What Does Numbers 1:37 Mean in the King James?
Those that were numbered of them, even of the tribe of Benjamin, were thirty and five thousand and four hundred.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew for “numbered” also means mustered or appointed, so this figure is a roll call that makes Benjamin visible within Israel’s ordered assembly.
THE MEANING
The verse makes Benjamin visible within the whole: thirty-five thousand four hundred are counted as one tribe among the people. Benjamin means “son of the right hand,” so the name and number together hold the tribe’s identity and its concrete place in the assembly.
THE ROOT
פְּקֻדֵיהֶם
peqûdêhem
GROWS FROM
פקד
To attend to, appoint, muster, or reckon.
The word translated “numbered” comes from פקד, whose range includes counting, mustering, and attending to someone. The tally is more than a total: it records a people gathered and accounted for within the assembly.
ALSO GROWS
paqad: To attend to, appoint, muster, or reckon.
פָּקַד
This verb’s range shows how counting can also mean gathering people for an appointed place or duty.
pequddah: Appointment, charge, muster, or registration.
פְּקֻדָּה
This related noun connects the count to a recorded charge or muster, bringing a sense of ordered responsibility into the verse.
THE PATTERN
Counting makes a people visible as an identified part of a larger whole.
He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)THE THREAD
When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.“Numberest” here uses פקד, the same Hebrew root behind “numbered” in this verse. The shared root lets the tally read as a muster and accounting of people, not only a figure on a page.
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