Now the LORD said to Moses: This is the familiar introductory formula of divine speech that often serves as an opening to a new section of text (see 1.1). A similar expression needs to be found and used consistently in the target language. Now renders the clause-initial Hebrew waw conjunction. At the beginning of this section it may be omitted (so New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation), or languages may have an equivalent discourse opener.

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 .