And I will come down and talk with you there: God will descend from his dwelling place, his position of authority and rule (compare Exo 19.11), to speak with Moses. The adverb there refers to the Tent of Meeting. In some languages it will be necessary to specify this by rendering this sentence as “I will come down to the Tent of Meeting and speak with you there.”

And I will take some of the spirit which is upon you and put it upon them: This sentence expresses a very important theme in verses 16-30. God will not take his spirit away from Moses altogether. The translation should not imply that this spirit is a quantitative element that may be moved from one person or location to another. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh avoids this misunderstanding by saying “and I will draw upon the spirit that is on you and put it upon them.” Another possible model is “and I will endow them with some of the same spirit that I have given you.” The Hebrew verb rendered take means “withdraw, reserve.” The spirit was the gift from God to Moses to enable him to fulfill his leadership role. In verses 25-30 it is described as a spirit of prophecy. There is no clear indication that the spirit was a separate being, so there is no need to capitalize spirit and write “Spirit” (so New International Version, New Living Translation, New International Readers Version). La Nouvelle Bible Segond says “breath/power,” which is possible. But translators should allow for the possibility that this spirit was closely associated with the LORD and his being; it was not simply some endowment of character or personal capacity.

And they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone: See verses 11 and 14. This subsection does not explain how exactly these leaders will relieve Moses of part of his burden. As mentioned at in the introductory comments on this subsection, that aspect is described in Exo 18.13-26 but not here. This cross reference may be given here in a footnote.

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 .