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 14:14

14:14 then they will tell it to the inhabitants ⁵  of this land. They have heard that you, Lord, are among this people, that you, Lord, are seen face to face, ⁶  that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them by day in a pillar of cloud and in a pillar of fire by night.

Numbers 25:18

25:18 because they bring trouble to you by their treachery with which they have deceived ⁷  you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a prince of Midian, ⁸  their sister, who was killed on the day of the plague that happened as a result of Peor.”

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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 tn The singular participle is to be taken here as a collective, representing all the inhabitants of the land.

⁶ tn “Face to face” is literally “eye to eye.” It only occurs elsewhere in Isa 52:8. This expresses the closest communication possible.

⁷ tn This is the same word as that translated “treachery.”

⁸ sn Cozbi’s father, Zur, was one of five Midianite kings who eventually succumbed to Israel (Num 31:8). When the text gives the name and family of a woman, it is asserting that she is important, at least for social reasons, among her people.