Numbers 4:41

Summary

This verse closes the census section for the Gershonite clan, stating that these are the enrolled men among the descendants of Gershon who serve at the Tent of Meeting, counted by Moses and Aaron at Yehovah's command.

Key words

• fekudei ("[the] enrolled [men] of", H6485A) — qal passive participle, plural construct; designates those who have been counted/mustered, grammatically linking to "clans" that follows.
• mishpechot ("[the] clans of", H4940) — feminine plural construct, placing the census at the level of family groupings within Gershon's line rather than individuals alone.
• ha'oved ("[one who] serves", H5647H) — qal participle with definite article, masculine singular; describes ongoing, characteristic action (serving) rather than a single event, functioning as a substantive ("the one who serves" / "the server").
• paqad ("he enrolled", H6485A) — qal perfect, third masculine singular; same root as fekudei but here as a finite verb marking a completed action performed by Moses (and Aaron).
• pi ("[the] mouth of", H6310I) — masculine singular construct; used idiomatically in the phrase 'al-pi ("according to the mouth of/at the command of") preceding YHWH.

What the text says

The verse opens with the demonstrative 'elleh ("these", H0428) followed immediately by fekudei in construct with mishpechot bene Gershon — a chain of three construct nouns ("enrolled-of clans-of sons-of Gershon") that in Hebrew reads as a single compact phrase before any verb appears. This construct chain concentrates the grammatical weight on identifying who is being counted before describing what they do.

The clause kol ha'oved be'ohel mo'ed ("every one-who-serves in the Tent of Meeting") uses the participle ha'oved to characterize the group by their ongoing function rather than narrating a specific act; participles in Biblical Hebrew commonly serve this descriptive, quasi-nominal role.

The relative clause 'asher paqad Mosheh ve'Aharon uses the finite perfect verb paqad, sharing the same root (H6485A) as the earlier participle fekudei. This root repetition (paqad — "to enroll/count/muster") ties the identity of the group ("the enrolled ones") directly to the action performed by Moses and Aaron ("he enrolled"), a wordplay/repetition visible in the Hebrew but not always preserved in the same way in translation. The final phrase 'al-pi YHWH ("according to the mouth of Yehovah") uses the construct noun pi ("mouth of") idiomatically to mark the authority behind the census.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) is notably shorter than the Hebrew, omitting the phrase corresponding to "every one who serves in the Tent of Meeting" (kol ha'oved be'ohel mo'ed) and rendering the whole verse as simply "This is the people of the Gershonites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered according to the word of the Lord." The LXX (LXXSWETE) preserves this phrase (πᾶς ὁ λειτουργῶν ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ τοῦ μαρτυρίου, "all who serve in the tent of the testimony") and additionally adds ἐν χειρὶ Μωυσῆ ("by the hand of Moses") at the end, an element not present in the Hebrew text as given.