And God came to Balaam and said: The precise time of God’s coming is not mentioned here either, but on the basis of verse 20 (also implied in verse 8), it was probably sometime “During the night” (Contemporary English Version). Some languages may need this temporal phrase or a conjunction such as “So” to render And. The Hebrew does not specify how God came or even if some visible manifestation was involved. In fact, Contemporary English Version omits this verb, only implying that God approached Balaam. De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling renders God came to Balaam as “God appeared to Balaam,” which is misleading since it implies that he appeared visibly to Balaam in some way. The generic verb said may be rendered “asked” (Good News Bible) since it introduces a question.

Who are these men with you?: This question may wrongly suggest that Balaam and Balak’s messengers belonged to the same group. Good News Bible avoids this misunderstand by saying “Who are these people that are staying with you?” In languages that use honorific forms, translators should not use an honorific pronoun (for example, second person plural) for the pronoun you, since God is addressing Balaam here. However, when Balak’s messengers speak to Balaam, honorific pronouns may be used for him.

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 .