Numbers 3:42

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Moses numbered, as Yahweh commanded him, all the firstborn among the children of Israel.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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בְּכֹ֖ר

bᵉkôwr

H1060

“firstborn”

Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 118× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 10:15

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H1069

TWOT: 244a

firstborn, firstling - of men and women - of animals - noun of relation (figuratively)

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 →

11: words
10: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
6 nouns
3 particles

Verb forms

וַיִּפְקֹ֣ד Qal · Sequential Imperfect
צִוָּ֥ה Piel · Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 15 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 11 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.

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 3:42 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּפְקֹ֣ד מֹשֶׁ֔ה כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר צִוָּ֥ה יְהוָ֖ה אֹת֑וֹ אֶֽת כָּל בְּכֹ֖ר בִּבְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל

Moses numbered, as Yahweh commanded him, all the firstborn among the children of Israel.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 3:42 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἐπισκέπτω μωυσῆς ὅς τρόπος ἐντέλλομαι κύριος πᾶς πρωτότοκος ἐν ὁ υἱός ἰσραήλ

And Moses counted, as the Lord commanded him, every firstborn among the children of Israel.

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)

וּמְנָא משֶׁה כְּמָא דִי פַקֵיד יְיָ יָתֵהּ יָת כָּל בּוּכְרָא בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

(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)

וּמְנָא משֶׁה הֵיכְמָא דְפַקֵיד יְיָ יָתֵיהּ יַת כָּל בּוּכְרַיָא בִּבְנֵי יִשְרָאֵל

And Mosheh numbered, as the Lord commanded him,

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 3:42 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 all the firstborn males,.... For such only were ordered to be numbered, and not firstborn females:

by the number of names; which were particularly taken:

from a month old and upward; for before that time they were not sanctified to the Lord, nor subject to the redemption price:

of those that were numbered of them were twenty and two thousand two hundred and threescore and thirteen; 22,273 men; so that there were two hundred seventy three more than the Levites, Num 3:39.

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

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

all the firstborn people

"all the firstborn sons"

22,273 men

"twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three men" (See: Numbers)

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 11 words (10 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is bᵉkôwr (“firstborn”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “firstborn” (bᵉkôwr) shape what this verse is saying?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«וַיִּפְקֹ֣ד» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how John Gill's Exposition and unfoldingWord translationNotes read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 11 Hebrew ↔ 13 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
10 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.