Numbers 1:39

Summary

The verse records the census total for the tribe of Dan: the men enrolled from this tribe numbered sixty-two thousand seven hundred. It follows the same formulaic structure used for each tribe in the census list of Numbers 1.

Key words

• pequdei ("enrolled [men]", H6485A) — qal passive participle, masculine plural construct; denotes those who have been counted or mustered, grammatically linked to the following possessive suffix.
• hem ("their", H9028) — pronominal suffix attached to pequdei, forming "their enrolled [men]," i.e., the men counted belonging to a specific group.
• matteh ("[the] tribe of", H4294H) — masculine singular construct noun, meaning it must be joined to the following proper name to form "tribe of Dan."
• Dan ("Dan", H1835G) — proper name identifying which tribe is being enumerated.
• shenayim ("[were] two", H8147) — cardinal number in dual form, the first numerical component of the total (two, as in sixty-two).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built entirely from a construct chain and a numerical sequence, with no finite verb. The phrase pequdei-hem le-matteh Dan ("their enrolled [men], of the tribe of Dan") establishes the subject: the counted men belonging to Dan's tribe. The construct participle pequdei ("enrolled ones of") governs the suffix hem ("their"), and the preposition le ("of/belonging to") introduces the construct noun matteh ("tribe of"), which is bound to the proper name Dan. This construction mirrors the pattern used throughout Numbers 1 for each tribe's census entry.

The numerical total follows as a sequence of coordinated cardinal numbers joined by the conjunction ve ("and"): shenayim ve-shishim 'elef u-sheva' me'ot — literally "two and sixty thousand and seven hundred," yielding 62,700. The number shenayim appears in dual form, a grammatical feature specific to expressing "two" in Hebrew counting. The final term me'ot ("hundreds") is feminine plural, in construct with sheva' ("seven of"), producing "seven hundreds." No verb is present in the Hebrew; the numerical clause functions as a nominal predicate, a common feature of these census formulas.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) omits any reference to Dan or to "enrolled men," giving only the bare number "sexaginta duo millia septingenti" ("sixty-two thousand seven hundred"), presumably relying on prior context to supply the tribe's name. The LXX (Swete) uses episkepsis ("numbering/review") rather than a participial form corresponding directly to pequdei, and phrases the tribal reference with ek tēs phylēs ("from the tribe"), a prepositional construction differing from the Hebrew construct chain but conveying the same relationship.