Bilangan 1:10

1:10 from the sons of Joseph:

from Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud;

from Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur;

Bilangan 1:21

1:21 Those of them who were numbered ¹  from the tribe of Reuben were 46,500. ² 

Bilangan 1:23

1:23 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Simeon were 59,300.

Bilangan 1:25

1:25 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Gad were 45,650.

Bilangan 1:27

1:27 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Judah were 74,600.

Bilangan 1:29

1:29 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Issachar were 54,400.

Bilangan 1:31

1:31 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Zebulun were 57,400.

Bilangan 1:33

1:33 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Ephraim were 40,500.

Bilangan 1:35

1:35 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Manasseh were 32,200.

Bilangan 1:37

1:37 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Benjamin were 35,400.

Bilangan 1:39

1:39 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Dan were 62,700.

Bilangan 1:41

1:41 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Asher were 41,500.

Bilangan 1:43

1:43 Those of them who were numbered from the tribe of Naphtali were 53,400.

Bilangan 1:46

1:46 And all those numbered totaled 603,550.

Bilangan 2:4-8

2:4 Those numbered in his division ³  are 74,600. 2:5 Those who will be camping next to them ⁴  are the tribe of Issachar. The leader of the people of Issachar is Nethanel son of Zuar. 2:6 Those numbered in his division are 54,400. 2:7 Next will be ⁵  the tribe of Zebulun. The leader of the people of Zebulun is Eliab son of Helon. 2:8 Those numbered in his division are 57,400.

Bilangan 2:11-15

2:11 Those numbered in his division are 46,500. 2:12 Those who will be camping next to them are the tribe of Simeon. The leader of the people of Simeon is Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai. 2:13 Those numbered in his division are 59,300. 2:14 Next will be ⁶  the tribe of Gad. The leader of the people of Gad is Eliasaph son of Deuel. ⁷  2:15 Those numbered in his division are 45,650.

Bilangan 2:19-23

2:19 Those numbered in his division are 40,500. 2:20 Next to them will be the tribe of Manasseh. The leader of the people of Manasseh is Gamaliel son of Pedahzur. 2:21 Those numbered in his division are 32,200. 2:22 Next will be ⁸  the tribe of Benjamin. The leader of the people of Benjamin is Abidan son of Gideoni. 2:23 Those numbered in his division are 35,400.

Bilangan 2:26-30

2:26 Those numbered in his division are 62,700. 2:27 Those who will be camping next to them are the tribe of Asher. The leader of the people of Asher is Pagiel son of Ocran. 2:28 Those numbered in his division are 41,500. 2:29 Next will be ⁹  the tribe of Naphtali. The leader of the people of Naphtali is Ahira son of Enan. 2:30 Those numbered in his division are 53,400.

Bilangan 3:19-20

3:19 The sons of Kohath by their families were: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. 3:20 The sons of Merari by their families were Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites by their clans.

Bilangan 3:30

3:30 Now the leader of the clan of the families of the Kohathites was Elizaphan son of Uzziel.

Bilangan 4:18

4:18 “Do not allow the tribe of the families of the Kohathites to be cut off ¹⁰  from among the Levites;

Bilangan 4:36

4:36 and those of them numbered by their families were 2,750.

Bilangan 4:38

4:38 Those numbered from the Gershonites, by their families and by their clans,

Bilangan 4:40

4:40 those of them numbered by their families, by their clans, were 2,630.

Bilangan 4:42

4:42 Those numbered from the families of the Merarites, by their families, by their clans,

Bilangan 4:44

4:44 those of them numbered by their families were 3,200.

Bilangan 4:48

4:48 those of them numbered were 8,580.

Bilangan 7:14

7:14 one gold pan weighing 10 shekels, full of incense;

Bilangan 7:21

7:21 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:27

7:27 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:33

7:33 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:39

7:39 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:45

7:45 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:51

7:51 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:57

7:57 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:63

7:63 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:69

7:69 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:75

7:75 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 7:81

7:81 one young bull, one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, for a burnt offering;

Bilangan 14:37

14:37 those men who produced the evil report about the land, died by the plague before the Lord.

Bilangan 15:16

15:16 One law and one custom must apply to you and to the resident foreigner who lives alongside you.’”

Bilangan 22:3

22:3 And the Moabites were greatly afraid of the people, because they were so numerous. The Moabites were sick with fear because of the Israelites.

Bilangan 25:9

25:9 Those that died in the plague were 24,000.

Bilangan 26:14

26:14 These were the families of the Simeonites, 22,200. ¹¹ 

Bilangan 26:18

26:18 These were the families of the Gadites according to those numbered of them, 40,500. ¹² 

Bilangan 26:21

26:21 And the Perezites were: from Hezron, the family of the Hezronites; from Hamul, ¹³  the family of the Hamulites.

Bilangan 26:27

26:27 These were the families of the Zebulunites, according to those numbered of them, 60,500. ¹⁴ 

Bilangan 26:43

26:43 All the families of the Shuhahites according to those numbered of them were 64,400. ¹⁵ 

Bilangan 26:56

26:56 Their inheritance must be apportioned ¹⁶  by lot among the larger and smaller groups.

Bilangan 31:35

31:35 and 32,000 young women who had never had sexual intercourse with a man. ¹⁷ 

Bilangan 31:37-40

31:37 the Lord’s tribute from the sheep was 675. 31:38 The cattle numbered ¹⁸  36,000; the Lord’s tribute was 72. 31:39 The donkeys were 30,500, of which the Lord’s tribute was 61. 31:40 The people were 16,000, of which the Lord’s tribute was 32 people. ¹⁹ 

Bilangan 31:43

31:43 there were 337,500 sheep from the portion belonging to the community,

Bilangan 33:39

33:39 Now Aaron was 123 years old when he died in Mount Hor.

Bilangan 34:23

34:23 From the Josephites, Hanniel son of Ephod, a leader from the tribe of Manasseh;

[1:21]  ¹ tn Heb “those numbered of them.” The form is פְּקֻדֵיהֶם (pÿqudehem), the passive participle with the pronominal suffix. This indicates that the number came to 46,500, but it specifically refers to “those numbered.” This expression occurs frequently throughout the book of Numbers.

[1:21]  ² sn There has been much discussion about the numbers in the Israelite wilderness experience. The immediate difficulty for even the casual reader is the enormous number of the population. If indeed there were 603,550 men twenty years of age and older who could fight, the total population of the exodus community counting women and children would have been well over a million, or even two million as calculated by some. This is not a figure that the Bible ever gives, but given the sizes of families the estimate would not be far off. This is a staggering number to have cross the Sea, drink from the oases, or assemble in the plain by Sinai. It is not a question of whether or not God could provide for such a number; it is rather a problem of logistics for a population of that size in that period of time. The problem is not with the text itself, but with the interpretation of the word אֶלֶף (’elef), traditionally translated “thousand.” The word certainly can be taken as “thousand,” and most often is. But in view of the problem of the large number here, some scholars have chosen one of the other meanings attested in literature for this word, perhaps “troop,” or “family,” or “tent group,” even though a word for “family” has already been used (see A. H. McNeile, Numbers, 7; J. Garstang, Joshua-Judges, 120; J. Bright, History of Israel, 144). Another suggestion is to take the word as a “chief” or “captain” based on Ugaritic usage (see R. E. D. Clarke, “The Large Numbers of the Old Testament,” JTVI 87 [1955]: 82-92; and J. W. Wenham, “Large Numbers in the Old Testament,” TynBul 18 [1967]: 19-53). This interpretation would reduce the size of the Israelite army to about 18,000 men from a population of about 72,000 people. That is a radical change from the traditional reading and may be too arbitrary an estimate. A more unlikely calculation following the idea of a new meaning would attempt to divide the numbers and use the first part to refer to the units and the second the measurement (e.g., 65 thousand and four hundred would become 65 units of four hundred). Another approach has been to study the numbers rhetorically, analyzing the numerical values of letters and words. But this method, known as gematria, came in much later than the biblical period (see for it G. Fohrer, Introduction to the Old Testament, 184; and A. Noordtzij, Numbers [BSC], 24). On this system the numbers for “the sons of Israel” would be 603. But the number of the people in the MT is 603,550. Another rhetorical approach is that which says the text used exaggerations in the numbers on an epic scale to make the point of God’s blessing. R. B. Allen’s view that the numbers have been magnified by a factor of ten (“Numbers,” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 2:688-91), which would mean the army was only 60,000 men, seems every bit as arbitrary as Wenham’s view to get down to 18,000. Moreover, such views cannot be harmonized with the instructions in the chapter for them to count every individual skull – that seems very clear. This is not the same kind of general expression one finds in “Saul has killed his thousands, David his ten thousands” (1 Sam 18:7). There one expects the bragging and the exaggerations. But in a text of numbering each male, to argue that the numbers have been inflated ten-fold to form the rhetoric of praise for the way God has blessed the nation demands a much more convincing argument than has typically been given. On the surface it seems satisfactory, but it raises a lot of questions. Everything in Exodus and Numbers attests to the fact that the Israelites were in a population explosion, that their numbers were greater than their Egyptian overlords. Pharaoh had attempted to counter their growth by killing males from the ranks. That only two midwives are named must be taken to mean that they were heads of the guilds, for two could not service a population – even of the smaller estimate given above. But even though the size had to have been great and seen as a threat, we are at a loss to know exactly how to determine it. There is clearly a problem with the word “thousand” here and in many places in the OT, as the literature will show, but the problem cannot really be solved without additional information. The suggestions proposed so far seem to be rather arbitrary attempts to reduce the number to a less-embarrassing total, one that would seem more workable in the light of contemporary populations and armies, as well as space and time for the people’s movement in the wilderness. An army of 10,000 or 20,000 men in those days would have been a large army; an army of 600,000 (albeit a people’s army, which may mean that only a portion of the males would actually fight at any time – as was true at Ai) is large even by today’s standards. But the count appears to have been literal, and the totals calculated accordingly, totals which match other passages in the text. If some formula is used to reduce the thousands in this army, then there is the problem of knowing what to do when a battle has only five thousand, or three thousand men. One can only conclude that on the basis of what we know the word should be left with the translation “thousand,” no matter what difficulties this might suggest to the reader. One should be cautious, though, in speaking of a population of two million, knowing that there are serious problems with the calculation of that number, if not with the word “thousand” itself. It is very doubtful that the population of the wilderness community was in the neighborhood of two million. Nevertheless, until a more convincing explanation of the word “thousand” or the calculation of the numbers is provided, one should retain the reading of the MT but note the difficulty with the large numbers.

