And Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who had gone to battle: For Eleazar the priest, see verse 6. As the ritual leader, Eleazar the High Priest took over in conveying the instructions that Moses had received from the LORD. It may be helpful to start a new paragraph with this new speaker. The Hebrew word for war is tsavaʾ, as in verses 3-4 (see the comments there). Good News Translation renders the men of war simply as “the men,” probably to avoid repetition (war … battle). However, “the men” seems too general. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh is better with “the troops,” and so is New International Readers Version with “the soldiers.” Instead of who had gone to battle, it will be more natural in many languages to say “who had returned from battle” (Good News Translation).

This is the statute of the law which the LORD has commanded Moses: The demonstrative pronoun This refers to the regulations that follow in verses 22-24. For the statute of the law, see the comments on 19.2. This phrase links the regulations here to those concerning ritual impurity caused by a corpse in chapter 19.

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 .