Build cities for your little ones, and folds for your sheep: See verse 16. Here Moses permits the Gadites and Reubenites to do what they requested. Some languages may require a transitional expression to introduce this official expression of permission, for example, “So” (Good News Translation) or “Go ahead and” (Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation). Milgrom (page xxii) notes that the phrases cities for you little ones and folds for your sheep are in reverse order with that in verse 16, thus forming a chiasmus. According to Rashi, this is how Moses corrected the priorities the two tribes had expressed: the fortified cities for their dependents should be built before the pens for their livestock.

And do what you have promised is literally “and what goes out from your mouth you shall do” (see 30.2). This idiom is used for oaths, which cannot be retracted once they are pronounced (so Alter, page 849). Instead of and, a more natural conjunction may be “but” (Good News Translation, New Living Translation, NET Bible). In some languages this climactic utterance may require a little extra emphasis for the sake of naturalness; for example, Contemporary English Version has “Just be sure to do what you have promised” (similarly Chewa).

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 .