What Does Numbers 1:39 Mean in the King James?
Those that were numbered of them, even of the tribe of Dan, were threescore and two thousand and seven 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 word behind “numbered” also carries the sense of mustering and accounting for a people, giving Dan a place in an ordered whole.
THE MEANING
Dan is named as part of a larger people, with a precise count that makes its place visible. The total gathers individual lives into a shared identity, even as this line leaves their particular stories unspoken.
THE ROOT
פְּקוּדֵי
pequde
GROWS FROM
פקד
To attend to, appoint, muster, or number; here, to count as part of a census.
The word behind “numbered” is פקד (paqad), whose range includes attending to, appointing, and mustering as well as numbering. In this census, the tally is an act of accounting that locates Dan among the tribes, giving the count an administrative sense beyond a bare total.
ALSO GROWS
pequddah: Charge, oversight, appointment, or muster.
פְּקֻדָּה
This branch shows how the root can describe a people or responsibility placed under an account.
paqīd: Officer or overseer.
פָּקִיד
The related word for an official carries the root’s sense of being assigned responsibility and keeping account.
THE PATTERN
When a people is numbered, their shared presence takes a visible, accountable form.
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.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.The word translated “numberest” comes from the same פקד root as “numbered” in Numbers 1:39. The shared root lets the census carry a sense of mustering and accounting for the people, not only totaling them.
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