וְהַ֨בָּקָ֔ר שִׁשָּׁ֥ה וּשְׁלֹשִׁ֖ים אָ֑לֶף וּמִכְסָ֥ם לַיהוָ֖ה שְׁנַ֥יִם וְשִׁבְעִֽים
The oxen were thirty-six thousand; of which Yahweh's tribute was seventy-two.
World English Bible · Public Domain
Numbers 31:38
Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) Numbers 31:38 appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. The text above is from the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Each word links to its Strong’s number, a concise gloss, and parsing drawn from the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology. Click any word for its full Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) entry.
English Translation
The oxen were thirty-six thousand; of which Yahweh's tribute was seventy-two.
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Compare translations 3
The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.
Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.
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World English Bible Public Domain
The oxen were thirty-six thousand; of which Yahweh's tribute was seventy-two.
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King James Version Public Domain
And the beeves were thirty and six thousand; of which the LORD's tribute was threescore and twelve.
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And the cattle were 36, 000 and their tax for Yahweh was 72.
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Show all 18 translations
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
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World English Bible Public Domain
The oxen were thirty-six thousand; of which Yahweh's tribute was seventy-two.
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Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
36,000 cattle, including a tribute to the LORD of 72,
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Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
36,000 cattle, including a tribute to the LORD of 72,
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King James Version Public Domain
And the beeves were thirty and six thousand; of which the LORD's tribute was threescore and twelve.
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American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
And the oxen were thirty and six thousand; of which Jehovah's tribute was threescore and twelve.
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Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
And the beeves were thirty and six thousand; of which the LORD’S tribute was threescore and twelve.
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Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
And the beeues were six and thirty thousad, whereof the Lordes tribute was seuentie and two.
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Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
And out of the thirty-six thousand oxen, seventy-two oxen:
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Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
and the herd `is' six and thirty thousand, and their tribute to Jehovah `is' two and seventy;
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Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
and the herd [is] thirty-six thousand, and their tribute to YHWH [is] seventy-two;
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Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
The oxen were thirty-six thousand which Yahweh's tax was seventy-two.
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And the cattle were 36, 000 and their tax for Yahweh was 72.
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Darby Bible Public Domain
and the oxen were thirty-six thousand, and the tribute thereof for Jehovah, seventy-two;
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World Messianic Bible Public Domain
The cattle were thirty-six thousand, of which the LORD’s tribute was seventy-two.
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Webster's Bible Public Domain
And the beeves were thirty and six thousand; of which the LORD'S tribute was seventy two.
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Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
36,000 cattle, with a Lord's contribution of 72,
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Bible in Basic English Public Domain
The number of oxen was thirty-six thousand, of which the Lord's part was seventy-two;
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JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
And the beeves were thirty and six thousand, of which the LORD'S tribute was threescore and twelve.
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
Word by word
More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →
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וּמִכְסָ֥ם
mekeç
H4371
“and · tax · their”
Conjunction + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural
- Appears 6× in the Hebrew Bible
- First appears at Numbers 31:28
- Part of Speech
- Conjunction + Noun
- Type
- Common
- Gender
- Masculine
- Number
- Singular
- State
- Construct
Full BDB Definition
computation, proportion to be paid, tribute, tax
- וְהַ֨בָּקָ֔ר bâqâr H1241 “and · the · cattle” Conjunction + Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Absolute
- שִׁשָּׁ֥ה shêsh H8337 “six” Adjective, Cardinal number, Masculine, Singular, Absolute
- וּשְׁלֹשִׁ֖ים shᵉlôwshîym H7970 “and · thirty” Conjunction + Adjective, Cardinal number, Both, Plural, Absolute
- אָ֑לֶף ʼeleph H505 “thousand” Adjective, Cardinal number, Both, Singular, Absolute
- וּמִכְסָ֥ם mekeç H4371 “and · tax · their” Conjunction + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural
- לַיהוָ֖ה Yᵉhôvâh H3068 “to/for · LORD” Preposition + Noun, Proper
- שְׁנַ֥יִם shᵉnayim H8147 “two” Adjective, Cardinal number, Masculine, Dual, Absolute
- וְשִׁבְעִֽים shibʻîym H7657 “and · seventy” Conjunction + Adjective, Cardinal number, Both, Plural, Absolute
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 וּמִכְסָ֥ם tax H4371 — appearing just 6 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
וּמִכְסָ֥ם tax H4371 occurs in 6 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
- 3 nouns
- 5 adjectives
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 11 words from the Hebrew and 14 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 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.
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.
καί βοῦς ἕξ καί τριάκοντα χιλιάς καί ὁ τέλος κύριος δύο καί ἑβδομήκοντα
And the oxen, six and thirty thousand, and the tribute to the Lord seventy-two.
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.
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Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)
וְתוֹרֵי תְּלָתִין וְשִׁתָּא אַלְפִין וּנְסֵיבְהוֹן קֳדָם יְיָ שַׁבְעִין וּתְרֵין
(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.
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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)
וּסְכוּם תּוֹרֵי תְּלָתִין וְשִׁתָּא אַלְפִין וּסְכוּם נְסִיבַתְהוֹן לִשְׁמָא דַיְיָ שׁוּבְעִין וּתְרֵין
oxen thirty-six thousand, those for the Name of the Lord seventy-two;
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.
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 mekeç (“tax”). Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Discussion questions
- How does “tax” (mekeç) shape what this verse is saying?
- How does Numbers 31:28, which shares the word «tax», read alongside this verse?
- These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
Things to notice
- This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 13 Greek words.
- These translations choose different wording for 19 words in this verse.
- 8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.