How our fathers went down to Egypt: Our fathers may be rendered “our ancestors” (Good News Translation). Went down does not mean that they descended to a lower point. Rather, the Hebrew verb here (yarad) usually indicates movement away from the land of Israel, while the verb meaning “go up” (ʿalah) indicates movement toward Israel (see the comments on 13.17). Given this contrast, Good News Translation says simply “went,” which is a rather flat translation. Parole de Vie expresses much better what the Hebrew verb here implies by rendering this clause as “In the past, our ancestors departed for Egypt.”

And we dwelt in Egypt a long time is literally “and we lived in Egypt many days,” which New Century Version renders “and we lived there for many years.”

And the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and our fathers may be rendered “But later the Egyptians were cruel to us” (Contemporary English Version).

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 .