Numbers 4:2
נָשֹׂא אֶת־רֹאשׁ בְּנֵי קְהָת מִתּוֹךְ בְּנֵי לֵוִי לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָם לְבֵית אֲבֹתָֽם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
נָשֹׂ֗א אֶת־רֹאשׁ֙ בְּנֵ֣י קְהָ֔ת מִתּ֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֣י לֵוִ֑י לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֖ם לְבֵ֥ית אֲבֹתָֽם׃
Λάβε τὸ κεφάλαιον τῶν υἱῶν Καὰθ ἐκ μέσου υἱῶν Λευεί, κατὰ δήμους αὐτῶν, κατ’ οἴκους πατριῶν αὐτῶν,
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Tolle summam filiorum Caath de medio Levitarum per domos et familias suas,
“Hagan un censo de los hijos de Coat de entre los hijos de Leví, por sus familias y por las casas de sus padres,
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Toma la cuenta de los hijos de Coath de entre los hijos de Leví, por sus familias, por las casas de sus padres,
“ Take a census of the Kohathites among the Levites by their clans and families,
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse opens a divine instruction to take a count of the descendants of Kohath, a subgroup within the tribe of Levi, organized according to their clan and ancestral house structure.
Key words
- na.So' ("lift up", H5375) — qal infinitive absolute, used here as an imperative-like command; literally "to lift/raise" the head, i.e., to take a count or census.
- roSh ("[the] head of", H7218) — construct singular noun; combined with the idiom of "lifting the head" it conveys the sense of counting or reckoning a total.
- be.Nei ("[the] descendants of", H1121) — construct plural, appears twice (for Kohath and for Levi), marking genealogical relationship and nesting one group inside the larger one.
- Tokh ("among", H8432) — construct noun functioning prepositionally, meaning "from the midst of," specifying that Kohath's descendants are drawn out from within the larger group of Levi's descendants.
- mish.pe.cho.Ta-m ("their clans", H4940+H9028) — feminine plural construct with 3rd person plural suffix, denoting subdivisions by family line, paired with bet 'avotam ("house of their ancestors") to specify the organizing structure of the census.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence begins with the infinitive absolute na.So' ("lift up", H5375), a grammatical form that in Biblical Hebrew often functions as a forceful command, here understood as "take a count" or "take a census." This is followed by the construct chain roSh be.nei Qehat — literally "the head of the sons of Kohath" — an idiomatic expression for counting or numbering a group, using "head" (roSh, H7218) as the unit being "lifted" or tallied.
The phrase mi.tokh be.nei Levi ("from among the descendants of Levi") situates Kohath's descendants as a subset within the larger tribal group of Levi, using the construct noun Tokh (H8432) to express "from the midst of." The final two phrases, le-mishpechotam ("to/by their clans," H4940) and le-veit 'avotam ("to/by the house of their ancestors," H1004 + H1), both use construct nouns with third-person plural suffixes to indicate the two nested organizational categories — clan and ancestral house — by which the census is to be structured. The repeated use of construct chains throughout the verse creates a layered genealogical framework: individual (Kohath) within tribe (Levi) within clan and ancestral house.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the Hebrew infinitive absolute na.So' ("lift up") plus roSh ("head") as a single verb, Λάβε ("take"), paired with τὸ κεφάλαιον ("the sum/total"), collapsing the Hebrew idiom into a more direct expression for counting. The Vulgate similarly uses Tolle summam ("take the sum"), matching the LXX's approach rather than preserving the "head-lifting" idiom literally present in the Hebrew.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.