Numbers 31:49
וַיֹּֽאמְרוּ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה עֲבָדֶיךָ נָֽשְׂאוּ אֶת־רֹאשׁ אַנְשֵׁי הַמִּלְחָמָה אֲשֶׁר בְּיָדֵנוּ וְלֹא־נִפְקַד מִמֶּנּוּ אִֽישׁ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיֹּֽאמְרוּ֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה עֲבָדֶ֣יךָ נָֽשְׂא֗וּ אֶת־רֹ֛אשׁ אַנְשֵׁ֥י הַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּיָדֵ֑נוּ וְלֹא־נִפְקַ֥ד מִמֶּ֖נּוּ אִֽישׁ׃
καὶ εἶπαν πρὸς Μωυσῆν Οἱ παῖδές σου εἰλήφασιν τὸ κεφάλαιον τῶν ἀνδρῶν τῶν πολεμιστῶν τῶν παρ’ ἡμῶν, καὶ οὐ διαπεφώνηκεν ἀπ’ αὐτῶν οὐδὲ εἷς·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Nos servi tui recensuimus numerum pugnatorum, quos habuimus sub manu nostra: et ne unus quidem defuit.
y le dijeron: “Tus servidores han contado a los soldados que estaban bajo nuestro mando, ¡y no nos falta ni un solo hombre!
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y dijeron á Moisés: Tus siervos han tomado razón de los hombres de guerra que están en nuestro poder, y ninguno ha faltado de nosotros.
and said, “ Your servants have counted the soldiers under our command, and not one of us is missing.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The military officers report to Moses that they have taken a census of the fighting men under their command and confirm that not a single soldier is missing. The verse is a formal report using idiomatic Hebrew for "counting" and a passive construction to state the absence of losses.
Key words
- na.se.'U ("they have lifted up", H5375V) — qal perfect; part of the idiom "lift the head" meaning to take a census or count.
- rosh ("head of", H7218H) — construct noun; here functions idiomatically as "sum" or "total," not literally "head."
- nif.Kad ("he is missing", H6485K) — niphal perfect; the passive form indicates that no one was found to be missing, rather than an active statement that someone counted and found none absent.
- 'a.Sher ("who", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the clause describing which men are meant: those "in our hand," i.e., under command.
- 'Ish ("anyone", H0376I) — masculine singular noun used here in a negated clause to mean "not a single man."
What the text says
The clause na.se.'U 'et-rosh ("they have lifted the head of") is an idiomatic Hebrew expression for taking a census, literally "to lift the head [count]," built from the verb nasa ("to lift", H5375) combined with rosh ("head", H7218) in construct. This idiom appears elsewhere in Numbers for census-taking. The construct chain continues: rosh 'an.Shei ha.mil.cha.Mah ("the head/sum of the men of the war"), meaning "the total number of the fighting men."
The relative clause 'a.Sher be.ya.De.nu ("who [were] in our hand") uses yad ("hand", H3027H) idiomatically for authority or command, so the phrase indicates "the men under our command."
The final clause uses the niphal (passive-reflexive) perfect nif.Kad ("he is missing/was found lacking") negated by lo' ("not", H3808), followed by mi.Me.nu ("from us") and 'Ish ("anyone", H0376I). The niphal stem here conveys a passive sense: no man "was found missing" — the grammatical subject is not an active counter but the state of completeness itself.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the "lift the head" idiom as εἰλήφασιν τὸ κεφάλαιον ("they have taken the sum"), preserving something of the "head" concept through κεφάλαιον (related to κεφαλή, "head"), though shifting from the verb "lift" to "take." The Vulgate abandons the head-idiom entirely, using recensuimus numerum ("we have counted the number"), a functional rather than literal rendering. Modern translations (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) similarly render the idiom as "counted" without preserving the literal "head" imagery present in the Hebrew construct chain.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.