At the beginning of your supplications: or “When you started to pray,” or better, “As soon as you began your petition” (Anchor Bible). In many languages it will be appropriate to indicate that the pleading or petition was made “to God.”

A word went forth: this literal rendering of the Hebrew does not really convey the meaning of the text. The meaning is rather “an answer (to the supplications) was given” (New American Bible and New International Version). Others may say “a message was sent out.” In order to avoid a passive construction, translators may say “he (God) gave an answer.”

I have come to tell it to you: Hebrew Old Testament Text Project/Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament recommends a Hebrew text that does not include the object pronoun, to you. But both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation (as well as New International Version) include it. It is worthy of note that Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, which is normally very close to the recommendations of Hebrew Old Testament Text Project/Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, has the object pronoun in this case. In the some languages such a pronoun may be required for the sake of naturalness regardless of the textual decision.

You are greatly beloved: literally “you are preciousness.” The Hebrew word carries the idea of affection or profound attachment of someone to another person or thing. To avoid a passive formulation it may be better to say “he (God) loves you very much.” Or it will not be too far from the meaning to say “you are like a precious treasure (to God).”

Consider the word: the word here is God’s word, or answer, earlier in this verse (a word went forth), which was given to explain the prophecy of Jeremiah. The meaning of this expression is something like “pay attention to the answer,” or “listen carefully the response that God has given,” or taken together with the words understand the vision, which is parallel, “make an effort to understand the answer.”

The vision: while the prophecy of Jeremiah is not normally considered a vision, it is a kind of revelation from God, and the use of this word here indicates that for Daniel it was in the same category as the visions. It was the means by which God revealed something to Daniel. It may legitimately be translated “revelation” (Anchor Bible).

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 .