Numbers 1:3

Summary

Numbers 1:3 instructs Moses and Aaron to count every male in Israel aged twenty years and older who is able to go to war, organizing the count according to their military divisions.

Key words

• Ben ("a son of", H1121L) — masculine singular construct noun; combined with mi ("from", H9006) it forms the idiom "from the age of," literally "from a son of twenty years," marking the starting threshold of the count.
• yo.Tze' ("[one who] goes forth", H3318N) — qal participle, masculine singular; functions substantively as "one who goes out," describing an ongoing capacity rather than a single act, and stands in construct with tza.Va' ("warfare", H6635H) to form "one who goes out to war."
• tif.ke.Du ("you will enroll", H6485A) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural; expresses a command or future obligation directed at both Moses and Aaron together, despite the plural form matching the compound subject that follows.
• tziv.'o.Tam ("their military groups", H6635A) — feminine plural construct noun with third-person masculine plural suffix; indicates that the enrollment is to be organized according to preexisting group divisions ("by their armies/hosts").
• 'a.Tah ("you", H0859A) — independent personal pronoun, masculine singular; emphasizes and singles out Moses as a subject of the verb, appearing redundantly alongside the already-marked verbal person, paired with ve'Aharon ("and Aaron").

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a prepositional phrase specifying the age range for the count: mi-Ben 'es.rim shanah va-Ma'lah ("from a son of twenty years and upward"), using the idiom "son of X years" to denote age, followed by the directional he on Ma'lah ("upward") to indicate the open-ended upper limit. This age clause is followed by kol-yo.Tze' tza.Va' be-Yisra'el ("every one who goes out to war in Israel"), a construct chain where the participle yo.Tze' denotes a class of persons defined by capacity for military service, not a specific event.

The main verb tif.ke.Du ("you will enroll/muster") is second person plural, agreeing grammatically with the compound subject 'atah ve-'Aharon ("you and Aaron") that appears at the end of the clause—an inverted word order placing the subject pronouns after the verb and object for emphasis. The direct object 'otam ("them", with suffix "them", H0853/H9038) refers back to the group just described, and the phrase le-tziv.'otam ("according to their divisions") specifies the organizational unit for the counting process.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the age-and-capacity clause somewhat differently, opening with pas arsēn ("every male") before giving the age threshold, and repeats the verb episkepsasthe ("number/review") twice—once before syn dynamei autōn ("with their host") and again at the very end (episkepsasthe autous), a doubling not present in the Hebrew. The Vulgate similarly renders yo.Tze' tza.Va' as omnium virorum fortium ("all strong/able men"), emphasizing physical capability rather than the Hebrew participle's sense of habitual or potential "going out."