Numbers 26:56

Summary

Numbers 26:56 specifies that the land inheritance is to be allocated "according to the lot," with the division occurring proportionally between larger and smaller groups. The verse closes the instructions on census-based land distribution among the tribes.

Key words

• pi ("mouth of", H6310K) — construct noun literally meaning "mouth," here used idiomatically in the phrase 'al-pi ("according to the mouth of") to mean "according to" or "in proportion to."
• ha-goral ("the lot", H1486) — definite singular noun referring to the casting of lots as the method of decision.
• techalek ("it will be divided", H2505A) — niphal (passive) imperfect verb; the passive voice removes the human agent, presenting the division as something that happens to the inheritance rather than something a specific person does.
• nachalato ("its inheritance", H5159) — feminine singular construct noun with a third-person suffix ("its/his"), indicating possession tied to the preceding subject (the tribal groups referenced in the wider passage).
• rav ("the many", H7227A) and m'at ("the few", H4592) — paired adjective/noun forming a merism (contrasting extremes representing the whole range), here denoting tribes or groups of greater and lesser population.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure places the instrumental phrase 'al-pi ha-goral ("according to the mouth of the lot") at the very front, giving it emphatic position — the mechanism of the lot governs everything that follows. The main verb techalek is niphal, a passive/reflexive stem, meaning the text states that the inheritance "will be divided" without naming who performs the division; the process is presented as automatic or divinely/procedurally determined rather than as an act of a specific administrator.

The construct chain nachalato ("inheritance of it/him") ties the verb's action to a possessor established earlier in the passage, and the concluding phrase bein rav li-m'at ("between many to few") uses two size-denoting terms as a merism, indicating that the lot-based method applies across the full range of group sizes — not calibrating the portion size by population count within this verse itself, but noting that both larger and smaller groups fall under the same lot-based procedure.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the phrase with ek tou klērou ("from the lot") and uses an active verb, merieis ("you shall divide," second-person singular), where the Hebrew techalek is passive with no expressed agent — shifting the sentence from an impersonal process to a directed command. The Vulgate similarly frames the outcome as a result received by groups ("hoc vel plures accipiant, vel pauciores" — "let the more or the fewer receive this"), emphasizing reception rather than the passive process of division found in the Hebrew niphal.