The Most High: a title for Yahweh as the greatest of all gods (see Psa 47.2). Another way to express this is “God, who is above [or, greater than] all other gods.”

Gave to the nations their inheritance: Yahweh “gave” (Contemporary English Version) or assigned land, territory, for each nation to possess as its own. For inheritance see 4.21.

When he separated the sons of men: New Revised Standard Version “divided humankind” is a better expression of the meaning. This states that Yahweh divided the human race into distinct and separate ethnic groups or nations. This line and the previous line have practically the same meaning, and in a number of languages they may be combined; for example, “When God, who is greater than all other gods, gave land to every nation.”

He fixed the bounds of the peoples: Yahweh divided the surface of the earth among the different peoples, and for each nation he set the boundaries of its territory. Good News Translation has a good model: “he determined where peoples should live.”

According to the number of the sons of God: the Revised Standard Version footnote says “Compare Greek; Heb Israel.” The Hebrew text is literally “the number of the sons of Israel,” meaning “the number of Israelites”; the Septuagint has “according to the number of angels.” The New Revised Standard Version text is more accurate: “according to the number of gods.” Its footnote explains that this is based on some Qumran manuscripts as well as the Septuagint, and gives the rendering of the Hebrew as “the Israelites.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project ({A} rating) takes “number of gods” to be the correct text, and it should be translated. The sense is that, in accordance with the number of gods, Yahweh divided humankind into separate peoples, so that each people would have its own god; and Yahweh reserved Israel to be his own people (see 4.19-20). An alternative model, then, is “He determined where each nation should live, each with its own god, which he chose.”

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 .