Numbers 3:24

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The prince of the fathers' house of the Gershonites shall be Eliasaph the son of Lael.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 hapax legomenon — only here in the Hebrew Bible
1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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Word by word

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לָאֵֽל

Lâʼêl

H3815

“Lael”

Noun, Proper

Appears 1× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from the prepositional prefix and H410

TWOT: None

Lael = "belonging to God" - a Levite, father of Eliasaph and descendant of Gershon

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 →

7: words
7: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

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

לָאֵֽל Lael H3815

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

לָאֵֽל Lael H3815

Shared distinctive vocabulary

אֶלְיָסָ֖ף Eliasaph H460 occurs in 6 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

7 nouns

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 17 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

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 7 Hebrew tokens and 12 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.

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

Hebrew Numbers 3:24 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּנְשִׂ֥יא בֵֽית אָ֖ב לַגֵּרְשֻׁנִּ֑י אֶלְיָסָ֖ף בֶּן לָאֵֽל

The prince of the fathers' house of the Gershonites shall be Eliasaph the son of Lael.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 3:24 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ὁ ἄρχων οἶκος πατριά ὁ δῆμος ὁ γεδσων ελισαφ υἱός λαηλ

And the ruler of the household of the family of Gedson was Elisaph the son of Dael.

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)

וְרַב בֵּית אַבָּא לְבֵית גֵרְשׁוֹן אֶלְיָסָף בַּר לָאֵל

(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)

וְרַב בֵּית אַבָּא דַהֲוָה מִתְמַנֵי עַל תַּרְתֵּין גְנִיסְתָּא דְגֵרְשׁוֹן אֶלְיָסָף בַּר לָאֵל

and the Rab of the house of the fathers set over the two families shall be Eljasaph bar Lael.

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 3:24 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 →

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Or, father.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

John Gill's Exposition

And the chief of the house of the fathers of the Gershonites,.... Who had the chief authority over them, and the chief direction of them in what they were to do:

shall be Eliasaph the son of Lael; but who he was, or of which family of the Gershonites, whether of the Libnites or Shimites, is not said here or elsewhere; nor do the Jewish writers, who affect to know every thing, pretend to tell us.

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

CHAPTER III.

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).

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

Eliasaph ... Lael

These are the names of men. (See: How to Translate Names)

the courtyard hangings

"the curtains in the courtyard"

the courtyard that surrounds the sanctuary and the altar

"that is, the courtyard that surrounds the sanctuary and the altar"

translationWords

descend

family

curtain

tent of meeting

tent

court

sanctuary

altar

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 7 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Lâʼêl (“Lael”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Lael” (Lâʼêl) 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?
This is the first place “Lael” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Numbers 1:14, which shares the word «Eliasaph», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
Compare how Geneva Bible (1599) and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word in this verse appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.
1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 12 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.