Numbers 3:17

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

These were the sons of Levi by their names: Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

גֵּרְשׁ֕וֹן

Gêrᵉshôwn

H1648

“Gershon”

Noun, Proper

Appears 17× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 46:11

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H1644

TWOT: None

Gershon or Gershom = "exile" - firstborn son of Levi born before Jacob's family went to Egypt

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 →

8: words
8: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is גֵּרְשׁ֕וֹן Gershon H1648 — appearing just 17 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

גֵּרְשׁ֕וֹן Gershon H1648 occurs in 17 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
6 nouns
1 pronoun

Verb forms

וַיִּֽהְיוּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

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 8 Hebrew tokens and 13 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Numbers 3:17 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 46:11 The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
Exodus 6:16–19 These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari; and the years of the life of Levi were one hundred thirty-seven years.
Numbers 15:5–23 and wine for the drink-offering, the fourth part of a hin, shall you prepare with the burnt offering, or for the sacrifice, for each lamb.
Numbers 23:6–23 He returned to him, and, behold, he was standing by his burnt-offering, he, and all the princes of Moab.
Numbers 24:1–25 When Balaam saw that it pleased Yahweh to bless Israel, he didn't go, as at the other times, to meet with enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness.
Numbers 26:57–58 These are those who were numbered of the Levites after their families: of Gershon, the family of the Gershonites; of Kohath, the family of the Kohathites; of Merari, the family of the Merarites.
Joshua 21:1–45 Then came near the heads of fathers' [houses] of the Levites to Eleazar the priest, and to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of fathers' [houses] of the tribes of the children of Israel;
1 Chronicles 6:1–2 The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

1 Chronicles 6:16–19 The sons of Levi: Gershom, Kohath, and Merari.
Nehemiah 11:1–12 The princes of the people lived in Jerusalem: the rest of the people also cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem the holy city, and nine parts in the [other] cities.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

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

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

Hebrew Numbers 3:17 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּֽהְיוּ אֵ֥לֶּה בְנֵֽי לֵוִ֖י בִּשְׁמֹתָ֑ם גֵּרְשׁ֕וֹן וּקְהָ֖ת וּמְרָרִֽי

These were the sons of Levi by their names: Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 3:17 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἰμί οὗτος ὁ υἱός λευί ἐκ ὄνομα αὐτός γεδσων κααθ καί μεραρι

And these were the sons of Levi by their names; Gedson, Caath, and Merari.

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)

וַהֲווֹ אִלֵין בְּנֵי לֵוִי בִּשְׁמָהַתְהוֹן גֵרְשׁוֹן וּקְהָת וּמְרָרִי

(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)

וַהֲווֹ אִילֵין בְּנֵי לֵוִי בִּשְׁמָהַתְהוֹן גֵרְשׁוֹן וּקְהָת וּמְרָרִי

And these were the sons of Levi by their names: Gershon, Kehath, and Merari.

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 3:17 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 →

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

17. The three sons of Levi are found only in P and the books of Chronicles, the latter being a priestly composition. To them were traced the three main divisions of the Levites in Jerusalem after the exile.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And these were the sons of Levi, by their names,.... The immediate offspring and descendants of that patriarch:

Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari; these went down with him into Egypt, Gen 46:11.

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

Names. These had been long ago dead. (Menochius)

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).

The Pulpit Commentary

These were the sons of Levi. These genealogical notices are inserted here in order to give completeness to the account of the Levites in the day of their dedication.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

General Information:

This is a list of the descendants of Levi. (See: How to Translate Names)

The clans coming from

Here the author speaks of "descending" as if it were "coming." AT: "The clans descending from" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

clan

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

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 8 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Gêrᵉshôwn (“Gershon”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Gershon” (Gêrᵉshôwn) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Genesis 46:11, which shares the word «Gershon», read alongside this verse?
«וַיִּֽהְיוּ» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 13 Greek words.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.