Then I said: See the comments on 1.19. Good News Translation again has “I asked.” In some languages it may be more natural to put the question in indirect speech; for example, “I asked him where he was going” (New English Bible/ Revised English Bible).

Where are you going?: In languages that make a distinction between going on foot and going in some other way, translators may assume that the man was on foot, and say something like “Where are you walking to?”

In the second part of the verse, most translators will need to put the verb of speaking (he said to me) either at the beginning of the quotation, as Revised Standard Version does, or at the end, as Revised English Bible does. Not many languages will be able to put the verb in the middle of the quotation, as Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version do in English.

To measure Jerusalem is an elliptical or abbreviated answer. Many languages need to give a fuller form of the answer, such as “I am going to measure Jerusalem.”

To see what is its breadth and what is its length: Good News Translation puts this into simpler English as “to see how long and how wide it is” (similarly Contemporary English Version). This part of the answer says much the same thing as the first part, but in more detail. In many languages translators will find it more natural to run the two parts of the answer together and say, “I am going to see how long and how wide Jerusalem is” or “I am taking this measuring line to measure how long and wide the city of Jerusalem is.”

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Zechariah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2002. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .