Numbers 31:52

Summary

The verse reports the total quantity of gold set aside as a contribution to Yehovah, gathered from the military commanders of thousands and of hundreds: sixteen thousand seven hundred fifty shekels.

Key words

• terumah ("contribution", H8641) — a feminine singular noun designating a portion set apart or lifted out for a sacred purpose; here it specifies the category of gold being totaled.
• heRimu ("they raised", H7311A) — hiphil (causative) perfect, third person plural; the causative stem conveys that the commanders actively "caused to rise" or "lifted up" the gold as an offering, not merely gave it.
• sarei ("commanders of", H8269) — masculine plural construct, appearing twice (lines 21 and 27), linking the officers grammatically to "the thousands" (ha'alafim) and "the hundreds" (hamme'ot) that follow.
• ha'alafim ("the thousands", H0505G) — common gender plural with definite article, functioning here as a military unit designation rather than a simple numeral.
• sheva'-me'ot ("seven hundred", H7651/H3967) — a construct chain combining the cardinal "seven" with "hundreds," part of the compound number recording the shekel total.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative formula vayHi ("and it was", H1961), a qal verb marking a summary statement within the narrative sequence. The subject of this verb is the long construct chain kol-zehav hatterumah ("all the gold of the contribution"), where kol (H3605) governs zehav (H2091) in construct, itself modified by the definite noun hatterumah. This chain is further specified by the relative clause asher heRimu laYHWH ("which they raised for Yehovah"), using the hiphil perfect of heRimu to indicate a completed act of lifting/offering.

The numerical total is built as a compound cardinal expression: shishah asar elef ("sixteen thousand"), followed by sheva'-me'ot ("seven hundred", in construct form) and va-chamishim ("and fifty"), all modifying the singular noun shakel ("shekel", H8255) used here collectively despite the large quantity — a common feature of Hebrew numeral-noun agreement where the counted noun remains singular after certain numbers.

The final clause identifies the source of the gold using two parallel prepositional phrases: me'et sarei ha'alafim ("from the commanders of the thousands") and ume'et sarei hamme'ot ("and from the commanders of the hundreds"). Each phrase repeats the construct noun sarei ("commanders of") bound to a plural military designation, showing the two-tiered command structure (leaders over thousands, leaders over hundreds) as the collective source of the contribution.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) omits the initial narrative statement "and it was" and the phrase naming the gold as terumah ("contribution"), beginning instead directly with the weight figure ("pondo sedecim millia..."), condensing the Hebrew's fuller descriptive clause into a bare numerical report. The LXX renders terumah as ἀφαίρεμα ("that which is taken away/set aside") and heRimu as ἀφεῖλον ("they took away"), both from the same Greek root, preserving the sense of separation present in the Hebrew hiphil form.