1And the LORD spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai in the Tent of Meeting on the first of the second month in the second year of their going out from Egypt, saying, 2“Count the heads of all the community of the Israelites by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male by their heads. 3From twenty years old and up, everyone who goes out in the army in Israel, you shall reckon them by their battalions, you and Aaron. 4And with you let there be a man from each tribe, each man the head of his father’s house. 5And these are the names of the men who will stand with you: for Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur; 6for Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai; 7for Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab; 8for Issachar, Nethanel son of Zuar; 9for Zebulun, Eliab son of Helon; 10for the sons of Joseph—for Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud, for Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur; 11for Benjamim, Abidan son of Gideoni; 12for Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai; 13for Asher, Pagiel son of Ochran; 14for Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel; 15for Naphtali, Ahira son of Enan. 16These are the ones called from the community, chieftains of their fathers’ tribes, they are the heads of the kin-groups of Israel.” 17And Moses, and Aaron with him, took these men who had been marked out by name. 18And all the community they assembled on the first of the second month, and they were affiliated by their clans, by their fathers’ houses according to the number of names, from twenty years old and up, by their heads, 19as the LORD had charged Moses, and he made a reckoning of them in the Wilderness of Sinai.
20And the sons of Reuben, Israel’s firstborn, those born to them by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, by their heads, every male from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 21their reckoning for the tribe of Reuben, forty-six thousand five hundred. 22For the sons of Simeon, those born to them by their clans, by their fathers’ houses according to the number of names, by their heads, every male from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 23their reckoning for the tribe of Simeon, fifty-nine thousand three hundred. 24For the sons of Gad, those born to them by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 25their reckoning for the tribe of Gad, forty-five thousand six hundred and fifty. 26For the sons of Judah, those born to them by their clans, by their fathers’ houses according to the number of names, from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 27those reckoned for the tribe of Judah, seventy-four thousand six hundred. 28For the sons of Issachar, those born to them by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years and up, everyone who went out in the army, 29their reckoning for the tribe of Issachar, fifty-four thousand four hundred. 30For the sons of Zebulun those born to them, by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 31their reckoning for the tribe of Zebulun, fifty-seven thousand four hundred. 32For the sons of Joseph—for the sons of Ephraim, those born to them by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 33their reckoning for the tribe of Ephraim, forty thousand five hundred. 34For the sons of Manasseh, those born to them by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 35their reckoning, for the tribe of Manasseh, thirty-two thousand two hundred. 36For the sons of Benjamin, those born to them, by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 37their reckoning, for the tribe of Benjamin thirty-five thousand four hundred. 38For the sons of Dan, those born to them by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 39their reckoning for the tribe of Dan sixty-two thousand seven hundred. 40For the sons of Asher, those born to them, by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army, 41their reckoning for the tribe of Asher forty-one thousand five hundred. 42The sons of Naphtali, those born to them by their clans, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, from twenty years old up, everyone who went out in the army, 43their reckoning for the tribe of Naphtali, fifty-three thousand four hundred. 44These are the reckonings that Moses, and Aaron and the chieftains of Israel, made, twelve men, one man for each father’s house they were. 45And all the Israelites who were reckoned by their fathers’ houses, from twenty years old and up, everyone who went out in the army in Israel, 46all the reckonings came to six hundred three thousand five hundred and fifty. 47And the Levites by the tribe of their fathers were not reckoned in their midst. 48And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 49“But the tribe of Levi you shall not reckon, and their heads you shall not count in the midst of the Israelites. 50And you, make the Levites reckon with the Tabernacle of the Covenant and with all its furnishings and with all that belongs to it. They it is who shall bear the Tabernacle and all its furnishings, and they shall serve it, and around the Tabernacle they shall camp. 51And when the Tabernacle journeys onward, the Levites shall take it down, and when the Tabernacle camps, the Levites shall set it up, and the stranger who draws near shall be put to death. 52And the Israelites shall camp each man with his camp and each man with his banner by their battalions. 53And the Levites shall camp around the Tabernacle of the Covenant, that there be no fury against the community of Israelites, and the Levites shall keep watch over the Tabernacle of the Covenant. 54And the Israelites did as all that the LORD had charged Moses, thus did they do.
CHAPTER 1 NOTES
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1. in the Wilderness. The Hebrew word represented by these three English words—bemidbar—is the prevalent Hebrew title for the book. Numbers, the topical title, derives from the Greek rubric as well as a Hebrew equivalent that appears in the Talmud. In this case, the convention of selecting the first significant word in the text as title fortuitously produces an apt characterization of the book, which is all about Wilderness wanderings and trials and upheavals in that liminal space for the nation in the making.
on the first of the second month in the second year. The Tabernacle was completed one month earlier (Exodus 40:17). Now, after the Priestly legislation that constitutes the Book of Leviticus, and which is not tied to a specific date, the narrative turns its attention outward from the sanctuary to the people and to the organization of a census.
