Numbers 1:44-47

1:44 These were the men whom Moses and Aaron numbered ¹  along with the twelve leaders of Israel, each of whom ²  was from his own family. 1:45 All the Israelites who were twenty years old or older, who could serve in Israel’s army, were numbered ³  according to their families. 1:46 And all those numbered totaled 603,550.

The Exemption of the Levites

1:47 But ⁴  the Levites, according to the tribe of their fathers, ⁵  were not numbered ⁶  among them.

[1:44]  ¹ tn The construction uses both the passive participle הַפְּקֻדִים (happÿqudim) and the verb פָּקַד (paqad), giving a literal translation of “these were the numbered ones, whom Moses and Aaron numbered.”

[1:44]  ² tn Heb “they were one man for the house of his fathers.”

[1:45]  ³ tn Literally the text has, “and all the numbered of the Israelites were according to their families.” The verb in the sentence is actually without a complement (see v. 46).

[1:47]  ⁵ tn The vav (ו) on this word indicates a disjunction with the previous sequence of reports. It may be taken as a contrastive clause, translated “but” or “however.”

[1:47]  ⁶ tn The construction is unexpected, for Levites would be from the tribe of Levi. The note seems more likely to express that all these people were organized by tribal lineage, and so too the Levites, according to the tribe of their fathers – individual families of Levites.

[1:47]  ⁷ tc The form in the text is הָתְפָּקְדוּ (hotpaqÿdu); if this is correct, then it is an isolated instance of the reflexive of the Qal of פָּקַד (paqad). Some, however, explain the form as the Hitpael without the doubling of the middle letter and with a compensatory lengthening of the vowel before it (G. B. Gray, Numbers [ICC], 10).