And Eleazar the priest shall take some of her blood with his finger: Good News Translation renders the conjunction and as “Then” to indicate that this is the next step in a series ritual acts. A particular verb tense/aspect may also be needed to signal this; for example, Good News Translation has “is to take.” Eleazar the priest may be rendered simply “Eleazar” (Good News Translation) since he is already called “the priest” in the previous verse. If possible, a general term for finger should be used here. If a particular finger must be specified, then the index finger is most likely.

And sprinkle some of her blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times: For the verb sprinkle, see 8.7. This sprinkling of blood had to take place outside the camp toward the front of the tent of meeting (see 1.1), a considerable distance from it. The front of the Tent of Meeting was facing the east (which explains the phrase “to the east of the camp” in Good News Translation‘s footnote in verse 3), but this piece of information is not in focus here. What is in focus is that the sprinkling took place in the direction of the entrance of the sanctuary. Languages may have an idiom to express this; for example, Chewa says “toward the eyes of the tent.” The action of killing the cow established a symbolic ritual (sacrificial) connection with the altar in front of the Tent of Meeting where such a procedure was normally done.

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 .