Numbers 3:15
פְּקֹד אֶת־בְּנֵי לֵוִי לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם כָּל־זָכָר מִבֶּן־חֹדֶשׁ וָמַעְלָה תִּפְקְדֵֽם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
פְּקֹד֙ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י לֵוִ֔י לְבֵ֥ית אֲבֹתָ֖ם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֑ם כָּל־זָכָ֛ר מִבֶּן־חֹ֥דֶשׁ וָמַ֖עְלָה תִּפְקְדֵֽם׃
Ἐπίσκεψαι τοὺς υἱοὺς Λευεὶ κατ’ οἴκους πατριῶν αὐτῶν, κατὰ δήμους αὐτῶν· πᾶν ἀρσενικὸν ἀπὸ μηνιαίου καὶ ἐπάνω ἐπισκέψασθε αὐτούς.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Numera filios Levi per domos patrum suorum et familias, omnem masculum ab uno mense et supra.
“Cuenta a los hijos de Leví por las casas de sus padres, por sus familias. Contarás a todos los varones de un mes de edad en adelante”.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Cuenta los hijos de Leví por las casas de sus padres, por sus familias: contarás todos los varones de un mes arriba.
“ Number the Levites by their families and clans. You are to count every male a month old or more.”
✦ What the text says
Summary
Numbers 3:15 instructs the enrollment of the descendants of Levi according to their ancestral houses and clans, specifying that every male from one month old and upward is to be counted. The verse frames a census command with an opening and closing verb from the same root, creating a structural envelope around the details of the count.
Key words
- pe.Kod ("enroll", H6485A) — qal imperative, 2nd person masculine; opens the verse as a direct command to carry out the census.
- bene ("descendants of", H1121A) — masculine plural construct, linking Levi to his lineage as the object of the count.
- beit 'avotam ("house of their ancestors", H1004M + H0001G) — construct chain with pronominal suffix, designating the paternal lineage unit used for organizing the count.
- mishpechotam ("their clans", H4940) — feminine plural construct with suffix, naming the sub-grouping alongside the ancestral house.
- tifqedem ("you will enroll them", H6485A) — qal imperfect, same root as the opening imperative, now with a pronominal suffix "them"; closes the verse by restating the action as a future/ongoing task applied to the males just described.
What the text says
The verse is built as a frame: it opens with the imperative pe.Kod ("enroll") and closes with the imperfect tifqedem ("you will enroll them"), both from the same root H6485A. Between these two verbal anchors, the text specifies the object of the census in stages — first the group (bene Levi, "descendants of Levi"), then the two organizing categories (beit avotam, "house of their ancestors," and mishpechotam, "their clans"), and finally the demographic criterion (kol-zakhar, "every male," qualified by age).
The age criterion uses the construct phrase ben-chodesh ("a son of a month," H1121L + H2320G), an idiomatic construction where "son of" plus a time unit denotes age, followed by va-ma'lah ("and upward," H4605 + directional he H9011), indicating an open-ended upper boundary. The grammar therefore sets a lower age threshold with no stated ceiling, and the repetition of the root H6485A at both ends of the verse ties the initial command directly to its execution regarding these males.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders pe.Kod as Ἐπίσκεψαι ("visit/inspect/review") rather than a direct numerical count, and repeats this same Greek verb (ἐπισκέψασθε) at the end, mirroring the Hebrew's envelope structure but with a verb whose semantic range includes oversight/review rather than strictly "count." The Vulgate uses numera ("count") at the opening but does not explicitly repeat a closing verb corresponding to tifqedem, instead continuing the sentence with omnem masculum...supra without a second finite verb, differing from the Hebrew's repeated-root framing.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.