Numbers 26:13
לְזֶרַח מִשְׁפַּחַת הַזַּרְחִי לְשָׁאוּל מִשְׁפַּחַת הַשָּׁאוּלִֽי׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
לְזֶ֕רַח מִשְׁפַּ֖חַת הַזַּרְחִ֑י לְשָׁא֕וּל מִשְׁפַּ֖חַת הַשָּׁאוּלִֽי׃
τῷ Ζάρα, δῆμος ὁ Ζαραεί· τῷ Σαούλ, δῆμος ὁ Σαουλεί.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Zare, ab hoc familia Zareitarum: Saul, ab hoc familia Saulitarum.
de Zera, el clan de los zeraítas; de Saúl, el clan de los saulitas.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
De Zera, la familia de los Zeraitas; de Saul, la familia de los Saulitas.
the Zerahite clan from Zerah, and the Shaulite clan from Shaul.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse lists two clan divisions descending from Zerah and Shaul, both belonging to the tribe of Simeon in the census of Numbers 26. Each name is followed by its corresponding gentilic clan designation, formed by adding the definite article and an adjectival ending to the ancestor's name.
Key words
- Ze.rach ("Zerah", H2226L) — proper name of a person, marked with the preposition le ("of"/"belonging to"), indicating clan affiliation.
- mish.Pa.chat ("[the] clan of", H4940) — feminine singular construct noun, requiring a following genitive; here it links to the gentilic forms ha.zar.Chi and ha.sha.'u.Li.
- ha.zar.Chi ("the Zerahite", H2227) — gentilic adjective, masculine singular, built from the name Zerach with the definite article, denoting "the one belonging to Zerah's line."
- sha.'Ul ("Shaul", H7586H) — proper name of a person, second ancestor named in the verse, also marked with le.
- sha.'u.Li ("the Shaulite", H7587) — gentilic adjective, masculine singular, parallel in formation to ha.zar.Chi, derived from Shaul.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built as two parallel units, each following the same syntactic pattern: preposition le + personal name + construct noun mish.Pa.chat + definite article + gentilic adjective. This structure marks genealogical or administrative affiliation — "belonging to Zerah, the clan of the Zerahite" and "belonging to Shaul, the clan of the Shaulite." The construct form of mish.Pa.chat means it cannot stand alone grammatically; it must be followed by the term it modifies, in this case the gentilic noun that restates the ancestor's name in adjectival form.
The gentilic endings -i on zar.Chi and sha.'u.Li are typical Hebrew morphology for forming group or tribal names from a personal or place name, comparable to forming a demonym. The repetition of the same structural pattern for both names creates a rhythmic, list-like effect appropriate to a census document, where each clan is identified by both its ancestor's name and its collective gentilic designation.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the gentilic forms as Ζαραεί and Σαουλεί, transliterating the Hebrew names with Greek phonetic adaptation rather than translating them descriptively. The Vulgate similarly transliterates as Zareitarum and Saulitarum, using Latin genitive plural endings to express "of the Zareites" and "of the Saulites." Both versions preserve the two-part structure (ancestor name + clan/gentilic term) found in the Hebrew, with no substantive divergence in content, only in how the gentilic suffixes are phonetically adapted to Greek and Latin.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.