A man’s voice: the word for man here is not the same as in the previous verse. There is no special emphasis on the male quality of the voice. The meaning is rather “a person’s voice.” In some languages it will be more natural to say simply “I heard someone calling out.”

Between the banks of the Ulai: it will be recalled that the proper name here refers to a river, or more accurately to a “canal” (see verse 2). But the reader may need to be reminded of this fact by adding the classifier term. However, the real problem here is in the understanding of the preposition. Where is the speaker located? The Hebrew is literally “between the Ulai.” A literal understanding of Revised Standard Version seems to indicate that the speaker was standing in the middle of the river, or “from the middle of the Ulai” (New Jerusalem Bible). New Revised Standard Version has simply “by the Ulai.” Other versions seem to have the speaker floating above the river, “from between the banks of the Ulai” (An American Translation). New English Bible/Revised English Bible have “across the bend of the Ulai.” Still others have a rather vague “on the Ulai” (New American Bible) or “from the Ulai” (New International Version). But it is probably better to consider the preposition as describing the position of the sound rather than of the speaker. The translation would then be something like Moffatt‘s “I heard a human voice over the water of the Ulai.”

Make this man understand the vision: or “help this person to understand what he has seen (in the vision),” or “explain the vision to this man” (Revised English Bible). It is possible to translate the noun phrase this man by the pronoun “him,” if the reference will be clear in the translator’s language; see, for example, Good News Translation, or else New Jerusalem Bible “tell him the meaning of the vision!”

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René & Ellington, John. A Handbook on Daniel. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .