Discovery BoxNumbers 1:2 
Context1:2 “Take a census 1 of the entire 2 Israelite community 3 by their clans and families, 4 counting the name of every individual male. 5
Numbers 4:34
Context4:34 So Moses and Aaron and the leaders of the community numbered the Kohathites by their families and by clans,
Numbers 8:9
Context8:9 You are to bring the Levites before the tent of meeting and assemble the entire community of the Israelites.
Numbers 10:3
Context10:3 When 6 they blow 7 them both, all the community must come 8 to you to the entrance of the tent of meeting.
Numbers 14:5
Context14:5 Then Moses and Aaron fell down with their faces to the ground 9 before the whole assembled community 10 of the Israelites.
Numbers 15:33
Context15:33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and to the whole community.
Numbers 15:36
Context15:36 So the whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, 11 just as the Lord commanded Moses.
Numbers 20:2
Context20:2 And there was no water for the community, and so they gathered themselves together against Moses and Aaron.
Numbers 20:27
Context20:27 So Moses did as the Lord commanded; and they went up Mount Hor in the sight 12 of the whole community.
Numbers 20:29
Context20:29 When all the community saw that Aaron was dead, the whole house of Israel mourned for Aaron thirty days.
Numbers 27:16
Context27:16 “Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all humankind, 13 appoint 14 a man over the community,
Numbers 31:13
Context31:13 Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the community went out to meet them outside the camp.
Numbers 32:2
Context32:2 the Gadites and the Reubenites came and addressed Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the leaders of the community. They said,
Numbers 32:4
Context32:4 the land that the Lord subdued 15 before the community of Israel, is ideal for cattle, and your servants have cattle.”
Numbers 35:24
Context35:24 then the community must judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood according to these decisions.
1 tn The construction is literally “lift up the head[s],” (שְׂאוּ אֶת־רֹאשׁ, sÿ’u ’et-ro’sh). This idiom for taking a census occurs elsewhere (Exod 30:12; Lev 5:24; Num 1:24; etc.). The idea is simply that of counting heads to arrive at the base for the standing army. This is a different event than the one recorded in Exod 30:11-16, which was taken for a different purpose altogether. The verb is plural, indicating that Moses had help in taking the census.
2 tc Smr lacks the Hebrew word “all” here.
3 tn Heb “the congregation of Israel.”
4 tn The tribe (מַטֶּה, matteh or שֵׁבֶט, shevet) is the main category. The family groups or clans (מִשְׁפְּחֹת, mishpÿkhot) and the households or families (בֵּית אֲבֹת, bet ’avot) were sub-divisions of the tribe.
5 tn This clause simply has “in/with the number of the names of every male with respect to their skulls [individually].” Counting heads, or every skull, simply meant that each person was to be numbered in the census. Except for the Levites, no male was exempt from the count.
6 tn The perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated as a temporal clause to the following similar verbal construction.
7 tn The verb תָקַע (taqa’) means “to strike, drive, blow a trumpet.”
8 tn Heb “the assembly shall assemble themselves.”
9 sn This action of Moses and Aaron is typical of them in the wilderness with the Israelites. The act shows self-abasement and deference before the sovereign
10 tn Heb “before all the assembly of the congregation.”
11 tn Heb “stoned him with stones, and he died.”
12 tn Heb “eyes.”
13 tn Heb “flesh”; cf. NAB, NIV “all mankind”; NCV “all people”; NLT “all living things.”
14 tn This is the same verb פָּקַד (paqad) that is used throughout the book for the aspect of “numbering” the people.
15 tn The verb is the Hiphil perfect of נָכָה (nakhah), a term that can mean “smite, strike, attack, destroy.”
