Numbers 26:22

Summary

The verse closes the census list for the tribe of Judah, stating the total number of men counted according to their clans: seventy-six thousand five hundred.

Key words

• 'Eleh ("these", H0428) — demonstrative particle opening the verse, pointing back to the clan list just given and forward to the summary that follows.
• mishpechot ("clans of", H4940) — feminine plural construct noun, grammatically linking to Yehudah ("Judah", H3063G) to form "the clans of Judah."
• fkudeihem ("their enrolled [men]", H6485A) — qal passive participle, masculine plural construct, with the 3rd person plural suffix hem ("their", H9028); designates the men who were the object of the counting process.
• shishah... shiv'im... 'elef... chamesh me'ot — the numeral sequence "six and seventy thousand and five hundred" (H8337, H7657, H0505G, H2568, H3967), built by coordinating discrete number words with the conjunction ve ("and", H9002).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has a simple predicative structure: 'Eleh mishpechot Yehudah ("These [are] the clans of Judah") functions as the main clause, with no explicit verb "to be" — as is standard in Hebrew nominal sentences, the copula is understood. The prepositional phrase li-fqudeihem ("according to their enrolled [men]") specifies the basis of the numbering that follows, using the preposition li (H9005) attached to the passive participle fqudei, which construes the enrolled men as the object of a completed counting action rather than naming an active agent.

The numeral phrase itself is built additively: shishah ve-shiv'im ("six and seventy") forms 76 through simple conjunction of units and tens, then 'elef ("thousand") multiplies this figure, and va-chamesh me'ot ("and five hundred") adds the remainder. The construct form of chamesh ("five", H2568) before me'ot ("hundreds", H3967) marks the standard Hebrew numeral-noun relationship for multiples of hundred. The total expressed is 76,500.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders li-fqudeihem not as a participial phrase but as "quarum omnis numerus fuit" ("whose entire number was"), shifting from a passive participle construction to a more explicit statement of totality, though the numerical result (76,500) matches the Hebrew. The LXX text supplied here does not correspond to Judah at all: it names Ζαβουλὼν ("Zebulun") and lists clan names (Αλλών, Αλληλ, Σάρεδ) rather than giving Judah's total, indicating the LXX passage provided is drawn from a different verse in the Zebulun section rather than paralleling the Hebrew and Vulgate content for Judah.