And the LORD said to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho: For the quote frame the LORD said to Moses, see 1.1; for in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, see 22.1 and 26.3. To mark the back reference to this setting in verse 48, Good News Bible helpfully adds the adverb “There” and eliminates the conjunction And. Another possible model here is “While the Israelites were camped near the Jordan River on the steppes of Moab opposite Jericho, the LORD said to Moses” (similarly New Living Translation).

Say to the people of Israel: Good News Bible uses indirect speech here by rendering this clause and the previous one as “… the LORD gave Moses 51 the following instructions for Israel.” By doing this Good News Bible reduces the levels of direct speech from two to one, which may be more natural in some languages. Another model that does this is “… the LORD told Moses to say to the Israelites” (similarly Good News Bible at 35.9-10).

When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan refers to crossing over the Jordan River into the territory west of it. In some languages it will be more natural to say “When you cross the Jordan [River] and enter the land of Canaan” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy; similarly Contemporary English Version, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, TLA, Bijbel in Gewone Taal, Chewa). Good News Bible has this rendering in 35.10.

Verses 51b-54 form one long sentence in Hebrew, opening with the conditional statement When you pass over…. In many languages it will be necessary for both naturalness and clarity to break up this long sentence into separate imperative sentences for each of the points, as Good News Bible does in verses 52-54. (Compare also the negative counterpart in verses 55-56: “But if you do not drive out….”)

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 .