How fair are your tents, O Jacob…!: The Hebrew word rendered How (mah) marks this verse as an exclamation of admiration. Good News Translation does not convey this. Many languages will have an idiomatic way of expressing this emotive utterance; for example, Chewa uses a verbless negative exclamation at the end of the second line: “… [are these] not attractive!” A somewhat archaic rendering like fair (literally “good”) fits the poetic context well in English. This word may be rendered “beautiful” (Good News Translation) or “pleasing.” For tents see 1.1.

Your encampments, O Israel is parallel to the previous line, with the phrase How fair are implied. The Hebrew term for encampments (mishkan) does not have a military connotation here. It refers to the tents where the Israelites lived, so it is better rendered “homes” (New Living Translation) or “dwelling places” (New International Version). Jacob and Israel both refer to the Israelite people, as in 23.7b (see the comments there). Good News Translation omits Jacob and combines the two lines of this verse into one, presumably in order to avoid the impression that these are two different people. We do not recommend Good News Translation‘s model here since it reduces the text too much. Bible en français courant is better with “People of Israel, you descendants of Jacob, how beautiful are the tents that you inhabit!”

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 .