Wherefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the LORD: Good News Translation renders Wherefore as “That is why,” which is a clearer introduction to the citation that follows. The Book of the Wars of the LORD is one of several lost books (or strictly speaking, scrolls) mentioned in the Bible. The citation from this book is used to confirm the accuracy of the geographical information given in the preceding verse. It may be helpful in some languages to expand Good News Translation‘s model for this quote frame to “That is why The Book of the LORD’s Battles speaks of these places.”

Waheb in Suphah, and the valleys of the Arnon, and the slope of the valleys that extends to the seat of Ar, and leans to the border of Moab: New Revised Standard Version provides a more helpful model for this citation, since it divides the phrases more correctly than Revised Standard Version and translates “wadis” instead of valleys as follows:

Waheb in Suphah and the wadis.
The Arnon and the slopes of the wadis
that extend to the seat of Ar
and lie along the border of Moab [similarly Levine].

However, the Hebrew hardly shows any poetic features here, so translators should present these lines as prose, as in Good News Translation. The Hebrew construction indicates that these phrases are actually part of a larger sentence. This is why in Good News Translation and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh the quotation starts with three dots (…), which indicate an omission of some text.

Good News Translation renders Waheb in Suphah as “the town of Waheb in the area of Suphah,” but these places are unknown, so Good News Translation‘s model is quite speculative. However, in some languages it may be necessary to qualify Waheb as a “town” and Suphah as an “area” for naturalness.

New Revised Standard Version translates and the slope of the valleys as “and the slopes of the wadis,” which gives a clearer picture of the landscape involved. Another helpful and more comprehensible alternative is “with its [Arnon’s] tributary wadis” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh; similarly De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling).

The Hebrew word for seat in the phrase the seat of Ar is quite generic, meaning “site” (New International Version, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible) or “dwelling” (NET Bible). If a more specific rendering is needed, “town” (Good News Translation) or even “village” may be used. The precise location of Ar is uncertain. According to Deut 2.18, it was near the Moabite border, which fits the context here.

The literal expression leans to the border of Moab describes in a poetic way how the border of Moab followed the various wadis that supplied the Arnon River. Some languages will have other ways of describing this border in a poetic fashion; for example, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “hugging the territory of Moab.”

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 .