וּמִֽמַּחֲצִ֖ית בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל אֲשֶׁר֙ חָצָ֣ה מֹשֶׁ֔ה מִן הָאֲנָשִׁ֖ים הַצֹּבְאִֽים
Of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided off from the men who warred
World English Bible · Public Domain
Numbers 31:42
Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) Numbers 31:42 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
Of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided off from the men who warred
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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
Of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided off from the men who warred
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King James Version Public Domain
And of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided from the men that warred,
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And from the half of the sons of Israel whom Moses had divided from the men who waged war,
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
Of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided off from the men who warred
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Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
From the Israelites’ half, which Moses had set apart from the men who had gone to war,
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Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
From the Israelites’ half, which Moses had set apart from the men who had gone to war,
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King James Version Public Domain
And of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided from the men that warred,
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American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
And of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided off from the men that warred,
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Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
And of the children of Israel’s half, which Moses divided off from the men that warred,
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Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
And of the halfe of the children of Israel, which Moses deuided from the men of warre,
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Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
Out of the half of the children of Israel, which he had separated for them that had been in the battle.
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Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
And of the sons of Israel's half, which Moses halved from the men who war --
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Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
And of the sons of Israel’s half, which Moses halved from the men who war—
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Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
As for the people of Israel's half that Moses had taken from the soldiers who had gone to war—
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And from the half of the sons of Israel whom Moses had divided from the men who waged war,
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Darby Bible Public Domain
And of the children of Israel's half, which Moses had divided, [taking it] from the men that served in the war,
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World Messianic Bible Public Domain
Of the children of Israel’s half, which Moses divided off from the men who fought
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Webster's Bible Public Domain
And of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided from the men that warred,
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Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
The Israelites' half share left after Moses had given the half share to the troops who had gone to fight,
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Bible in Basic English Public Domain
And from the half given to the children of Israel, which Moses had kept separate from that given to the fighting-men,
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JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
And of the children of Israel's half, which Moses divided off from the men that warred —
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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הַצֹּבְאִֽים
tsâbâʼ
H6633
“the · waging war”
Particle, Definite Article + Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Plural, Absolute
- Appears 14× in the Hebrew Bible
- First appears at Exodus 38:8
- Part of Speech
- Particle + Verb
- Stem
- Qal
- Form
- Participle Active
- Gender
- Masculine
- Number
- Plural
- State
- Absolute
Full BDB Definition
to go forth, wage war, fight, serve
- (Qal)
- to wage war, fight, go forth to war
- to serve (at sacred tent)
- (Hiphil) to cause to go forth, muster
- וּמִֽמַּחֲצִ֖ית machătsîyth H4276 “and · from · middle of” Conjunction + Preposition + Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct
- בְּנֵ֣י bên H1121 “sons of” Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct
- יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל Yisrâʼêl H3478 “Israel” Noun, Proper
- אֲשֶׁר֙ ʼăsher H834 “which” Particle, Relative
- חָצָ֣ה châtsâh H2673 “to divide” Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular
- מֹשֶׁ֔ה Môsheh H4872 “Moses” Noun, Proper
- מִן min H4480 “from” Preposition
- הָאֲנָשִׁ֖ים ʼîysh H376 “the · men” Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute
- הַצֹּבְאִֽים tsâbâʼ H6633 “the · waging war” Particle, Definite Article + Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, 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 →
- 9
- words
- 9
- distinct lemmas
- Pentateuch
- section
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is הַצֹּבְאִֽים to wage war H6633 — appearing just 14 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
הַצֹּבְאִֽים to wage war H6633 occurs in 12 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
- 2 verbs
- 5 nouns
- 1 preposition
- 1 particle
Verb forms
- חָצָ֣ה Qal · Perfect
- הַצֹּבְאִֽים Qal · Participle Active
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 15 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 9 Hebrew tokens and 14 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.
ἀπό ὁ ἡμίσευμα ὁ υἱός ἰσραήλ ὅς διααἱρέω μωυσῆς ἀπό ὁ ἀνήρ ὁ πολεμιστής
from the half belonging to the children of Israel, whom Moses separated from the men of war.
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)
וּמִפַּלְגוּת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל דִי פְּלַג משֶׁה מִן גוּבְרַיָא דִנְפָקוּ לְחֵילָא
(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)
וּמִפַּלְגוּת בְּנֵי יִשְרָאֵל דִי פַלֵיג משֶׁה מִן גוּבְרַיָא דִנְפָקוּ לְחֵילָא
And the half part for the children of Israel which Mosheh divided from the men's who went forth to the war,
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 9 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is tsâbâʼ (“to wage war”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Discussion questions
- How does “to wage war” (tsâbâʼ) shape what this verse is saying?
- Exodus 38:8 shares the word «to wage war» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
- These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
- The verb «חָצָ֣ה» is Qal Perfect. How does its form color the action?
- Reading how Geneva Bible (1599) and unfoldingWord translationNotes read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?
Things to notice
- This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 14 Greek words.
- These translations choose different wording for 12 words in this verse.
- 9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.
Commentary
Notes on Numbers 31:42 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 →
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
unfoldingWord translationNotes
Door43 World Missions Community
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Rashi
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)
Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.