Whoever touches a dead person, the body of any man who has died, and does not cleanse himself …: This verse repeats some of the ideas in the previous two verses (see the comments there) to emphasize that defilement caused by a human corpse was a serious matter to the LORD. Revised Standard Version has one long sentence for this verse, but Good News Translation divides it into two for naturalness.

Defiles the tabernacle of the LORD: For the Hebrew word rendered defiles, see 5.3. For tabernacle, which renders the Hebrew word mishkan (literally “dwelling-place”), see 1.50.

And that person shall be cut off from Israel: See 9.13.

Because the water for impurity was not thrown upon him: The Hebrew particle ki rendered because introduces this clause as the reason for the following clause he shall be unclean. Good News Translation reverses the order of these two clauses for naturalness. For the water for impurity, see verse 9. For the Hebrew verb rendered thrown, see the comments on 18.17, where it is translated “sprinkle.”

He shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him: The Hebrew words for unclean and uncleanness come from the same root, referring to ritual impurity. The idea is repeated here for emphasis. Good News Translation reduces these two clauses to only one, saying simply “[they] remain unclean.” However, in many languages it is possible to bring out the emphasis through the use of synonyms; for example, Revised English Bible says “he remains unclean, and his impurity is still upon him.”

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 .