1And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2“Every man by his banner with standards for his father’s house, shall the Israelites camp opposite, round the Tent of Meeting they shall camp.” 3And those that camp to the very east, the banner of the camp of Judah by its divisions, and the chieftain of the Judahites, Nahshon son of Amminadab. 4And his division and those reckoned with them, seventy-four thousand six hundred. 5And those camped by him, the tribe of Issachar, and the chieftain of the Issacharites, Nethanel son of Zuar. 6And his division and those reckoned with it, fifty-four thousand four hundred. 7The tribe of Zebulun, and the chieftain of the Zebulunites Eliab son of Helon. 8And his division and those reckoned with it, seventy-five thousand four hundred. 9All the reckoning for the camp of Judah one hundred eighty-six thousand four hundred by their divisions. They shall journey first. 10The banner of the camp of Reuben to the south by their divisions, and the chieftain of the Reubenites Elizur son of Shedeur. 11And his division and those reckoned with it, forty-six thousand five hundred. 12And those who camped by him, the tribe of Simeon, and the chieftain of the Simeonites Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai. 13And his division and their reckoning, fifty-nine thousand three hundred. 14And the tribe of Gad, and the chieftain of the Gadites Eliasaph son of Reuel. 15And his division and their reckoning with them, forty-five thousand six hundred and fifty. 16All the reckoning for the camp of Reuben, one hundred fifty thousand four hundred and fifty by their divisions. And they shall journey second. 17And the Tent of Meeting, the camp of the Levites, shall journey in the midst of the camps. As they camp, so shall they journey, each in his own place, by their banners. 18The banner of the camp of Ephraim by their divisions to the west, and the chieftain of the Ephraimites Elishama son of Ammihud. 19And his division and their reckoning, forty thousand five hundred. 20And by him the camp of Manasseh, and the chieftain of the Manassehites Gamaliel son of Pedahzur. 21And his division and those reckoned with it thirty-two thousand two hundred. 22And the tribe of Benjamin, and the chieftain of the Benjaminites Abidan son of Gideoni. 23And his division and their reckoning thirty-five thousand four hundred. 24And the reckoning for the camp of Ephraim one hundred eight thousand one hundred by their divisions. And they shall journey third. 25The banner of the camp of Dan to the north by their divisions, and the chieftain of the Danites Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai. 26And his division and their reckoning, sixty-two thousand seven hundred. 27And those who camped by him, the tribe of Asher, and the chieftain of the Asherites Pagiel son of Ochran. 28And his division and their reckoning forty-one thousand five hundred. 29And the tribe of Naphtali, and the chieftain of the Naphtalites Ahira son of Enan. 30And his division and their reckoning, fifty-three thousand four hundred. 31All the reckoning for the camp of Dan one hundred fifty-seven thousand six hundred. They shall journey last by their banners. 32These are the reckonings of the Israelites by their fathers’ houses, all the reckonings of the camps by their divisions, six hundred three thousand five hundred and fifty. 33But the Levites were not reckoned in the midst of the Israelites, as the LORD had charged Moses. 34And the Israelites did as all that the LORD had charged Moses, thus they camped by their banners and thus they journeyed, each man by his clans, together with his father’s house.
CHAPTER 2 NOTES
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2. Every man by his banner with standards for his father’s house. After the preceding census lists, which provide the names of the tribal chieftains and then the head count of each of the tribes, with a stress on the census as a means of implementing military conscription, we are given a plan for the marching order of the Israelite forces, each tribe a military unit carrying its distinctive insignia.
round the Tent of Meeting they shall camp. The marching formation is a protective square, meant to ward off potential assaults from all directions, with the Tent of Meeting, the sacred locus of encounter between God and Moses and the site of the cult, inside the square.
3. to the very east. The Hebrew uses two successive synonyms for “east” (a procedure not followed for the other three directions), evidently with an effect of emphasis.
by its divisions. The Hebrew tseva’ot (singular tsavaʾ) has elsewhere been rendered as “battalions” in order to convey the martial force of the term. In the present context, however, “battalion” would be too small a unit because the numbers involved run into tens of thousands, and hence “division” seems a better English approximation.
4. those reckoned with them. Although the language for each of the tribes is unvarying boilerplate, as befits a list of this sort, in some instances the text says “reckoned with them” and in some “reckoned with him.” Abraham ibn Ezra rightly notes that there is no difference of meaning whatever—biblical Hebrew indifferently construes collectives as singular or plural. Similarly, the term rendered throughout in this passage as “fathers’ houses” is literally “fathers’ house,” though if linguistic usage followed logic, which it very often does not, the phrase would be either “fathers’ houses” or “father’s house.”
9. They shall journey first. Baruch Levine is surely right in arguing that here the verb “journey” (yisaʿu) has the military sense of “march.” But, by and large, biblical Hebrew adopts general terms for technical usages rather than coining specialized technical terms—compare “reckoned” for “mustered”—and this translation seeks to preserve that effect.
14. Reuel. In 1:14, 7:42, and 10:20, this name appears as “Deuel.” The letters indicating d and r are similar in form and hence there are sometimes scribal errors in transcribing them. The more likely form is Reuel.
17. the Tent of Meeting, the camp of the Levites. In the received Hebrew text, these two phrases appear to be in apposition, yielding a rather curious characterization of the Tent of Meeting. The second phrase is best understood as standing in a relation of metonymy to the first: the camp of the Levites surrounds the Tent of Meeting, serving as a protective extension to it and thus borrowing its name. This formulation sustains the notion put forth in 1:50–53 that the Levites fulfill a kind of military function in guarding the Tent of Meeting against all incursions. Thus in the marching plan for the army, the Levites inside the square act as an elite corps or palace guard.
33. But the Levites were not reckoned in the midst of the Israelites. This notation is in keeping with the differential instruction concerning the Levites in 1:49. The military role of the Levites is to serve as guards of the sanctuary, and as such they are not counted in the muster of the army that is assembled to confront external threats.