pronoun they refers to the Israelites, which Good News Translation makes explicit. For the Hebrew verb rendered set out, see the comments on 2.9, where it is translated “set out … on the march.” For by the way to the Red Sea, see 14.25; for the land of Edom, see 20.14. It may be helpful to add the implied idea of “south” to this sentence, which Contemporary English Version does by saying “The Israelites had to go around the territory of Edom, so when they left Mount Hor, they headed south toward the Red Sea.”

And the people became impatient on the way: The people became impatient is literally “the soul of the people became short,” which can mean they were impatient, irritated, or discouraged. Perhaps they had a mixture of all these negative feelings. There may be an alternative idiom to express the feeling of impatience in the target language; for example, \ver Chewa\ver* says “the people were not limp in their hearts.” In this context the Hebrew expression for on the way can mean “along the way” (Contemporary English Version, NET Bible) that they were traveling, or “because the way was getting too long” for them. New Living Translation follows this second interpretation by rendering this clause as “But the people grew impatient with the long journey.”

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 .