Numbers 2:26

Summary

The verse gives the total count for a military division (that of the tribe of Dan, per the wider context of Numbers 2), stating the number of its enrolled men as sixty-two thousand seven hundred.

Key words

• tze.va ("military group", H6635A) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning "the army/division of...", linked to the following pronominal suffix.
• O ("his", H9023) — pronominal suffix attached to tze.va, indicating possession, "his division" (referring back to the tribal leader named earlier in the chapter, not present in this verse).
• fe.ku.dei ("enrolled [men]", H6485A) — qal passive participle, masculine plural construct, "the ones counted/mustered of...", grammatically linked to the following suffix Hem.
• she.Na.yim ("[were] two", H8147) — cardinal number in dual form, the first numerical component of the total.
• me.'ot ("hundreds", H3967) — feminine plural cardinal number, closing the numerical sequence as "seven hundred(s)".

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built almost entirely from construct chains and numerals, with no finite verb. The first two words, u.tze.va.O ("and his division") and u.fe.ku.dei.Hem ("and the enrolled of them"), are both nouns in construct state carrying pronominal suffixes — "his" and "their" respectively — which tie this verse to the preceding context where the tribal leader and group are named. This construct structure allows Hebrew to express possession and specification without additional particles.

The numerical total follows as a paratactic sequence of cardinal numbers joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002): she.Na.yim ("two") plus shi.Shim ("sixty") plus 'E.lef ("thousand") plus she.Va' ("seven", in construct form) plus me.'ot ("hundreds"). The construct form of she.Va' ("seven of...") shows that Hebrew numerals above ten often link to what follows via construct relationships, here binding "seven" to "hundreds" as "seven of hundreds" = "seven hundred". The total expressed is sixty-two thousand seven hundred, built compositionally rather than as a single lexical unit for the full number.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tze.va.O ("his division") with dynamis autou ("his power/host"), and fe.ku.dei.Hem ("enrolled of them") with hoi epeskemmenoi ("the ones reviewed/inspected"), a participle emphasizing inspection rather than simple registration. The Vulgate expands with exercitus pugnatorum ("army of fighters"), introducing the notion of "fighters" (pugnatorum) not explicitly present in the Hebrew construct fe.ku.dei ("enrolled [men]"), which does not specify combat function.