Numbers 4:48

Summary

This verse reports the total count of the enrolled men (a specific census subgroup within the Levites, identified in the surrounding context) as eight thousand five hundred eighty. It functions as a summary tally closing a census section.

Key words

• va-yihyu ("and they were", H1961) — qal narrative verb form, marking the continuation of the census narrative and introducing the resulting total.
• pequdei ("enrolled [men] of", H6485A) — passive participle in construct form, indicating "the counted/enrolled ones of" a following noun (their group), functioning as the subject of the total.
• hem ("their", H9028) — pronominal suffix attached to the participle, specifying whose enrolled men are being counted.
• shemonat ("eight", H8083) — cardinal number in construct form, linked to alafim to form "eight thousand."
• chamesh ("five", H2568) — cardinal number in construct form, linked to me'ot to form "five hundred," combined additively with the following shemonim ("eighty", H8084) to reach the final total.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative va-yihyu ("and they were", H1961), a standard formula in the Hebrew census reports of this chapter that introduces a numerical result. The subject is pequdei-hem ("enrolled [men] of their", H6485A + H9028), a construct chain meaning "their enrolled/counted ones," referring back to the group whose census the surrounding verses describe. This construct participle functions grammatically as a plural collective subject for the verb "they were."

The numerical total is built through a chain of construct and coordinated cardinal numbers: shemonat alafim ("eight of thousands", H8083 + H0505G) gives "eight thousand"; this is joined by the conjunction va ("and", H9002) to chamesh me'ot ("five of hundreds", H2568 + H3967), giving "five hundred"; and a further va connects to shemonim ("eighty", H8084). The construct forms (shemonat, chamesh) show that Hebrew expresses compound numbers through a chain of "X of Y" relationships rather than through separate additive words, a structural feature not visible in translations that simply render the sum as "8,580."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text states the total using the construct-based numeral chain described above, without naming the specific group being counted in this verse itself (the referent depends on context). The LXX (Septuagint) renders pequdei-hem as hoi episkepentes ("the ones registered/reviewed"), using a participle from a verb of oversight/inspection rather than the Hebrew root H6485A's more general sense of "enrolled" or "counted." The Vulgate omits an explicit equivalent for "their enrolled ones" altogether, stating simply fuerunt simul ("they were together/in total"), which shifts the sentence toward a plain numerical summary rather than preserving the participial subject found in the Hebrew.