Numbers 26:27

Summary

The verse closes the census record for the tribe of Zebulun, introduced by the demonstrative 'Elleh ("these", H0428) and naming its mishpechot ("clans", H4940). The total of enrolled men is given as sixty thousand five hundred.

Key words

• 'Elleh ("these", H0428) — demonstrative particle opening the verse, pointing back to the list of Zebulunite clans just enumerated in the preceding verses.
• mishpechot ("clans of", H4940) — feminine plural construct noun, grammatically bound to ha-Zevuloni, meaning "clans belonging to the Zebulunite."
• ha-Zevuloni ("the Zebulunite", H2075) — gentilic noun with definite article, denoting the tribal group as a collective ethnic-clan unit rather than an individual.
• pequdei ("enrolled [men] of", H6485A) — qal passive participle, masculine plural construct, literally "those who were counted/mustered of," governing the suffix -hem ("their").
• chamesh ("five", H2568) — cardinal number in construct form, linked to me'ot ("hundreds", H3967) to form the compound "five hundred."

What the text says

The sentence follows the standard census-summary formula used throughout this chapter. It opens with the demonstrative 'Elleh, which functions as a closing marker referring to everything listed above it — the clans of Zebulun already named. The construct chain mishpechot ha-Zevuloni ("the clans of the Zebulunite") treats the tribal name as a singular gentilic noun modified by the article, a common way Biblical Hebrew designates a tribe as a corporate entity rather than as many individuals.

The phrase li-fqudei-hem combines the preposition li ("to/for") with the passive participle pequdei ("the enrolled/mustered [men] of") and the third-person plural suffix -hem ("their"), yielding "according to their enrolled/counted men." The participle is passive in form, emphasizing that these men were the object of a counting action, not agents of it. The number itself is built from two cardinal numbers in sequence: shishim 'elef ("sixty thousand") joined by the conjunction va- ("and") to chamesh me'ot ("five hundred"), giving the total of 60,500.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text and the Vulgate (Zabulon, "sexaginta millia quingenti") agree in assigning this total of 60,500 to the tribe of Zebulun. The LXX text supplied here, however, names υἱῶν Γὰδ ("sons of Gad") instead of Zebulun and gives a different total, τέσσαρες καὶ τεσσεράκοντα χιλιάδες καὶ πεντακόσιοι ("forty-four thousand five hundred"), showing a divergence both in the tribal name and in the numerical figure compared to the Hebrew and the Vulgate.