🔢WEB · Numbers 1:34
What does Numbers 1:34 mean?
"Of the children of Manasseh, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;"
— Numbers 1:34 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Zebulun, were fifty-seven thousand four hundred.
Of the children of Joseph, of the children of Ephraim, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;
those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Ephraim, were forty thousand five hundred.
Of the children of Manasseh, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;
those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Manasseh, were thirty-two thousand two hundred.
Of the children of Benjamin, their generations, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;
those who were counted of them, of the tribe of Benjamin, were thirty-five thousand four hundred.
Explanation
This verse is one line within a long, repetitive census list found in the opening chapter of Numbers. In plain language, it says that the tribe of Manasseh was counted according to their family lines and ancestral households, and that every man twenty years old and older who was fit for military service was numbered by name. The verse itself doesn't give the final total (that comes in verse 35), but it describes the method and criteria used for the count: age, lineage, and physical capability for war.
The context is essential to understanding why this verse exists. Numbers opens shortly after Israel's exodus from Egypt, while the nation is camped in the wilderness of Sinai, roughly a year after leaving Egypt. God commands Moses, assisted by Aaron and a leader from each tribe, to take a census of all Israelite men able to fight, tribe by tribe. This wasn't a modern population count for its own sake — it was preparation for the journey toward the Promised Land, which would require organized military strength to face the nations already living there. Manasseh, along with his brother Ephraim, descended from Joseph, and by this point had grown into a
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