And he who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until evening: This sentence refers to the ceremonially clean man mentioned in verse 9. Because he handled the ashes of the cow, he too became ritually unclean and had to purify himself like the others (verses 7-8), though apparently he did not require a ritual bath.

And this shall be to the people of Israel, and to the stranger who sojourns among them, a perpetual statute: This sentence concludes verses 1-10a and introduces verses 11-22. The demonstrative pronoun this (literally “it”) refers back to the whole ritual in the previous verses. This concluding transitional sentence needs to be more clearly marked as such; for example, Revised English Bible begins with “This statute is to be binding for all time…” (similarly Good News Translation). For the stranger who sojourns among them, which may be rendered “the resident aliens living among them,” see 9.14. For perpetual statute, which New Living Translation translates “permanent law,” see 10.8. This phrase is probably placed at the end of this verse in Hebrew for emphasis. In other languages it may fit more naturally near the beginning of the sentence (so Good News Translation).

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 .