In verses 18-19 Balaam’s fourth prophecy concludes by referring to Israel’s power.

Edom shall be dispossessed, Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed: The names Edom and Seir refer to the same area in these parallel lines. For the country of Edom, see the comments on 20.14. Seir was the chief mountain range of Edom. Good News Translation omits Seir, presumably to avoid the impression that it is a different nation from Edom. The two occurrences of the rendering shall be dispossessed is based on a corrected Hebrew form (yarush). Both times the Hebrew text has yereshah, which means “possession” (that is, what is taken possession of). In Hebrew these two lines are literally “And Edom will become a possession, and Seir, his enemies, will become a possession.” The pronoun his refers to Israel. A literal rendering of the Hebrew here may wrongly suggest that only Seir is Israel’s enemy, not Edom (or even worse, that Seir is Edom’s enemy). De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling avoids this misunderstanding by rendering these two lines as “The land of his enemy he conquers, the land of Edom and Seir,” and so does Bijbel in Gewone Taal with “His enemies, the Edomites, he will rule, Seir, their land, he will conquer.” New Revised Standard Version has “Edom will become a possession, Seir a possession of its enemies,” which implies that the enemy is Israel. However, the Hebrew grammatical construction for Seir also, his enemies makes this interpretation unlikely. Good News Translation renders these two lines as “He will conquer his enemies in Edom And make their land his property,” which places focus on Israel and its king. However, these lines focus on the land of Edom, in contrast to Israel in the final line.

While Israel does valiantly: The Hebrew waw conjunction rendered while (literally “and”) introduces a contrast here, so NET Bible renders this line as “but Israel will act valiantly.” Good News Translation provides a helpful model for Israel does valiantly, saying “Israel continues victorious,” and so does La Nouvelle Bible Segond with “Israel exercises its power.”

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 .