And now …: Moses has just appealed to the LORD not to destroy his people, so that the nations will not mock the LORD (verses 13-16). In verses 17-18 he appeals to the LORD’s covenantal characteristics to forgive them, which he asks for in verse 19. So a new paragraph and an appropriate transitional expression may be needed at the beginning of verse 17 (compare Good News Translation with “So now”).

I pray thee may be rendered “I beg of you!” This phrase renders the Hebrew particle naʾ, which makes a request more urgent and compelling.

Let the power of the LORD be great: Moses wants God to show his great power to Israel and the surrounding nations by forgiving his people. The Hebrew term for the LORD is not the usual name YHWH, but ʾadonai (see the comments on 1.1). Most English translations show the difference between these two terms by saying “LORD” for YHWH and “Lord” for ʾadonai. Here Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation should have said “Lord” (New International Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). Moses refers to the Lord in the third person here, which will be hard to do in some languages since he is speaking to the Lord. A helpful model for this clause that shifts to the second person is “Lord, show us your great power” (similarly Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version).

As thou has promised, saying introduces what the Lord said. Moses quotes the Lord, so what follows in the next verse is an embedded quote.

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 .