Numbers 26:4

Summary

Numbers 26:4 gives the age threshold for the census — "from twenty years and up" — and states that this follows Yehovah's command to Moses. It then names "the sons of Israel who came out from the land of Egypt" as those subject to this count, though the Hebrew clause structure leaves this final phrase syntactically loose.

Key words

• Ben ("a son of", H1121L) — construct form used idiomatically in age formulas: "mi-ben twenty years" literally means "from a son of twenty years," i.e., "from the age of twenty."
• tzivvah ("he commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, third-person masculine singular, denoting a completed, authoritative act of command; grammatically intensive in stem, marking Yehovah as the one issuing the directive.
• 'et (untranslated object marker, H0853) — signals that Mosheh ("Moses") is the direct object of tzivvah; without it, the relationship between verb and noun would be ambiguous.
• bene ("sons of / people of", H1121G) — construct plural, joined by the conjunction va ("and", H9002) to 'et Mosheh, extending the reach of the preceding clause to "the sons of Israel."
• ha-yotze'im ("who came out", H3318G) — qal participle with definite article ha (H9009), functioning attributively: it describes bene Yisra'el as "the ones going out," a durative/characterizing form rather than a simple past-tense verb.

What the text says

The verse opens with the compound preposition mi-ben ... va-ma'lah ("from a son of ... and upward"), an idiom framing the census threshold: twenty years and above. This age formula is not treated as new here — it depends on the census command given earlier and is followed by ka'asher ("just as," H0834D) tying the action to Yehovah's prior instruction, expressed by tzivvah, a piel perfect verb marking a completed command.

The direct object marker 'et attaches Mosheh to tzivvah as the one commanded. The conjunction va then adds bene Yisra'el ("sons of Israel") to the sentence, but no new finite verb follows; instead, the clause continues with the participle ha-yotze'im ("the ones coming out") modifying bene Yisra'el, and me'eretz Mitzrayim ("from the land of Egypt") specifying the place of departure. Because ha-yotze'im is a participle rather than a perfect or imperfect verb, it describes Israel as a characterized group ("those who came out of Egypt") rather than reporting an event with tense.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew's abrupt clause — "...Moses and the sons of Israel, the ones coming out from the land of Egypt" — lacks a finite verb governing bene Yisra'el, which several versions resolve differently. The LXX reads "σὺ καὶ ὁ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ" ("you and the sons of Israel"), addressing Moses directly and including Israel as a co-recipient of the command. The Vulgate instead breaks the sentence after "imperaverat" and adds "quorum iste est numerus" ("of whom this is the number"), introducing a new independent clause absent from the Hebrew wording shown. Modern translations (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) similarly insert connecting phrases ("And these were," "que habían salido") to smooth the transition that the Hebrew leaves without an explicit verb.