Numbers 31:30

וּמִמַּחֲצִת בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵל תִּקַּח׀ אֶחָד׀ אָחֻז מִן־הַחֲמִשִּׁים מִן־הָאָדָם מִן־הַבָּקָר מִן־הַחֲמֹרִים וּמִן־הַצֹּאן מִכָּל־הַבְּהֵמָה וְנָתַתָּה אֹתָם לַלְוִיִּם שֹׁמְרֵי מִשְׁמֶרֶת מִשְׁכַּן יְהוָֽה׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וּמִמַּחֲצִ֨ת בְּנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל תִּקַּ֣ח׀ אֶחָ֣ד׀ אָחֻ֣ז מִן־הַחֲמִשִּׁ֗ים מִן־הָאָדָ֧ם מִן־הַבָּקָ֛ר מִן־הַחֲמֹרִ֥ים וּמִן־הַצֹּ֖אן מִכָּל־הַבְּהֵמָ֑ה וְנָתַתָּ֤ה אֹתָם֙ לַלְוִיִּ֔ם שֹׁמְרֵ֕י מִשְׁמֶ֖רֶת מִשְׁכַּ֥ן יְהוָֽה׃

Greek (Septuagint)

καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡμίσους τοῦ τῶν υἱῶν ᾿Ισραὴλ λήμψῃ ἔνα ἀπὸ τῶν πεντήκοντα, ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν βοῶν καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν προβάτων καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ὄνων καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν, καὶ δώσεις αὐτὰ τοῖς Λευείταις τοῖς φυλάσσουσιν τὰς φυλακὰς ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ κυρίου.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Ex media quoque parte filiorum Israël accipies quinquagesimum caput hominum, et boum, et asinorum, et ovium, cunctorum animantium, et dabis ea Levitis, qui excubant in custodiis tabernaculi Domini.

Spanish

Y de la mitad que le toca a la comunidad israelita, separarás uno de cada cincuenta, ya sean personas, vacas, burros u ovejas, o cualquier otro animal, y se los darás a los levitas, quienes están a cargo del tabernáculo de Yehová”.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y de la mitad perteneciente á los hijos de Israel tomarás uno de cincuenta, de las personas, de los bueyes, de los asnos, y de las ovejas, de todo animal; y los darás á los Levitas, que tienen la guarda del tabernáculo de Jehová.

English

From the Israelites ’ half, take one out of every fifty, whether persons, cattle, donkeys, sheep, or other animals, and give them to the Levites who keep charge of the tabernacle of the LORD.”

✦ What the text says

Summary

This verse instructs Moses to take one item out of every fifty from the half of the plunder belonging to the Israelites — whether human captives, cattle, donkeys, or sheep — and give them to the Levites, who are responsible for the service of the tabernacle of Yehovah.

Key words

machatzit ("half of", H4276) — feminine singular construct noun, linking to "the people of Israel" to specify a half-share.
tiqqach ("you will take", H3947) — qal imperfect, second person masculine, expressing a future/ongoing obligation placed on the addressee (Moses).
achuz ("[person] drawn", H0270) — qal passive participle, describing the item taken as "seized" or "captured," modifying echad ("one," H0259) to mean "one taken/drawn."
shomrei ("[who] keep", H8104) — qal participle masculine plural construct, beginning a chain that identifies the Levites by their ongoing function.
mishmeret ("service of", H4931) construct + mishkan ("tabernacle of", H4908) construct — a double construct chain producing "the service/guard-duty of the tabernacle of Yehovah."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with u-mi-machatzit benei-Yisra'el ("and from the half of the children of Israel"), marking the source of the tithe as distinct from the portion already given earlier in the chapter to the warriors. The verb tiqqach places the action grammatically on Moses as the addressee, continued by the sequential perfect natattah ("you will give," H5414), which chains the taking to the subsequent giving — a common construction in Hebrew narrative instruction where imperfect + sequential perfect expresses a procedural sequence ("you shall take... and you shall give...").

The list of categories — ha-adam ("humankind," H0120), ha-baqar ("cattle," H1241), ha-chamorim ("donkeys," H2543), ha-tzon ("sheep," H6629) — is each introduced by the repeated preposition min ("from," H4480), syntactically parallel, before being summarized by mikkol ha-behemah ("from all the livestock," H0929). The final clause uses a triple construct chain, shomrei mishmeret mishkan Yehovah ("keepers of the service of the tabernacle of Yehovah"), a common Hebrew way of building a compound title through successive genitive links rather than subordinate clauses.

Differences between versions

The LXX orders the categories as ἀνθρώπων, βοῶν, προβάτων, ὄνων ("humans, oxen, sheep, donkeys"), differing from the Hebrew sequence adam, baqar, chamorim, tzon ("humankind, cattle, donkeys, sheep"), placing "sheep" before "donkeys." The Vulgate follows a similar reordering: hominum, boum, asinorum, ovium ("humans, oxen, donkeys, sheep"), closer to the Hebrew order but still not identical in every detail across manuscripts represented here.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.