Discovery BoxNumbers 1:3 
Context1:3 You and Aaron are to number 1 all in Israel who can serve in the army, 2 those who are 3 twenty years old or older, 4 by their divisions. 5
Numbers 3:43
Context3:43 And all the firstborn males, by the number of the names from a month old and upward, totaled 22,273.
Numbers 4:23
Context4:23 You must number them from thirty years old and upward to fifty years old, all who enter the company to do the work of the tent of meeting.
Numbers 4:30
Context4:30 You must number them from thirty years old and upward to fifty years old, all who enter the company to do the work of the tent of meeting.
Numbers 26:4
Context26:4 “Number the people 6 from twenty years old and upward, just as the Lord commanded Moses and the Israelites who went out from the land of Egypt.”
Numbers 29:18
Context29:18 and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, according to their number as prescribed,
Numbers 29:21
Context29:21 and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, according to their number as prescribed,
Numbers 29:24
Context29:24 and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, according to their number as prescribed,
Numbers 29:27
Context29:27 and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, according to their number as prescribed,
Numbers 29:30
Context29:30 and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, according to their number as prescribed,
Numbers 29:33
Context29:33 and their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bulls, for the rams, and for the lambs, according to their number as prescribed,
Numbers 29:37
Context29:37 and with their grain offering and their drink offerings for the bull, for the ram, and for the lambs, according to their number as prescribed,
Numbers 32:1
Context32:1 7 Now the Reubenites and the Gadites possessed a very large number of cattle. When they saw that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were ideal for cattle, 8
1 tn The verb (פָּקַד, paqad) means “to visit, appoint, muster, number.” The word is a common one in scripture. It has as its basic meaning the idea of “determining the destiny” of someone, by appointing, mustering, or visiting. When God “visits,” it is a divine intervention for either blessing or cursing. Here it is the taking of a census for war (see G. André, Determining the Destiny [ConBOT], 16).
2 tn The construction uses the participle “going out” followed by the noun “army.” It describes everyone “going out in a military group,” meaning serving in the army. It was the duty of every able-bodied Israelite to serve in this “peoples” army. There were probably exemptions for the infirm or the crippled, but every male over twenty was chosen. For a discussion of warfare, see P. C. Craigie, The Problem of War in the Old Testament, and P. D. Miller, “The Divine Council and the Prophetic Call to War,” VT 18 (1968): 100-107.
3 tn The text simply has “from twenty years old and higher.”
4 tn Heb “and up.”
5 tn The noun (צָבָא, tsava’) means “army” or “military group.” But the word can also be used for nonmilitary divisions of labor (Num 4:3).
6 tn “Number the people” is added here to the text for a smooth reading.
7 sn While the tribes are on the other side of Jordan, the matter of which tribes would settle there has to be discussed. This chapter begins the settlement of Israel into the tribal territories, something to be continued in Joshua. The chapter has the petitions (vv. 1-5), the response by Moses (vv. 6-15), the proposal (vv. 16-27), and the conclusion of the matter (vv. 28-42). For literature on this subject, both critical and conservative, see S. E. Loewenstein, “The Relation of the Settlement of Gad and Reuben in Numbers 32:1-38, Its Background and Its Composition,” Tarbiz 42 (1972): 12-26; J. Mauchline, “Gilead and Gilgal, Some Reflections on the Israelite Occupation of Palestine,” VT 6 (1956): 19-33; and A. Bergmann, “The Israelite Tribe of Half-Manasseh,” JPOS 16 (1936): 224-54.
8 tn Heb “the place was a place of/for cattle.”
