Numbers 31:32
וַיְהִי הַמַּלְקוֹחַ יֶתֶר הַבָּז אֲשֶׁר בָּזְזוּ עַם הַצָּבָא צֹאן שֵׁשׁ־מֵאוֹת אֶלֶף וְשִׁבְעִים אֶלֶף וַחֲמֵֽשֶׁת־אֲלָפִֽים׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיְהִי֙ הַמַּלְק֔וֹחַ יֶ֣תֶר הַבָּ֔ז אֲשֶׁ֥ר בָּזְז֖וּ עַ֣ם הַצָּבָ֑א צֹ֗אן שֵׁשׁ־מֵא֥וֹת אֶ֛לֶף וְשִׁבְעִ֥ים אֶ֖לֶף וַחֲמֵֽשֶׁת־אֲלָפִֽים׃
καὶ ἐγενήθη τὸ πλεόνασμα τῆς προνομῆς ὃ ἐπρονόμευσαν οἱ ἄνδρες οἱ πολεμισταὶ ἀπὸ τῶν προβάτων ἑξακόσιαι χιλιάδες καὶ ἑβδομήκοντα καὶ πέντε χιλιάδες·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Fuit autem præda, quam exercitus ceperat, ovium sexcenta septuaginta quinque millia,
El total del botín que los soldados trajeron, sin contar lo que cada uno saqueó por su cuenta, fue de: seiscientas setenta y cinco mil ovejas,
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y fué la presa, el resto de la presa que tomaron los hombres de guerra, seiscientas y setenta y cinco mil ovejas,
and this plunder remained from the spoils the soldiers had taken: 675,000 sheep,
✦ What the text says
Summary
This verse introduces the tally of war booty remaining after the initial plundering, specifying that the sheep alone numbered 675,000. It establishes the total as "the remainder of the plunder" that the soldiers had taken, before listing the specific count of sheep.
Key words
- mal.Koach ("booty", H4455A) — definite noun marking the total captured goods being summarized.
- Yeter ("[the] remainder of", H3499A) — construct form linking this noun to ha.Baz, indicating this is the leftover portion of the plunder being counted (distinct from what individual soldiers had already taken, per H0962 below).
- ba.zeZu ("they had plundered", H0962) — qal perfect, third person plural, marking completed action: the plundering was already finished when this count was made.
- 'am ha.tzaVa' ("the people of the army", H5971K + H6635A) — construct phrase identifying the soldiers specifically as the subject of the plundering verb.
- shesh-me'ot 'Elef ("six hundred thousand", H8337 + H3967 + H0505G) — the first block of the large numeral construction for the sheep count.
What the text says
The verse opens with the narrative va-yehi ("and it was", H9001+H1961), a standard formula introducing a new statement of fact within the narrative sequence. The grammatical core is ha-malqoach yeter ha-baz — literally "the booty, the remainder of the plunder" — where yeter (H3499A) stands in construct relationship to ha-baz (H0957), producing a phrase that specifies this booty as what remained after the initial seizure. The relative clause 'asher bazezu 'am ha-tzava' ("which the people of the army had plundered") uses the qal perfect verb bazezu (H0962) to describe the completed act of plundering by "the people of the army," a construct phrase ('am ha-tzava') identifying the soldiers collectively rather than individually.
The numeral for sheep, tzon (H6629G), is built from three cardinal number blocks connected by the conjunction ve (H9002): shesh me'ot 'elef ("six hundred thousand"), ve-shiv'im 'elef ("and seventy thousand"), and va-chameshet 'alafim ("and five thousand"), totaling 675,000. Each numeral component uses construct or plural forms typical of Hebrew numeral chains, where thousands and hundreds are stacked additively rather than expressed as a single compound number word.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders 'am ha-tzava' ("the people of the army") as "οἱ ἄνδρες οἱ πολεμισταὶ" ("the men, the warriors"), a more explicit military term than the Hebrew's general noun 'am ("people"). The Vulgate's exercitus ("the army") condenses this same phrase into a single collective noun, omitting the distinct reference to "people of" found in the Hebrew construct.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.