וּפְקוּדֵ֕י מִשְׁפְּחֹ֖ת בְּנֵ֣י מְרָרִ֑י לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֖ם לְבֵ֥ית אֲבֹתָֽם
Those who were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by their fathers' houses,
World English Bible · Public Domain
Numbers 4:42
Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) Numbers 4:42 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
Those who were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by their fathers' houses,
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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
Those who were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by their fathers' houses,
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King James Version Public Domain
And those that were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, throughout their families, by the house of their fathers,
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And the counted ones of the clans of the sons of Merari, according to their clans, according to the house of their fathers,
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
Those who were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by their fathers' houses,
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Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
And the Merarites were numbered by their clans and families,
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Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
And the Merarites were numbered by their clans and families,
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King James Version Public Domain
And those that were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, throughout their families, by the house of their fathers,
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American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
And those that were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by their fathers' houses,
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Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
And those that were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by their fathers’ houses,
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Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
The nombers also of the families of the sonnes of Merari by their families, and by the houses of their fathers,
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Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
The sons of Merari also were numbered by the kindreds and houses of their fathers,
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Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
And those numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by the house of their fathers,
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Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
And those numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by the house of their fathers,
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Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
The descendants of Merari were counted in their clans by their ancestor's families,
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And the counted ones of the clans of the sons of Merari, according to their clans, according to the house of their fathers,
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Darby Bible Public Domain
And those that were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, after their families, according to their fathers' houses,
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World Messianic Bible Public Domain
Those who were counted of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by their fathers’ houses,
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Webster's Bible Public Domain
And those that were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, throughout their families, by the house of their fathers,
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Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
The families of Merari were counted, according to their family and father's line,
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Bible in Basic English Public Domain
And those of the sons of Merari who were numbered by families, in the order of their fathers' houses,
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JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
And those that were numbered of the families of the sons of Merari, by their families, by their fathers' houses,
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
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מְרָרִ֑י
Mᵉrârîy
H4847
“Merari”
Noun, Proper
- Appears 39× in the Hebrew Bible
- First appears at Genesis 46:11
- Part of Speech
- Noun
- Type
- Proper
Full BDB Definition
Merari = "bitter"
- the 3rd son of Levi and head of a Levitical family
- וּפְקוּדֵ֕י pâqad H6485 “and · visited” Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Participle Passive, Masculine, Plural, Construct
- מִשְׁפְּחֹ֖ת mishpâchâh H4940 “families of” Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct
- בְּנֵ֣י bên H1121 “sons of” Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct
- מְרָרִ֑י Mᵉrârîy H4847 “Merari” Noun, Proper
- לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֖ם mishpâchâh H4940 “to/for · families · their” Preposition + Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural
- לְבֵ֥ית bayith H1004 “to/for · house of” Preposition + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct
- אֲבֹתָֽם ʼâb H1 “fathers · their” Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural
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
- 6
- distinct lemmas
- Pentateuch
- section
Shared distinctive vocabulary
מְרָרִ֑י Merari H4847 occurs in 38 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
- 1 verb
- 6 nouns
Verb forms
- וּפְקוּדֵ֕י Qal · Participle Passive
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
- מִשְׁפְּחֹ֖ת family H4940 ×2
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 22 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 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.
ἐπισκέπτω δέ καί δῆμος υἱός μεραρι κατά δῆμος αὐτός κατά οἶκος πατριά αὐτός
And also the family of the sons of Merari were numbered according to their divisions, according to the house of their fathers;
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)
וּמִנְיָנֵי זַרְעֲיַת בְּנֵי מְרָרִי לְזַרְעֲיַתְהוֹן לְבֵית אֲבָהַתְהוֹן
(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)
וּמִנְיַן סְכוּמֵי גְנִיסַת בְּנֵי מְרָרִי לִגְנִיסַתְהוֹן לְבֵית אֲבָהַתְהוֹן
And the numbers of the Beni Merari, by the families of their father's house,
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 7 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Mᵉrârîy (“Merari”). Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Discussion questions
- What does “Merari” (Mᵉrârîy) contribute to the verse as a whole?
- Genesis 46:11 shares the word «Merari» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
- “family” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
- These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
- The verb «וּפְקוּדֵ֕י» is Qal Participle Passive. How does its form color the action?
Things to notice
- This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 13 Greek words.
- These translations choose different wording for 10 words in this verse.
- “family” occurs 2× in this single verse.
- 6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.
Commentary
Notes on Numbers 4:42 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 →
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.