Numbers 2:13

וּצְבָאוֹ וּפְקֻדֵיהֶם תִּשְׁעָה וַחֲמִשִּׁים אֶלֶף וּשְׁלֹשׁ מֵאֽוֹת׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וּצְבָא֖וֹ וּפְקֻדֵיהֶ֑ם תִּשְׁעָ֧ה וַחֲמִשִּׁ֛ים אֶ֖לֶף וּשְׁלֹ֥שׁ מֵאֽוֹת׃

Greek (Septuagint)

δύναμις αὐτοῦ οἱ ἐπεσκεμμένοι ἐννέα καὶ πεντήκοντα χιλιάδες καὶ τριακόσιοι.

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

Latin (Vulgate)

Et cunctus exercitus pugnatorum ejus qui numerati sunt, quinquaginta novem millia trecenti.

Spanish

Su división, y los que fueron contados de ellos, fueron cincuenta y nueve mil trescientos.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y su hueste, con los contados de ellos, cincuenta y nueve mil y trescientos:

English

and his division numbers 59,300.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Numbers 2:13 states the total count of a military division (tzeva, H6635A) and its enrolled members (fequdei, H6485A): nine and fifty thousand and three hundred, i.e., 59,300. The verse consists almost entirely of a numerical formula built from Hebrew cardinal numbers joined by the conjunction u- ("and", H9002).

Key words

tzeva ("military group", H6635A) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning "the host of...", pointing forward to the possessive suffix that follows.
O ("his", H9023) — pronominal suffix attached to tzeva, identifying whose military group is being counted.
fequdei ("enrolled [men]", H6485A) — Qal passive participle, masculine plural construct. As a passive participle it describes men who have been the object of an action (mustering/counting) rather than naming an abstract noun for "census."
tish'ah ("nine", H8672) and chamishim ("fifty", H2572) — cardinal numbers joined by va- ("and", H9002), together forming "nine and fifty" = 59, following Hebrew numeral order (units before tens).
shalosh me'ot ("three hundreds", H7969 + H3967) — shalosh in construct form governing the feminine plural me'ot, producing "three hundred."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has no finite verb; it is a nominal clause consisting of two construct phrases — tzevaO ("his host") and fequdeihem ("their enrolled ones") — followed by a numeral string that states the total. The construct chain tzeva...fequdei links "host" and "enrolled men" as parallel designations for the same counted group, with the pronominal suffixes -O ("his") and -hem ("their") pointing back to the tribal leader and tribe discussed in the preceding verses of the chapter.

The numeral sequence follows the standard Biblical Hebrew pattern of stating units before tens (tish'ah va-chamishim, "nine and fifty") before moving to the larger units 'elef ("thousand", H0505G) and me'ot ("hundreds"). This order differs from how the number is typically written in English (fifty-nine thousand three hundred), though the numeric value is identical.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tzevaO as δύναμις αὐτοῦ ("his power/force"), a broader term than "military group," and translates the participle fequdeihem with the Greek participle οἱ ἐπεσκεμμένοι ("those who have been reviewed"), preserving the passive participial sense of the Hebrew. The Vulgate expands the phrase to "cunctus exercitus pugnatorum eius qui numerati sunt" ("the whole army of his warriors who were numbered"), adding "pugnatorum" ("of warriors") and "cunctus" ("whole/entire"), words with no direct counterpart among the Hebrew lexical items listed here.

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