Numbers 31:39

וַחֲמֹרִים שְׁלֹשִׁים אֶלֶף וַחֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת וּמִכְסָם לַֽיהוָה אֶחָד וְשִׁשִּֽׁים׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וַחֲמֹרִ֕ים שְׁלֹשִׁ֥ים אֶ֖לֶף וַחֲמֵ֣שׁ מֵא֑וֹת וּמִכְסָ֥ם לַֽיהוָ֖ה אֶחָ֥ד וְשִׁשִּֽׁים׃

Greek (Septuagint)

καὶ ὄνοι τριάκοντα χιλιάδες καὶ φ΄, καὶ τὸ τέλος Κυρίῳ εἷς καὶ ἑξήκοντα·

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

Latin (Vulgate)

de asinis triginta millibus quingentis, asini sexaginta unus:

Spanish

Les tocaron treinta mil quinientos burros, y el impuesto para Yehová fue de sesenta y un burros.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y de los asnos, treinta mil y quinientos: y de ellos el tributo para Jehová, setenta y uno.

English

30,500 donkeys, including a tribute to the LORD of 61,

✦ What the text says

Summary

This verse concludes the donkey count from the Midianite plunder: the Israelites captured 30,500 donkeys total, from which a tax (mikhsam, "their tax", H4371) of 61 was set aside for Yehovah.

Key words

chamorim ("donkeys", H2543) — plural noun identifying the animal category being tallied in this verse.
'elef ("thousand", H0505G) — singular cardinal number combined with "thirty" to form 30,000.
mikhsam ("tax/their tax", H4371) — construct noun bearing the third-person plural suffix ("their"), indicating the portion drawn from the collective total.
YHWH ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the recipient of the tax, marked by the preposition la ("for", H9005).
'echad ("one", H0259) — cardinal number combined with "sixty" (shishim, H8346) to express the compound number 61.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence lists numbers in sequence without a main verb, following the pattern typical of census or tribute records: noun (chamorim) followed by the cardinal numbers that quantify it. The total is built additively — "thirty" (sheloshim, H7970) plus "thousand" ('elef) plus "five" (chamesh, H2568) in construct with "hundreds" (me'ot, H3967) — yielding 30,500. The word chamesh appears in construct form, a grammatical link showing it modifies "hundreds" directly, a common feature of Hebrew number-noun combinations.

The second clause shifts to the portion designated for Yehovah. Mikhsam carries a third-person plural pronominal suffix ("their"), tying the tax back to the group who owned the donkeys before the division. The number expressing the tax amount, "one and sixty" ('echad + shishim), places the smaller unit before the larger one, a construction pattern found elsewhere in Biblical Hebrew numerals. Grammatically, 'echad here is marked as feminine in this construction, illustrating the sometimes irregular gender agreement Hebrew numbers display depending on what they modify.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew, LXX (εἷς καὶ ἑξήκοντα, "one and sixty"), Vulgate (sexaginta unus, "sixty-one"), BSB (61), and SBLIBRE (sesenta y uno, "sixty-one") all agree on a tax figure of 61. The RV1909 renders this same figure as "setenta y uno" ("seventy-one"), diverging numerically from the Hebrew text and from the other versions presented here.

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