2. Count the heads. Literally, “lift the heads.” The word for “head” at the end of this verse is not, as here, roʾsh but gulgolet, which means “poll” and also “skull.”
their fathers’ houses. The Hebrew beyt ʾav, which some render as “patriarchal house,” designates a social unit considerably larger than a nuclear family. The “clan” (mishpaḥah) would involve a large extended family, or several households of kinfolk. The most reasonable inference—there are differing opinions—is that the beyt ʾav encompassed a number of clans, as verse 4 here may suggest, since the head of a beyt ʾav is chosen as representative of the whole tribe.
3. everyone who goes out in the army. That is, every male eligible for military service. The purpose of the census here is to organize a general military conscription. The journeying from Sinai through the wilderness toward the promised land, about to be initiated after the completion of the Tabernacle in the second year of the Exodus, will necessarily be an extended military campaign. Thus, the Israelite males are to be counted “by their battalions.”
you shall reckon them. The root p-q-d, which is used again and again in connection with the census, is an all-purpose verb that variously means “to muster,” “to tally,” “to single out,” “to pay special attention to,” “to requite,” “to appoint,” and more. The first two of these meanings are the ones strictly relevant to our passage. This translation uses “reckon” precisely because it is an English term not restricted to one semantic field and thus able to suggest something of the overlapping senses of the Hebrew verb.
5. And these are the names. Jacob Milgrom notes that scarcely any of the names of the tribal representatives appear elsewhere in biblical literature and that none shows the theophoric suffix yah. He infers from this that the list reflects an authentically ancient tradition.
10. for the sons of Joseph. In keeping with Jacob’s deathbed promise to Joseph that Joseph’s two sons would be as his own sons, the descendants of the two sons of Joseph are given tribal status (and are elsewhere designated as “half-tribes”). Since the tribe of Levi will not be included in the census or the conscription, this device preserves the number of twelve for the tribes.
16. kin-groups. Although there is scholarly consensus that the Hebrew term ʾelef (in numerical contexts, “a thousand”) indicates a group of kinfolk, the size and configuration of the group and its relation to father’s house and clan remain uncertain.
18. affiliated. The unusual Hebrew verb, a reflexive form of the root that means “to give birth,” is interpreted by Rashi, and confirmed by modern scholarship, to have the sense of sorting out birth lines or pedigrees.
21. their reckoning. Although the Hebrew pequdim may look like a past participle (“those reckoned”), this form is also used to express an abstraction. Compare zequnim, “old age,” from the root z-q-n, “to be old.”
44. These are the reckonings. The verb of which this noun is object (“made”) is a cognate to the accusative in the Hebrew, paqad, “reckoned.”
49. But. The Hebrew ʾakh has a focusing and emphatic effect as well as an adversative sense—“yet,” “only.”
50. make the Levites reckon with the Tabernacle. The obvious sense of the verb is “to appoint” or “to install,” but the Hebrew puns on the term paqad used for the census, recasting it here in the hiphʿil or causative conjugation: you are not to reckon the Levites, but instead you must make them reckon with the Tabernacle, confer upon them the responsibility of its maintenance. The emphasis on the central role of the Levites will continue through much of the Book of Numbers.
51. the stranger who draws near. As is always the case in specifically cultic contexts, “stranger,” zar, has the technical meaning of anyone unfit to enter the sanctum, that is, a layman.
52. banner. This is the consensus of postbiblical Hebrew tradition for understanding the term degel. But Baruch Levine summons considerable comparative Semitic evidence, seconded by the Aramaic Targums, to argue that degel actually designates a “sociomilitary unit” (perhaps something like “regiment”?). It is also possible that a banner used to identify the military unit then became interchangeable through metonymy with the unit—roughly, the way “regimentals” in English came to be the term for the uniform of the regiment.
53. that there be no fury. The Hebrew term for “fury,” qetsef, means, at least etymologically, “foam,” as in a mouth foaming with rage. The fury in question is God’s punitive fury that would be triggered by any violation of the sacred space of the sanctuary.
the Levites shall keep watch. The Hebrew again has a cognate accusative, shamru mishmeret. Some understand the meaning to be that the Levites will attend to all the necessary maintenance of the Tabernacle, and mishmeret does sometimes have that meaning. But given the fact that the assignment of the Levites to the Tabernacle is in lieu of military service, and given the just stated need for them to ward off the unfit and thus prevent the unleashing of God’s fury, the sense of a military watch or vigil seems more likely: the Levites are cast as a kind of elite corps guarding the sanctuary.