And Moses said to the people: Moses obeyed the LORD’s command by telling the Israelites to arm some of their men to attack the Midianites. All along the long journey from Egypt to the border of Canaan, Moses faithfully relayed to the Israelites what the LORD said to him—right to this final major joint enterprise against another prominent enemy along the way. In this context the Hebrew waw conjunction rendered And may be translated “So” (New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation) or “Then” (Contemporary English Version).

Arm men from among you for the war: The Hebrew verb here (chalats) can mean either “pick out” or “equip/arm.” Another possible meaning is “gird [for battle],” since the Hebrew root here seems to be related to the word for “loins” (so Levine, page 450). Arm may be rendered “Give instruments [or, weapons] of war.” From among you renders a partitive construction in Hebrew, indicating that not all of the available soldiers were involved. The selective nature of this military expedition is made clear in verses 4 and 5. The Hebrew word for war is tsavaʾ (see the comments on 4.3). Here it can also mean “military service” or “army” (Alter). Good News Translation renders this whole clause as “Get ready for war,” which might suggest that the whole Israelite army is to prepare for war. New Living Translation and Chewa are better with “Choose some men, and arm them to fight.”

That they may go against Midian: Go against is literally “be against,” but it means “move/act against.” So other possible renderings are “turn against” (Herziene Statenvertaling, Bijbel: Vertaling in opdracht van het Nederlandsch Bijbelgenootschap), “go to war against” (New International Version), “attack” (Bible en français courant, SPCL, De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling), and “pour war upon” (Chewa).

To execute the LORD’s vengeance on Midian is literally “to set the LORD’s vengeance on Midian.” The Hebrew word for vengeance is the same one used in verse 2 (see the comments). It is used again for emphasis. Here Moses makes it clear that the LORD wants to punish the Midianites for what they did. A possible model here is “to carry out the LORD’s plan to punish Midian” (similarly New International Readers Version).

You shall send a thousand from each of the tribes of Israel to the war refers to only a token amount of soldiers from each tribe. Since the LORD fought on Israel’s behalf, the size of its army was not significant. A thousand may be rendered “a thousand men” (Good News Translation) or “a thousand soldiers.” For the Hebrew word rendered tribes (matteh), see the comments on 1.4. To the war renders the same Hebrew expression translated for the war (see the comments above). Here this phrase may also be rendered “for the army” (Alter) or “for military service.”

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 .