Exodus 30:12

Summary

The verse establishes a conditional instruction: when a census of the Israelites is taken, each man must give Yehovah a ransom payment for his life at the moment of being counted, so that no plague will strike the people because of this enrollment.

Key words

• ti.Sa' ("you will take", H5375V) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine, sets up the conditional clause introduced by ki ("that/if", H3588A); the subject (Moses, addressed in context) is the one who "lifts" or "takes" the sum.
• rosh ("sum of", H7218L) — masculine singular construct, literally "head of," here meaning the total count; construct form links it to be.nei-Yis.ra.'El ("sons of Israel").
• Na.te.Nu ("they will give", H5414N) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the action after the initial conditional verb; grammatically it advances the narrative sequence, expressing what follows once the census condition is met.
• Ko.fer ("ransom of", H3724A) — masculine singular construct, joined to naf.Sh-o ("his life/soul", H5315H) with pronominal suffix "his," forming "ransom of his life."
• f.Kod ("enroll", H6485A) — qal infinitive, repeated twice (lines 19 and 29) with the preposition bi ("when/in", H9003), each time governing the object 'o.Tam ("them"), marking the temporal frame "when they are enrolled."

What the text says

The sentence opens with the particle ki (H3588A), which functions here as a conditional marker ("when/if"), governing the imperfect verb ti.Sa' ("you will take", H5375V). This verb takes as direct object rosh be.nei-Yis.ra.'El — literally "the head/sum of the sons of Israel" — a construct chain expressing the total count of the people. The phrase li-f.ku.dei-hem ("of their enrolled ones", H6485A with suffix H9028) further specifies this counting action.

The main clause continues with ve-Na.te.Nu ("and they will give", H5414N), a sequential perfect (vav-consecutive) that logically follows the conditional protasis: once the census condition is triggered, the payment obligation follows. The subject is distributed individually through 'ish ("everyone", H0376I) — each man acts as his own agent in giving. The object given is Ko.fer naf.sh-o ("ransom of his life", H3724A + H5315H), a construct phrase where "ransom" is bound to "his life," indicating that the payment corresponds specifically to the individual's own life, not a collective sum. This payment goes la-Yah.weh ("to Yehovah", H3068G).

The temporal clause bi-f.Kod 'o.Tam ("when enrolling them", H6485A infinitive) appears twice, framing both the giving of the ransom and the negative consequence clause (ve-lo' yih.Yeh va-hem Ne.gef, "and there will not be among them a plague", H5063) around the same verbal root f.Kod ("to enroll"). This repetition of the infinitive construction ties the ransom-giving and the absence of plague tightly to the specific moment of enrollment, rather than to the census as a general or completed event.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders rosh ("sum of", H7218L) as συλλογισμὸν ("reckoning/computation"), and f.ku.dei-hem as ἐν τῇ ἐπισκοπῇ αὐτῶν ("in their oversight/visitation"), using a term (ἐπισκοπή) that carries a broader semantic range than the Hebrew pqd root. The Hebrew Ne.gef ("a plague", H5063) is translated in the LXX as πτῶσις ("a fall/downfall"), a different image than "plague," while the Vulgate uses plaga ("plague/blow"), closer to the Hebrew sense. The Vulgate renders bi-f.Kod ("when enrolling", H6485A) as cum fuerint recensiti ("when they shall have been reviewed/counted"), a passive perfect construction differing from the Hebrew active infinitive form.