And on the morrow Balak took Balaam … is literally “And it was/happened in the morning and Balak took Balaam….” The Hebrew construction here clearly marks a disjunctive break, so a section break is appropriate. On the morrow is the only time indicator given for all of Balaam’s oracles. Translators should use a temporal construction that also indicates the beginning of a new section of narrative discourse. Good News Translation begins with “The next morning.”

And brought him up to Bamoth-baal: Good News Translation combines the verb brought … up with the previous one took, saying “took … up,” which other languages may find helpful. The upward direction may be kept here since Balak took Balaam up a hill. The place name Bamoth-baal means “high places [that is, sacrificial worship sites] of Baal.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch and the Vulgate say “the high places of Baal.” Chewa is similar with “the place for worshiping Baal,” which highlights the ironic incongruity of the whole situation, as in the original text. From a pagan worship site, a foreign prophet was being commissioned by a fearful king to curse the people of the LORD.

And from there he saw the nearest of the people: The pronoun he refers to Balaam, which Good News Translation makes explicit. The nearest of the people is literally “the end/outskirts of the people,” which is ambiguous. It can refer to only part of the Israelites in the valley below (so Good News Translation with “a part of the people of Israel”) or to the vast expanse of the Israelites (so NET Bible with “the extent of the nation”). Both interpretations dramatize the great number of Israelites.

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 .