And Moses told these words to all the people of Israel: Moses conveyed God’s message to the Israelites, telling the adults that they could not enter Canaan (see verses 28b-34). Good News Translation uses a temporal clause here, saying “When Moses told the Israelites what the LORD had said,” which other languages may find helpful.

And the people mourned greatly: In some languages the verb mourned will imply that the people mourned the loss of somebody who had died. Here it refers to the grief of the people after receiving the bad news from Moses about not being allowed to enter the land. Mourned greatly may be rendered “were filled with grief” (New Living Translation), “were overcome by grief” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), or “were filled with remorse.” For this whole clause New Living Translation (1996) has “there was much sorrow among the people.”

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 .