Numbers 13:12

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 hapax legomenon — only here in the Hebrew Bible
2 first appearances in the Hebrew Bible
Septuagint runs longer here — compare

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Word by word

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גְּמַלִּֽי

Gᵉmallîy

H1582

“Gemalli”

Noun, Proper

Appears 1× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: probably from H1581

TWOT: None

Gemalli = "camel driver" - the father of Ammiel, the Danite spy

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

5: words
5: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

1 hapax legomenon — a word that appears only here in the entire Hebrew Bible:

גְּמַלִּֽי Gemalli H1582

First appearance in Scripture

These words make their first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

עַמִּיאֵ֖ל Ammiel H5988
גְּמַלִּֽי Gemalli H1582

Shared distinctive vocabulary

עַמִּיאֵ֖ל Ammiel H5988 occurs in 6 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

5 nouns

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 15 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably longer here. See the side-by-side →

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 5 Hebrew tokens and 6 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably longer than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 15 words vs World English Bible 10. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Numbers 13:12 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

לְמַטֵּ֣ה דָ֔ן עַמִּיאֵ֖ל בֶּן גְּמַלִּֽי

Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 13:12 Septuagint · lemma form

ὁ φυλή δαν αμιηλ υἱός γαμαλι

Of the tribe of Joseph of the sons of Manasse, Gaddi the son of Susi.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

לְשִׁבְטָא דְדָן עַמִיאֵל בַּר גְמַלִי

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

לְשִׁבְטָא דְדָן עַזְגָד עַמִיאֵל בַּר גְמַלִי

for Dan, Ammiel bar Gemmalli;

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Numbers 13:12 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

John Gill's Exposition

And see the land what it is, and the people that dwelleth therein,.... The situation and condition of the country, and the nature, temper, disposition, and constitution of the inhabitants, by which it might be judged whether it was a desirable thing to possess it, and whether it was practicable to subdue and take it:

whether they be strong or weak, few or many; whether able-bodied men fit for war, and of spirit, strength, and courage, or feeble and pusillanimous, weak and timorous; and whether their number was small or great, by which they would be capable of judging whether they were in a state and condition to defend themselves or not, and whether a conquest of them was easy or not; the last of the two things in the preceding clause is first particularly explained and enlarged upon, as is usual in the Hebrew language.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Sceptre. Hebrew matte, means also "a tribe."

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 5 words (5 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Gᵉmallîy (“Gemalli”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Gemalli” (Gᵉmallîy) shape what this verse is saying?
1 word here appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Why might the author reach for such rare wording?
2 words make their first appearance in Scripture here. What does this debut establish?
How does 2 Samuel 9:4, which shares the word «Ammiel», read alongside this verse?
The Septuagint runs longer here than the Hebrew. What might account for the difference?
Compare how John Gill's Exposition and Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word in this verse appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.
2 words make their first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 5 Hebrew ↔ 6 Greek words.
5 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 5 words in this verse.