Numbers 26:16

לְאָזְנִי מִשְׁפַּחַת הָאָזְנִי לְעֵרִי מִשְׁפַּחַת הָעֵרִֽי׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

לְאָזְנִ֕י מִשְׁפַּ֖חַת הָאָזְנִ֑י לְעֵרִ֕י מִשְׁפַּ֖חַת הָעֵרִֽי׃

Greek (Septuagint)

ἐγένοντο δὲ οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰούδα κατὰ δήμους αὐτῶν· τῷ Σηλών, δῆμος ὁ Σηλωνεί. τῷ Φάρες, δῆμος ὁ Φάρες· τῷ Σάρα, δῆμος ὁ Ζαραεί.

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

Latin (Vulgate)

Ozni, ab hoc familia Oznitarum: Her, ab hoc familia Heritarum:

Spanish

de Ozni, el clan de los oznitas; de Eri, el clan de los eritas;

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

De Ozni, la familia de los Oznitas; de Eri, la familia de los Eritas;

English

the Oznite clan from Ozni, the Erite clan from Eri,

✦ What the text says

Summary

Numbers 26:16 lists two clan names within the tribal census of Gad: the line descending from 'Azeni ("Ozni", H0244A) forms the mishpachat ha-'Azeni ("clan of the Oznite[s]"), and the line descending from 'Eri ("Eri", H6179) forms the mishpachat ha-'Eri ("clan of the Erite[s]"). The verse is a genealogical formula pairing each ancestor's personal name with the corresponding clan-gentilic derived from it.

Key words

'azeni ("Ozni", H0244A) — proper name of a person, used with the preposition le ("of/belonging to") to mark the ancestor to whom the clan is traced.
mishpachat ("[the] clan of", H4940) — feminine singular noun in construct state, meaning it must be bound to the following word; it introduces the name of the group's identity.
ha-'azeni ("Oznite[s]", H0244B) — the same root as the personal name but converted into a gentilic (a group-designation) by adding the definite article ha ("the", H9009); this marks it as a collective/clan label rather than an individual.
'eri ("Eri", H6179) — second ancestor's personal name, structurally parallel to 'azeni.
ha-'eri ("Erite[s]", H6180) — gentilic form of 'eri, again formed with the article, naming the descendant clan.

What the text says

The Hebrew verse is built as two parallel micro-units, each following the same syntactic pattern: preposition le + personal name, then mishpachat (construct) + article + gentilic form of the same name. This construction — "belonging to [ancestor], the clan of the [gentilic]" — is typical of the census lists in Numbers 26, where each individual ancestor's name is echoed by a derived group name marked with the definite article. The repetition of the root ('azeni / ha-'azeni; 'eri / ha-'eri) shows how Hebrew forms clan-names directly from personal names by adding the article to a nominal pattern, without needing a separate suffix as in English "-ite."

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (Ozni... familia Oznitarum; Her... familia Heritarum) and the modern versions (RV1909, SBLIBRE, BSB) follow the Hebrew structure closely, rendering both the personal names and their gentilic clan-forms. The LXX text supplied here, however, corresponds to a different section of the chapter: it lists Sēlōn, Phares, and Sara with their dēmoi ("clans"), names belonging to the tribe of Judah's census elsewhere in Numbers 26, not to 'Azeni and 'Eri of Gad. The Greek text given therefore does not textually align with this particular Hebrew verse.

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