Numbers 1:34

לִבְנֵי מְנַשֶּׁה תּוֹלְדֹתָם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם בְּמִסְפַּר שֵׁמוֹת מִבֶּן עֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וָמַעְלָה כֹּל יֹצֵא צָבָֽא׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

לִבְנֵ֣י מְנַשֶּׁ֔ה תּוֹלְדֹתָ֥ם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֖ם לְבֵ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֑ם בְּמִסְפַּ֣ר שֵׁמ֗וֹת מִבֶּ֨ן עֶשְׂרִ֤ים שָׁנָה֙ וָמַ֔עְלָה כֹּ֖ל יֹצֵ֥א צָבָֽא׃

Greek (Septuagint)

τοῖς υἱοὶς Βενιαμεὶν κατὰ συγγενίας αὐτῶν, κατὰ δήμους κατ’ οἴκους πατριῶν αὐτῶν, κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ὀνομάτων αὐτῶν, κατὰ κεφαλὴν αὐτῶν, πάντα ἀρσενικὰ ἀπὸ εἰκοσαετοῦς καὶ ἐπάνω, πᾶς ὁ ἐκπορευόμενος ἐν τῇ δυνάμει·

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Porro filiorum Manasse per generationes et familias ac domos cognationum suarum recensiti sunt per nomina singulorum a viginti annis et supra, omnes qui poterant ad bella procedere,

Spanish

De los hijos de Manasés, sus generaciones, por sus familias, por las casas de sus padres, según el número de los nombres, de veinte años para arriba, todos los que podían salir a la guerra:

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

De los hijos de Manasés, por sus generaciones, por sus familias, por las casas de sus padres, conforme á la cuenta de los nombres, de veinte años arriba, todos los que podían salir á la guerra;

English

And from the sons of Manasseh, according to the records of their clans and families, counting the names of all those twenty years of age or older who could serve in the army,

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse records the census procedure applied to the descendants of Manasseh: they are counted by genealogies, clans, and ancestral houses, listing names of every male aged twenty years and up who is fit to go out to war.

Key words

v.Nei ("[the] descendants of", H1121G) — masculine plural construct, linking the phrase to Menashsheh, marking the group being enumerated.
tol.do.Ta ("genealogies", H8435) — feminine plural construct with pronominal suffix "their," indicating the lineage-record structure used for counting.
mis.Par ("[the] number of", H4557) — masculine singular construct governing she.Mot ("names", H8034), forming the phrase "by the number of names," i.e., a name-by-name headcount.
Ben ("a son of", H1121L) — masculine singular construct used idiomatically with a number of years ('es.Rim shanah, "twenty years") to express age, a standard Hebrew construction for stating someone's age.
yo.Tze' ("[one who] goes forth", H3318N) — qal participle, masculine singular construct, describing ongoing capability/role: "one going out," here paired with tza.Va' ("warfare", H6635H) to mean "one fit for military service."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of construct phrases stacked one after another: li-v.Nei Menashsheh ("of the sons of Manasseh") governs tol.do.Tam ("their genealogies"), which is further specified le-mishpechoTam ("to their clans") and le-veit avoTam ("to the house of their fathers"). This layered construct chain reflects a hierarchical counting method — from the largest group (descendants of Manasseh) down to smaller units (clans, then ancestral houses) — before arriving at the actual counting method, be-mispar shemot ("by the number of names"), meaning each individual was counted by name rather than only tallied as a group total.

The age qualifier mi-Ben esrim shanah va-ma'lah ("from a son of twenty years and upward") uses the idiomatic "son of X years" construction common in Hebrew for stating age, followed by the directional suffix -ah on ma'lah ("upward"), indicating an open-ended upper limit. The final qualifier kol yotze tzava ("every one going out to/of warfare") uses a participle rather than a finite verb, presenting military eligibility as a characteristic or ongoing capacity rather than a single completed action — it describes the class of men defined by this capability, not a specific event of departure.

Differences between versions

The Greek text supplied under [LXXSWETE] corresponds to the sons of Benjamin (τοῖς υἱοῖς Βενιαμείν), not Manasseh as in the Hebrew, Vulgate, and other versions given; this appears to be a mismatched verse citation rather than a translational divergence within the same verse. The Vulgate renders yotze tzava ("one going out to warfare") as "qui poterant ad bella procedere" ("who were able to go forth to wars"), shifting the participle's nuance of ongoing classification toward an expressed capability ("were able to").

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.