Numbers 1:37

Summary

Numbers 1:37 records the census total for the tribe of Benjamin: the men enrolled numbered thirty-five thousand four hundred. The verse consists almost entirely of numerical terms attached to the tribal name.

Key words

• pekudei ("enrolled [men]", H6485A) — qal passive participle, masculine plural construct; describes the men as "those who were counted/mustered," construct form linking to the following suffix.
• Hem ("their", H9028) — pronominal suffix attached to pekudei, specifying whose count is meant, i.e., "their enrolled ones," referring back to Benjamin's people.
• matteh ("tribe of", H4294H) — masculine singular construct noun, meaning literally "staff/rod," used idiomatically for "tribe," in construct relation to the proper name that follows.
• Vinyamin ("Benjamin", H1144G) — proper name identifying which tribe's census is being reported.
• 'eleph ("thousand", H0505G) — cardinal number, common gender singular, forming the core magnitude of the total alongside the smaller numeral units.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a construct chain: pekudei-hem ("their enrolled [men]") stands in construct with le-matteh Vinyamin ("of/belonging to the tribe of Benjamin"), producing the sense "the enrolled men belonging to the tribe of Benjamin." This construct phrase functions as the subject, and the predicate is the numeral sequence that follows without a stated verb — a common feature of Hebrew census formulas, where the number simply stands appositionally to the subject.

The numeral itself is built additively: chamishah ("five", H2568) joined by waw ("and", H9002) to sheloshim ("thirty", H7970), together modifying 'eleph ("thousand", H0505G) to yield "thirty-five thousand." This is joined again by waw to arba' me'ot ("four hundred", H0702 + H3967), where arba' is in construct with the plural me'ot ("hundreds"). The result is a total of 35,400, expressed through a chain of coordinated numerals rather than a single compound numeral word, a construction typical of Biblical Hebrew numerical reporting.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text names the tribe as Vinyamin ("Benjamin") with a total of 35,400. The Vulgate (VULCLEM) gives the same numeral, "triginta quinque millia quadringenti" (thirty-five thousand four hundred), without repeating the tribal name explicitly in the fragment cited. The Greek text provided (LXXSWETE) for this reference instead names "the tribe of Gad" (φυλῆς Γὰδ) with a different total, 45,650 — a divergence in both tribal identification and numerical value compared to the Hebrew and Vulgate readings for this verse. The Spanish (RV1909, SBLIBRE) and English (BSB) translations align with the Hebrew, both naming Benjamin and giving 35,400.