Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth: In this context the Hebrew word for meek is better rendered “humble” (Good News Translation), “modest” (De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling), “exceedingly unassuming” (Levine), or “not self-assertive” (NET Bible footnote). The Hebrew text does include the word man, which perhaps emphasizes Moses’ humanness, so Good News Translation is correct in keeping this word. On the face of the earth renders literally an idiomatic Hebrew expression, which means simply “on earth” (Good News Translation). Good News Translation puts this verse in parentheses, since it seems to interrupt the flow of the story. (Contemporary English Version has even moved it before verse 1, saying “Although Moses was the most humble person in all the world, Miriam and Aaron started complaining….”) But this statement about Moses is not so out of place as it may seem. The point here is that Moses had not claimed his special status; the LORD has given him this unique authority, as the LORD himself is about to point out in the strongest of terms (so Budd, page 136). This statement immediately undercuts the complaint of Miriam and Aaron. However, in some languages it may be necessary to mark this verse as a descriptive comment by the narrator that is off the event line, for example, through the use of an initial transitional expression (so Revised Standard Version with Now) or a disjunctive particle.

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 .