Numbers 4:36

Summary

The verse states the total count of the men enrolled from a specific group, organized le-mishpechotam ("by their clans", H4940+H9028), giving a final numerical sum: two thousand seven hundred and fifty.

Key words

• va-yihyu ("and they were", H9001+H1961) — narrative vav plus qal verb, introducing the result of a preceding census action as part of the ongoing story.
• fekudeihem ("their enrolled [men]", H6485A+H9028) — a passive participle in construct form; it does not name the enrollers but rather designates "those who were counted," with the possessive suffix "their" pointing back to the group described earlier in the chapter.
• mishpechotam ("their clans", H4940+H9028) — feminine plural construct noun with suffix, indicating the men are counted according to family/clan divisions rather than as an undifferentiated total.
• 'alpayim ("two thousand", H0505G) — dual form of the numeral, the standard Hebrew way of expressing "two thousand" rather than "thousand thousand" or a plural of one.
• sheva' me'ot ("seven hundred", H7651+H3967) — construct chain literally "seven of hundreds," the standard Hebrew numeral construction for multiples of one hundred.

What the text says

The clause opens with the narrative vav on yihyu ("and they were"), a common way in Biblical Hebrew narrative to report a summarizing result — here, the outcome of a census process described in the preceding verses. The subject is fekudeihem, a passive participle meaning "the ones enrolled belonging to them," which functions almost like a noun ("their enrolled men" or "those counted among them"). This is followed by the prepositional phrase le-mishpechotam ("according to their clans"), which specifies the organizing principle of the count: the men were tallied by family/clan units, not simply summed as individuals.

The numeral itself is built additively: 'alpayim ("two thousand") + sheva' me'ot ("seven hundred") + va-chamishim ("and fifty"), yielding 2,750. The conjunction va- appears only before the final numeral element ("fifty"), a typical Hebrew pattern where the last item in a numeral chain is joined by "and" while the preceding elements stand in simple juxtaposition.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text and the Vulgate agree on the total: 2,750 ('alpayim sheva' me'ot va-chamishim corresponds to Vulgate's "duo millia septingenti quinquaginta"). The LXX (Swete), however, renders the hundreds differently: δισχίλιοι διακόσιοι πεντήκοντα, "two thousand two hundred fifty" (2,250), using διακόσιοι ("two hundred") where the Hebrew has sheva' me'ot ("seven hundred"). The modern translations shown (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) follow the Hebrew/Vulgate total of 2,750.