Numbers 1:18

1:18 and they assembled ¹  the entire community together on the first day of the second month. ²  Then the people recorded their ancestry ³  by their clans and families, and the men who were twenty years old or older were listed ⁴  by name individually,

Numbers 1:20

1:20 And they were as follows:

The descendants of Reuben, the firstborn son of Israel: According to the records of their clans and families, all the males twenty years old or older who could serve in the army were listed by name individually.

Numbers 1:22

1:22 From the descendants of Simeon: According to the records of their clans and families, all the males numbered of them ⁵  twenty years old or older who could serve in the army were listed by name individually.

Numbers 14:22

14:22 For all the people have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted ⁶  me now these ten times, ⁷  and have not obeyed me, ⁸ 

Numbers 18:15

18:15 The firstborn of every womb which they present to the Lord, whether human or animal, will be yours. Nevertheless, the firstborn sons you must redeem, ⁹  and the firstborn males of unclean animals you must redeem.

Numbers 25:6

25:6 Just then ¹⁰  one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers ¹¹  a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of ¹²  the whole community of the Israelites, while they ¹³  were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

Numbers 31:30

31:30 From the Israelites’ half-share you are to take one portion out of fifty of the people, the cattle, the donkeys, and the sheep – from every kind of animal – and you are to give them to the Levites, who are responsible for the care of the Lord’s tabernacle.”

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¹ tn The verb is the Hiphil of the root קָהַל (qahal), meaning “to call, assemble”; the related noun is an “assembly.”

² tc The LXX adds “of the second year.”

³ tn The verb is the Hitpael preterite form וַיִּתְיַלְדוּ (vayyityaldu). The cognate noun תּוֹלְדוֹת (tolÿdot) is the word that means “genealogies, family records, records of ancestry.” The root is יָלַד (yalad, “to bear, give birth to”). Here they were recording their family connections, and not, of course, producing children. The verbal stem seems to be both declarative and reflexive.

⁴ tn The verb is supplied. The Hebrew text simply has “in/with the number of names of those who are twenty years old and higher according to their skulls.”

⁵ tc Some witnesses have omitted “those that were numbered of them,” to preserve the literary pattern of the text. The omission is supported by the absence of the expression in the Greek as well as in some MT mss. Most modern commentators follow this.

⁶ tn The verb נָסָה (nasah) means “to test, to tempt, to prove.” It can be used to indicate things are tried or proven, or for testing in a good sense, or tempting in the bad sense, i.e., putting God to the test. In all uses there is uncertainty or doubt about the outcome. Some uses of the verb are positive: If God tests Abraham in Genesis 22:1, it is because there is uncertainty whether he fears the Lord or not; if people like Gideon put out the fleece and test the Lord, it is done by faith but in order to be certain of the Lord’s presence. But here, when these people put God to the test ten times, it was because they doubted the goodness and ability of God, and this was a major weakness. They had proof to the contrary, but chose to challenge God.

⁷ tn “Ten” is here a round figure, emphasizing the complete testing. But see F. V. Winnett, The Mosaic Tradition, 121-54.

⁸ tn Heb “listened to my voice.”

⁹ tn The construction uses the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of the verb “to redeem” in order to stress the point – they were to be redeemed. N. H. Snaith suggests that the verb means to get by payment what was not originally yours, whereas the other root גָאַל (ga’al) means to get back what was originally yours (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 268).

¹⁰ tn The verse begins with the deictic particle וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh), pointing out the action that was taking place. It stresses the immediacy of the action to the reader.

¹¹ tn Or “to his family”; or “to his clan.”

¹² tn Heb “before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of.”

¹³ tn The vav (ו) at the beginning of the clause is a disjunctive because it is prefixed to the nonverbal form. In this context it is best interpreted as a circumstantial clause, stressing that this happened “while” people were weeping over the sin.