Numbers 1:47

Summary

The verse states that the Levites were not counted together with the rest of the Israelites, unlike the tribes enumerated in the preceding census. It specifies that this exclusion applied "according to the tribe of their fathers," echoing the census formula used for the other tribes but negating its result for the Levites.

Key words

• ha-Leviyyim ("the Levites", H3881) — definite plural noun, fronted at the head of the clause, marking the Levites as the topic under discussion before any predicate appears.
• matteh ("tribe of", H4294H) — masculine singular construct noun, linking to avotam to form the phrase "tribe of their fathers," the same census-formula used for the other tribes in the chapter.
• avotam ("their fathers", H0001G + H9028) — feminine plural construct noun with 3rd person masculine plural suffix, completing the construct chain "tribe of their fathers."
• hotpaqedu ("they were enrolled", H6485A) — perfect verb in a rare passive-reflexive stem, indicating a completed action performed on the subject rather than by it — the Levites are the ones being (not) counted, not the ones doing the counting.
• betokham ("in their midst", H8432 + H9028) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, indicating physical/numerical inclusion "among them," referring back to the previously enumerated Israelite tribes.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the subject ha-Leviyyim placed before the verb, a fronting that marks the Levites as the point of contrast with the tribes just listed in the preceding verses. The phrase le-matteh avotam ("according to the tribe of their fathers") repeats the exact administrative formula used throughout the census, showing that the narrator applies the same classificatory language to the Levites even while reporting their exclusion. The negated verb lo hotpaqedu uses a rare passive-reflexive verbal stem of the root paqad ("to enroll/muster"), the same root used positively for the other tribes' counting earlier in the chapter — here negated to state that this particular action did not happen to them. The final phrase be-tokham ("in their midst/among them") uses a bare pronominal suffix without an explicit antecedent noun in this clause; the referent ("them" = the counted Israelites) must be supplied from the preceding context of the chapter.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint renders the final phrase explicitly as "among the sons of Israel" (ἐν τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ), spelling out the antecedent that the Hebrew betokham leaves implicit through the bare pronoun. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more closely with cum eis ("with them"), preserving the pronominal, non-explicit reference. Both the LXX and Vulgate render the construct phrase "tribe of their fathers" similarly to the Hebrew, though the LXX adds "ek tes phyles tes patrias" (genitive of source) rather than a direct construct rendering.