Numbers 4:35

Summary

Numbers 4:35 specifies the age range for men eligible to perform service at the Tent of Meeting: from thirty years old and up to fifty years old. It closes the census formula for the Kohathite clan by stating that "everyone who comes" within this range serves in the assigned work.

Key words

• Ben ("a son of", H1121L) — construct noun used idiomatically to express age; "a son of thirty years" means "one who is thirty years old."
• Ma'lah ("up", H4605) combined with the directional he (H9011) marks the lower boundary as open-ended — "thirty and upward" — before the range is closed by 'ad ("to", H5704).
• Ba' ("[one who] comes", H0935G) — qal participle, masculine singular, used substantively with the definite article (ha-Ba') to mean "the one who enters/comes," functioning as "everyone who is subject to service."
• Tzava ("service", H6635I) — literally denotes a host or organized muster; here it designates the group into which the man enters.
• 'Avodah ("service", H5656H) — a distinct noun denoting the actual labor or task performed, paired with tzava through two parallel prepositional phrases (la-tzava, la-'avodah).

What the text says

The Hebrew constructs the age range with two paired construct phrases: mi-ben shelishim shanah va-ma'lah ("from a son of thirty years and upward") and ve-'ad ben-chamishim shanah ("and until a son of fifty years"). This "son of X years" idiom is standard for age expressions in Biblical Hebrew and does not imply lineage. The phrase va-ma'lah signals that the lower limit is a starting point extending forward, while 'ad with the second ben construct closes the upper limit, together forming an inclusive bracket.

The subject of the sentence is kol ha-ba' ("everyone who comes/enters"), a participle functioning as a noun phrase meaning "all who are subject to this status." This subject is then qualified by two prepositional phrases: la-tzava ("for the host/service") and la-'avodah ("for the work"), followed by the locative be-'ohel mo'ed ("in the tent of meeting"). The doubling of tzava and 'avodah — one term for the organized group, the other for the labor itself — is not redundant in the Hebrew; each noun contributes a distinct nuance not always preserved when translated with a single word like "service."

Differences between versions

The Septuagint gives the lower age boundary as pente kai eikosaetous ("twenty-five years"), diverging from the Hebrew shelishim ("thirty", H7970). The Vulgate's triginta annis ("thirty years") and the modern translations listed (RV1909, BSB, SBLIBRE) all follow the Hebrew's thirty-year figure rather than the LXX's twenty-five.