Numbers 26:18

Summary

The verse closes the census list of the tribe of Gad, stating the total count of its enrolled clans: forty-five thousand five hundred men (per the Hebrew text's structure, though see note on the numeral below).

Key words

• mishpechot ("clans of", H4940) — feminine plural construct noun, linking the clans directly to "the descendants of Gad" that follows.
• benei ("descendants of", H1121G) — masculine plural construct, forming a construct chain with Gad to identify whose clans are being counted.
• fekudeihem ("their enrolled [men]", H6485A) — a qal passive participle in construct form with a third-person masculine plural suffix ("their"); it designates the men who were formally counted/mustered.
• arba'im ("forty", H0705) and chamesh ("five", H2568) — cardinal numbers; chamesh is in construct form ("X of"), governing me'ot ("hundreds", H3967) to form the compound number.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the demonstrative 'Eleh ("these"), pointing back to the preceding list of Gad's sub-clans, and then states what they are: mishpechot benei-Gad, "the clans of the descendants of Gad" — a double construct chain that nests "clans" within "descendants" within the tribal name "Gad" (H1410G). The phrase lifqudeihem attaches a preposition (li, "to/for", H9005) to the participle fekudei, yielding "according to their enrolled men" or "as for their numbered ones" — a formulaic closing phrase used throughout this census chapter to introduce the final tally.

The number itself is built as a compound: arba'im 'elef ("forty thousand") joined by the conjunction va ("and", H9002) to chamesh me'ot ("five hundred"), literally "five of hundreds." The construct form of chamesh before me'ot is a standard Hebrew numeral construction, not indicating possession in the ordinary sense but simply combining the units.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text names the tribe as Gad and gives the total as "forty thousand and five hundred." The Vulgate (quadraginta millia quingenti) and the Spanish versions (RV1909, SBLIBRE, BSB) agree with this figure and tribal name. The Septuagint text provided, however, names the tribe as Ἰούδᾳ ("Judah") rather than Gad, and gives a different total: "seventy-six thousand five hundred" (ἕξ καὶ ἑβδομήκοντα χιλιάδες καὶ πεντακόσιοι). This LXX reading diverges from the Hebrew both in the tribal identification and in the numerical total.