And the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the people of Israel …: This verse makes it clear that the preceding instructions about handling unintentional offenses (verses 22-24) were to be carried out by the officiating priest, not by the offenders themselves. If this is not marked in the translation, it may sound as if an additional ritual is in view here. To make it clear translators may begin this verse with “With it [that is, the sacrifices] the priest…” (New Living Translation) or “By doing these things the priest….” For priest see 3.3; for the Hebrew verb rendered make atonement, see 5.8 and 6.11.

And they shall be forgiven: In some languages it may be necessary to express the passive verb be forgiven in an active form. While the agent is not expressed, it is clearly God who will forgive the people, so this clause may be rendered “and God will forgive them” or “and they will obtain God’s forgiveness.”

Because it was an error: The Hebrew noun for error here and in the next clause comes from the same root as the verb rendered “err” in verse 22. It has the sense of “unintentional mistake [or, offense].”

And they have brought their offering, an offering by fire to the LORD, and their sin offering before the LORD, for their error: The first Hebrew word for offering is qorban, which is the vaguest and most common expression for a sacrificial gift (see 5.15). The Hebrew term for offering by fire is also a general one for any sacrifice (see verse 3). Here these two terms refer to the “burnt offering … with its cereal offering and its drink offering” in verse 24. The Hebrew word for sin offering is the same one used in verse 24. It will be helpful to show the correspondence here with verse 24 by rendering their offering, an offering by fire to the LORD, and their sin offering as “their burnt offering and their sin offering” (similarly Bible en français courant, De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling), “their gifts as a burnt offering and a sin offering” (similarly Bijbel in Gewone Taal), or simply “their sacrifices” (similarly Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Good News Translation says “their sin offering as a food offering,” which we do not recommend since it omits the idea of the burnt offering. A food offering was normally identified with some type of cereal offering, but not an animal sacrifice.

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 .