Numbers 3:20
וּבְנֵי מְרָרִי לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם מַחְלִי וּמוּשִׁי אֵלֶּה הֵם מִשְׁפְּחֹת הַלֵּוִי לְבֵית אֲבֹתָֽם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וּבְנֵ֧י מְרָרִ֛י לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֖ם מַחְלִ֣י וּמוּשִׁ֑י אֵ֥לֶּה הֵ֛ם מִשְׁפְּחֹ֥ת הַלֵּוִ֖י לְבֵ֥ית אֲבֹתָֽם׃
καὶ υἱοὶ Μεραρεὶ κατὰ δήμους αὐτῶν· Μοολεὶ καὶ Ὀμουσεί. οὗτοί εἰσιν δῆμοι τῶν Λευειτῶν κατ’ οἴκους πατριῶν αὐτῶν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Filii Merari: Moholi et Musi.
Los hijos de Merari por sus familias: Mahli y Mushi. Estas son las familias de los levitas según las casas de sus padres.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y los hijos de Merari, por sus familias: Mahali, y Musi. Estas, las familias de Leví, por las casas de sus padres.
And the sons of Merari by their clans were Mahli and Mushi. These were the clans of the Levites, according to their families. The Gershonites (Numbers 4:21–28; 1 Chronicles 23:7–11)
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse names the two sons of Merari — Mahli and Mushi — as the heads of their clans, and closes the list of Levite clans with a summary statement identifying them collectively as "the clans of the Levite" organized "by the house of their fathers."
Key words
- bene ("sons of", H1121A) — masculine plural construct, linking Merari to his descendants as a genealogical list-head, "sons of X."
- mishpechotam ("their clans", H4940 + H9028) — feminine plural noun in construct with a possessive suffix, denoting the subdivided family groups belonging to Merari.
- elleh hem ("these [are] they", H0428 + H1992) — demonstrative particle plus independent personal pronoun, forming a summarizing formula that closes the preceding list and introduces its classification.
- le-Levi ("to/of the Levite", H9005 + H3881) — the gentilic noun with definite article, here used collectively as "the Levite(s)" rather than a single person.
- beit avotam ("house of their fathers", H1004M + H0001G + H9028) — construct chain of masculine singular "house" governing feminine plural "fathers/ancestors," a standard formula for organizing tribal subunits by paternal lineage.
What the text says
The verse divides into two parts. The first part (u-vene Merari le-mishpechotam Machli u-Mushi) presents Merari's sons through a construct chain: "sons of Merari" (bene Merari) governed further by "to their clans" (le-mishpechotam), meaning the two names that follow — Mahli and Mushi — are identified as the heads of Merari's clan-divisions rather than simply his male children in a flat list.
The second part opens with the demonstrative-pronoun pair elleh hem ("these, they"), a formula that shifts from listing to summarizing. It restates "the clans of the Levite" (mishpechot ha-Levi) — using the gentilic noun in the singular with the definite article to refer to the tribe as a collective entity — and closes with the construct phrase le-veit avotam ("to/according to the house of their fathers"), a standard genealogical formula indicating that these clan-groupings are organized along paternal lines. The construct chains throughout (bene, mishpechot, beit) subordinate each noun to the following one, producing a nested genealogical structure: sons → clans → house of fathers.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders Machli as Μοολεί and Mushi as Ὀμουσεί, transliterations that differ somewhat from the Hebrew consonantal shape (e.g., an added initial vowel/consonant cluster in Ὀμουσεί for Mushi). The Vulgate similarly gives "Moholi" and "Musi," close to the Hebrew forms. The LXX also translates le-Levi (the gentilic "of the Levite") as τῶν Λευειτῶν ("of the Levites," plural), making explicit a collective sense that the Hebrew singular gentilic with article leaves implicit.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.