[2:4]  ³ tc The expression “and his divisions and those numbered of them” is somewhat tautological. The words are synonyms used for statistical purposes, and so neither should be simply deleted.

[2:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “by him” [i.e., Judah].

[2:7]  ⁵ tn This part has been supplied; the text simply has “the tribe of Zebulun.”

[2:14]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew text simply has “and the tribe of Gad.”

[2:14]  ⁷ tc The Leningrad codex, upon which BHS is based, has “Reuel” here. In reading “Deuel” the translation presented above follows many medieval Hebrew manuscripts, Smr, and the Latin Vulgate. Cf. Num 1:14.

[2:22]  ⁸ tn Here too the Hebrew text simply has “and the tribe of Benjamin.”

[2:29]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text has “and the tribe of Naphtali.”

[4:18]  ¹⁰ sn The verb is simply the Qal, “do not cut off.” The context calls for a permissive nuance – “do not let them be cut off.” It was a difficult task to be handling the holy things correctly; Moses and Aaron were to see to it that they did it right and did not handle the objects, that is, Moses and Aaron were to safeguard their lives by making certain that proper procedures were followed.

[26:14]  ¹¹ sn Before entering Sinai the tribe numbered 59,300, the third largest. Now it was about one-third its original size.

[26:18]  ¹² sn The Gadites decreased from 45,650 to 40,500.

[26:21]  ¹³ tc Smr and the Greek version have “Hamuel.”

[26:27]  ¹⁴ sn The Zebulunites showed a slight increase from 57,400 to 60,500.

[26:43]  ¹⁵ sn The Danites increased from 62,700 to 64,400.

[26:56]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “divided.”

[31:35]  ¹⁷ sn Here again we encounter one of the difficulties of the book, the use of the large numbers. Only twelve thousand soldiers fought the Midianites, but they brought back this amount of plunder, including 32,000 girls. Until a solution for numbers in the book can be found, or the current translation confirmed, one must remain cautious in interpretation.

[31:38]  ¹⁸ tn The word “numbered” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[31:40]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “soul.”