Numbers 26:2 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Numbers 26:2
Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, from twenty years old and upward, throughout their fathers’ house, all that are able to go to war in Israel.
father · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
house
לְבֵ֣יתle.Veit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
go
יֹצֵ֥אyo.Tze'
H3318
to go (causatively · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
war
צָבָ֖אtza.Va'
H6635
a mass of persons (or figuratively · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Israel
בְּיִשְׂרָאֵֽלbe.Yis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · preposition + proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Exodus 38:25-26 And the silver of them that were numbered of the congregation was an hundred talents, and a thousand seven hundred and threescore and fiftee…
Numbers 1:2-3 Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of t…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Numbers 26:1-4
Observe here, 1. That Moses did not number the people but when God commanded him. David in his time did it without a command, and paid dearly for it. God was Israel's king, and he would not have this act of authority done but by his express orders. Moses, perhaps, by this time, had heard of the blessing with which Balaam was constrained, sorely against his will, to bless Israel, and particularly the notice he took of their numbers; and he was sufficiently pleased with that general testimony borne to this instance of their strength and honour by an adversary, though he knew not their numbers exactly, till God now appointed him to take the sum of them. 2. Eleazar was joined in commission with…
Take the sum of all the congregation--The design of this new census, after a lapse of thirty-eight years, was primarily to establish the vast multiplication of the posterity of Abraham in spite of the severe judgments inflicted upon them; secondarily, it was to preserve the distinction of families and to make arrangements, preparatory to an entrance into the promised land, for the distribution of the country according to the relative population of the tribes.
John Gill on Numbers 26:2
Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel,.... Excepting the Levites, who were to be numbered by themselves, and at a different age; this sum was to be taken, that it might appear that all of the old generation that came out of Egypt, of the age at which this sum was taken, were now dead, excepting two, as the Lord had threatened; and partly that as they were now about to enter the land of Canaan, it might be divided to them according to their number; as well as to show the faithfulness of God to his word and promise, that he would multiply and make them fruitful, notwithstanding all their provoking sins and transgressions:
from twenty years old and upwards, throughout…
After Scripture has indicated that the people arrived at the border established by God, God again asks for a census of the men suitable for military service. For, since the fathers who had been counted previously had died, their sons are summoned for a census. David attests that the Lord said, "If they shall enter into my rest" and what follows. Their sons were the type of the faithful people who receive Christ, the end of the law.There is a spiritual stain of blood that is also circumcision, as Paul attests: "For we," he says, "are the circumcision, as many of us as worship God in spirit." And again, "You have been circumcised without the ministry of hands." Joshua is the type of these men, for he circumcises those who came after him. But because that circumcision was not the true one, Scripture says elsewhere, "Cut away the hardness of your hearts." So Moses counts the sons of the dead but not in the way it had been done previously—that is, first counting the tribes that come from free women and then those born of slave women. He has no reason to distinguish these two sorts. He first enumerates the five sons of Leah, apart from the beloved tribe of Levi, since that tribe is destined to have its own place, namely, that of sacred ministry. Then he counts Gad and Asher, sons of the slave girl. Then he counts the three sons of the free woman Rachel, among whom he first counts the sons of Joseph, according to the order of their generation: Manasseh and Ephraim, and then Rachel's last son, Benjamin. To these he adds the sons of the slave girl, Dan and Naphtali. He has before his eyes the union of Israel, who was led by the spirit of servitude, and us, who are called through adoption into the spirit of freedom. Thus the words of Moses, "The nations rejoiced with this people." And the Savior said, "There will be one flock and one shepherd." The numbers of the remaining tribes decreased from the previous census, but the tribe of Levi increased. For the elect people always grows, while the people opposed to them diminishes.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Host — An entertainer (Rom. 16:23); a tavern-keeper, the keeper of a caravansary (Luke 10:35). In warfare, a troop or military force. This consisted at first only of infantry. Solomon afterwards added…
Jarib — An adversary. (1.) A son of Simeon (1 Chr. 4:24). (2.) One of the chiefs sent by Ezra to bring up the priests to Jerusalem (Ezra 8:16). (3.) Ezra 10:18.
Law of Moses — Is the whole body of the Mosaic legislation (1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 23:25; Ezra 3:2). It is called by way of eminence simply “the Law” (Heb. Torah, Deut. 1:5; 4:8, 44; 17:18, 19; 27:3, 8). As a written…
Sacrifice — The offering up of sacrifices is to be regarded as a divine institution. It did not originate with man. God himself appointed it as the mode in which acceptable worship was to be offered to him by…
Armies · E — E
Desert, Journey Of Israel Through The · Third numbering — Third numbering
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on Numbers 26:1-7
And it came to pass after the plague. This is the second census which we read of having been made by Moses; nevertheless it is easy to perceive, from Exodus 38, that it was at least the third; although it is more probable that either yearly, or at stated times, those who had arrived at the age of twenty gave in their names. Still the number of the people could not be thus obtained, unless there were also a comparison of the deaths. This, at any rate, is incontrovertible, that those who had grown up to manhood were three times numbered in the desert, for we gather thus much from the passage before us, since it is said in the fourth verse that this enrolment was made "as the Lord had commanded…
Mustering of the Twelve Tribes. - Num 26:1-4. The command of God to Moses and Eleazar is the same as in Num 1, 2, and 3, except that it does not enter so much into details.
Num 26:3-4
"And Moses and Eleazar the priest spake with them" (דּבּר with the accusative, as in Gen 37:4). The pronoun refers to "the children of Israel," or more correctly, to the heads of the nation as the representatives of the congregation, who were to carry out the numbering. On the Arboth-Moab, see at Num 22:1. Only the leading point in their words is mentioned, viz., "from twenty years old and upwards" (sc., shall ye take the number of the children of Israel), since it was very simple to supply the words "take the…
After nearly forty years, Israel again registered their men of military age (cp. chs 1–4) as they camped on the plains of Moab . . . across from Jericho. The overall population had changed only slightly, with 603,550 in the first registration and 601,730 in the second. This nearly complete replacement of population (26:63-65) showed that the Lord was faithful to Israel in spite of their repeated acts of rebellion.
26:1-4 As in the first registration, Moses and Eleazar (who had replaced Aaron) instructed the tribal leaders in the tabulation process.
Rashi on Numbers 26:2
לבית אבתם [TAKE THE SUM OF THE CONGREGATION] ACCORDING TO THEIR FATHERS’ HOUSE — after their fathers’ tribes shall they reckon their descent, and not after their mothers’ (Bava Batra 109b).
