The vivid figure of making his arrows drunk and of his sword eating flesh may be kept in certain languages. Contemporary English Version offers an alternative model using such a figure:

• My arrows will get drunk
on enemy blood

In a number of languages, however, this figure and the following one may be too strange to translate literally (see the same figures in Jer 46.10). Good News Translation offers a good model. Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has “I will drench my arrows with blood, and my sword will kill them [his enemies] off.”

The blood of the slain and the captives: this means that even the captives will be slain; the Hebrew text says “all the slain….” Bible en français courant offers a good model: “None of the enemy warriors will escape; wounded or captive, they will all be victims.”

The long-haired heads of the enemy: see Judges 5.2. When consecrated for military service, warriors would not cut their hair while at war; this is the long hair of dedicated warriors. Num 6.5 and Ezek 44.20 speak of the long hair of dedicated priests. It will be good to keep “long-haired heads” in the translation, with a footnote explaining this custom, and the last two lines may be alternatively rendered as:

• I will kill all the captives
and cut off the long-haired heads of the enemy.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .