Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper …: God wants the Israelites to expel three types of ritually unclean people from their camp. He first mentions those who have infectious skin diseases. The rendering leper is unfair to persons suffering from Hansen’s disease, commonly called leprosy today. As is clear in Lev 13–14, the Hebrew word for leper does not refer to leprosy specifically, but more generally to a group of manifest skin conditions that involve an infectious rash or an oozing discharge. A more general rendering such as “dreaded skin disease” (Good News Translation) or “leprosy and other skin diseases” is better. Although the rendering “infectious skin disease” (New International Version) may seem accurate, it is problematic: “infectious” may take the reader’s attention away from the ritual impurity involved.

Second, God mentions every one having a discharge. The Hebrew word rendered having a discharge does not refer to semen but to an abnormal fluid that comes out of the male sexual organ as a result of some kind of sickness (probably a sexually transmitted disease, for example, gonorrhea). It also refers to menstruation. Renderings such as “bodily discharge” (Good News Translation), “genital discharge” (La Nouvelle Bible Segond) and “bodily emission” are general enough to cover all this. If the translation is more explicit, it should be acceptable terminology to be used when speaking publicly to men and women together. A way to indicate that these discharges are irregular is to translate “suffering from a discharge” or “suffering from genital flux” (Alter).

Third, God mentions every one that is unclean through contact with the dead. The Hebrew word for unclean refers to a state of ritual impurity, not to physical uncleanness. The dead (“a corpse” in Good News Translation) does not necessarily refer to dead people only, but to a corpse of any kind. The Hebrew word for the dead is nefesh, which can refer to animals as well (see, for example, Gen 1.20-24).

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 .