Numbers 26:2

Summary

The verse commands a census of the Israelite community, counting all males aged twenty and older by their ancestral households, specifically those able to go out for military service. It is God's instruction (implied by context) issued in the form of a direct imperative to conduct this count.

Key words

• se.'u ("lift up", H5375) — qal imperative masculine plural; literally "lift up the head/count," an idiomatic verb for taking a census, addressed to multiple recipients (Moses and Eleazar per the broader context).
• rosh ("head of", H7218) — masculine singular construct; here used idiomatically to mean "sum" or "total," forming a construct chain "head of the congregation" = census count.
• 'a.dat ("congregation of", H5712) — feminine singular construct; links to bene Yisra'el to specify the group being counted, the assembled community of Israel.
• yo.tze' ("[one who] goes forth", H3318) — qal participle masculine singular; describes ongoing capability, "the one who goes out," modifying tzava' ("warfare", H6635) to designate those fit for military duty.
• mib.ben ("from a son of", H1121) — construct form with prefix min, marking the starting point of the age range "from [the age of] twenty years."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the imperative se'u ("lift up") governing the direct object marked by 'et (H0853), followed by a chain of construct nouns: rosh ("head of") kol-'adat ("all the congregation of") bene-Yisra'el ("the sons of Israel"). This construct chain builds a single complex noun phrase meaning "the total count of the whole congregation of the sons of Israel." The idiom rosh + census verb functions similarly to "take the sum" rather than a literal "head."

The age qualifier is expressed through min ("from") plus ben ("son of") plus the number 'esrim ("twenty") plus shanah ("year"), a standard Hebrew construction for expressing age ("a son of twenty years" = twenty years old), followed by va-ma'lah ("and upward"), using the directional he suffix to indicate an open-ended upward range.

The final clause specifies the criterion for inclusion: kol yotze' tzava' ("everyone who goes out to war/military service"), using a participle (yotze') to denote an ongoing capacity or eligibility rather than a single completed action — those currently able to go out for warfare, not merely those who have done so once.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders se'u et-rosh ("lift up the head") as labe ten archen ("take the beginning/sum"), using a different idiom for the same census concept rather than a literal "head" translation. The Vulgate similarly abstracts this as numerate omnem summam ("number the whole sum"), avoiding the Hebrew's "head" idiom entirely. Both LXX and Vulgate thus interpret the idiomatic construction functionally rather than reproducing its literal components.