Numbers 26:41

Summary

The verse closes the census listing for the tribe of Benjamin, stating that its clans (mishpechotam, H4940) had a total of 45,600 enrolled men. The verse follows the standard formula used throughout Numbers 26 to report tribal population figures gathered in the wilderness census.

Key words

• bnei ("descendants of", H1121G) — construct plural noun linking the tribe's name to its founding ancestor, forming "sons/descendants of Benjamin."
• mishpechotam ("their clans", H4940) — feminine plural construct with 3rd person masculine plural suffix, indicating the sub-family units into which Benjamin's descendants were organized.
• fequdeihem ("their enrolled men", H6485A) — qal passive participle plural construct, meaning "those who were counted/mustered," referring to the men registered in the census.
• chamishah ("five", H2568), arba'im ("forty", H0705), 'elef ("thousand", H0505G) — cardinal numbers combining to express "forty-five thousand."
• shesh me'ot ("six hundred", H8337 + H3967) — construct cardinal phrase completing the total figure.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the demonstrative 'Eleh ("these", H0428), pointing back to the list of clan names given in the preceding verses, and functions as a summary formula: "These are the sons of Benjamin according to their clans." The verb-like participle fequdeihem ("their enrolled ones") is a passive form, meaning it does not name who did the counting — the grammar simply marks the men as "the counted ones," consistent with the technical census vocabulary used throughout Numbers 26.

The numerical total is built compositionally: chamishah ("five") plus arba'im ("forty") plus 'elef ("thousand") plus shesh ("six") plus me'ot ("hundreds"), yielding 45,600. This additive structure, common in Biblical Hebrew numeral syntax, requires combining several construct and cardinal elements rather than using a single word for the full number.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (Hi sunt filii Benjamin... quadraginta quinque millia sexcenti) and the Spanish versions (RV1909, SBLIBRE, BSB) match the Hebrew total of 45,600 for Benjamin. However, the LXX text supplied here does not correspond to Benjamin at all: it reports on "the clans of Ephraim" (δῆμοι Ἐφράιμ) with a total of 32,500 (δύο καὶ τριάκοντα χιλιάδες καὶ πεντακόσιοι), and mentions "the sons of Joseph." This indicates the LXX excerpt provided is drawn from a different portion of the chapter's numbering sequence rather than reflecting a translation variant of the Hebrew verse for Benjamin.