Numbers 26:7

Summary

The verse closes the census record for the tribe of Reuben, naming the clan grouping and giving the total number of enrolled men: 43,730.

Key words

• 'Elleh ("these", H0428) — demonstrative particle opening the summary formula, pointing back to the clan list just given.
• mishpeChot ("clans of", H4940) — feminine plural construct noun, grammatically linking to "the Reubenite" that follows; construct form means it must be read as "clans of X."
• ha.ru'uveNi ("the Reubenite", H7206, H9009) — a gentilic singular form with the definite article, referring to the tribe as a collective people rather than using a plural tribal name.
• peduDei.hem ("their enrolled [men]", H6485A + H9028) — a qal passive participle in construct plural with a pronominal suffix, meaning "the ones counted belonging to them"; the passive form marks these men as the object of counting, not the agents.
• va.yihYu ("and they were", H1961, narrative vav) — the narrative verb form that carries the story forward, introducing the resulting total figure.

What the text says

The sentence has two main parts joined by the narrative vav on yihYu. The first part, 'Elleh mishpeChot ha.ru'uveNi, is a nominal clause: "'Elleh" ("these") stands as subject, and "mishpeChot" ("clans of") is a construct noun requiring a following genitive, supplied by "ha.ru'uveNi" ("the Reubenite"), a gentilic singular noun with the article. Grammatically this treats "Reubenite" as a single collective designation for the tribe, not a plural ethnonym — the Hebrew does not say "the Reubenites" as a plural but uses the singular gentilic form governed by the article.

The second part shifts to narrative report: "va.yihYu peduDeihem" ("and their enrolled [men] were") uses the qal passive participle peduDei in construct with the suffix -hem ("their"), literally "the counted-ones of them." This participle is passive, so the men are framed as those who underwent counting, rather than as agents of any action. The number itself is built from a chain of construct and conjoined cardinal numbers: sheloShah ("three") plus 'arba'Im ("forty") plus 'Elef ("thousand"), then sheva' ("seven") in construct with me'ot ("hundreds"), then sheloShim ("thirty") — yielding 43,730, matching the totals given in the translations.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders mishpeChot ha.ru'uveNi as "δῆμοι Ῥουβήν" ("clans of Rouben"), using the tribal name directly rather than the Hebrew's singular gentilic with article. The LXX also uses "ἐπίσκεψις" ("inspection/census") for the concept expressed by the passive participle peduDei ("enrolled ones"), shifting from a description of counted persons to an abstract noun for the counting process itself. The Vulgate similarly abstracts this as "numerus" ("number"), stating "quarum numerus inventus est" ("of whom the number was found"), rather than preserving the passive-participle sense of enrolled individuals found in the Hebrew.