Numbers 26:35

Summary

The verse lists the descendants of Ephraim organized by clan (mishpachah, H4940): the line of Shuthelah with its clan, the line of Beker with its clan, and the line of Tahan with its clan. Each name functions as the eponymous ancestor from whom a named clan derives its designation.

Key words

• ve.nei- ("[were] [the] descendants of", H1121G) — construct plural noun opening the genealogical formula, linking "these" to Ephraim as the collective ancestor.
• mishpechotam ("clans... their", H4940 + H9028) — construct plural noun with 3rd person masculine plural suffix, indicating the clans belong specifically to Ephraim's line.
• mishpachat ("[the] clan of", H4940) — construct singular form repeated three times, each time introducing a sub-clan tied to one eponymous descendant.
• ha-Shutalchi ("Shuthelahite[s]", H8364) — gentilic noun with definite article, marking the clan-name derived from the personal name Shuthelah.
• ha-Tachani ("Tahanite[s]", H8470) — gentilic noun with definite article, the clan-name derived from Tahan, closing the list.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the demonstrative 'Elleh ("these", H428), a standard genealogical marker introducing a list. The structure repeats a fixed pattern three times: the preposition le- ("of/to", H9005) attached to a personal name, followed by mishpachat ("clan of", H4940) plus a gentilic noun built from the same personal name and marked with the definite article ha- (H9009). This produces a chain: "of Shuthelah, the clan of the Shuthelahite; of Beker, the clan of the Bakrite; of Tahan, the clan of the Tahanite." The repetition of the construct noun mishpachat before each gentilic form emphasizes that each named individual (Shuthelah, Beker, Tahan) is being treated as the founding ancestor from whom the clan-name grammatically derives, since Hebrew forms the gentilic by adding the -i suffix to the personal name (e.g., Shutalchi from Shuthelach, Tachani from Tachan). This morphological link between ancestor-name and clan-name is visible in Hebrew but flattens in translation, where "Shuthelahite" and "Shuthelah" appear as separate lexical items rather than as a suffixed derivation of the same root.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (Filii autem Ephraim... Suthala... Becher... Thehen) and the Spanish versions (RV1909, SBLIBRE) follow the Hebrew list of Shuthelah, Beker, and Tahan under Ephraim. The LXX text supplied here (Esriēl... Sychem...) does not match this content — it names Esriel and Shechem, figures associated elsewhere with Manasseh's genealogy in Numbers 26, rather than Ephraim's sons Shuthelah, Beker, and Tahan. This represents a divergence in the specific names transmitted, though the underlying genealogical formula (ancestor plus derived clan-name) is structurally similar across the traditions.