Numbers 1:4

Summary

Numbers 1:4 specifies who will assist Moses and Aaron in the census: one man from each tribe, distinguished as the head of his ancestral house. The Hebrew constructs this through a distributive repetition and a construct chain identifying the man's status.

Key words

• 'ish ("a man", H0376G) — repeated twice in sequence ('ish 'ish), a common Hebrew distributive construction meaning "each man" or "one man for each," rather than referring to two men.
• yihyu ("they will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person masculine plural, indicating an ongoing or future state: the men "will be" with Moses and Aaron.
• lammatteh ("to the tribe", H4294H) — noun with prefixed preposition and article, marking the tribal unit to which the distributive "man" belongs.
• rosh ("head", H7218H) — noun in apposition to the third 'ish, identifying the man's role or rank within the house.
• 'avotayv ("his ancestors", H0001G) — feminine plural construct noun with third-person masculine singular suffix, forming the chain "house of his ancestors" (beit-'avotayv), specifying lineage.

What the text says

The verse opens with ve'ittekhem ("and with you," H9002 + H0854 + H9036), establishing that the men described will be present alongside the addressee (Moses, per surrounding context). The verb yihyu (H1961) sets this as a durative or future state — "they will be" — governing the distributive phrase that follows.

The repetition 'ish 'ish lammatteh ("a man, a man, to the tribe") is a Hebrew idiom for distribution: one man for each tribe, rather than a count of two individuals. This structure is then followed by a second occurrence of 'ish (H0376G) placed in apposition with rosh (H7218H, "head"), producing "a man [who is] head." The final phrase leveit-'avotayv ("of the house of his ancestors") uses a construct chain: beit ("house of," H1004M) governs 'avotayv ("his ancestors," H0001G), specifying that the headship pertains to the paternal lineage group. The closing hu' ("he," H1931) reinforces the identity of this man as the one just described — a common Hebrew resumptive pronoun following a descriptive clause.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew's doubled 'ish 'ish (distributive "man for each") is rendered by the LXX as ἕκαστος κατὰ φυλὴν ἑκάστου ἀρχόντων ("each according to the tribe of each of the rulers"), introducing the term "rulers" (ἀρχόντων) not present as a separate lexeme in the Hebrew, where the headship is expressed through rosh ("head") in apposition rather than a distinct noun for "ruler." The Vulgate's principes tribuum ("princes of the tribes") similarly uses a title ("princes") for what the Hebrew expresses through the construct phrase "head of the house of his ancestors."