🔢WEB · Numbers 1:38
What does Numbers 1:38 mean?
"Of the children of Dan, 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 1:38 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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.
Of the children of Dan, 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 Dan, were sixty-two thousand seven hundred.
Of the children of Asher, 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 Asher, were forty-one thousand five hundred.
Explanation
Numbers 1:38 is one verse within a long, repeating census formula that Moses used for each of Israel's twelve tribes. In plain language, it simply says that the descendants of Dan were counted according to their family lines and clans, and specifically that every male twenty years old and older who was fit for military service was included in the count. It is essentially a statistical note, part of a larger record-keeping process rather than a stand-alone teaching passage.
The context is the early wilderness period, shortly after Israel left Egypt and received the Law at Mount Sinai. God commanded Moses, along with Aaron and a leader from each tribe, to take a census of the whole community "by their families, by their fathers' houses" (Numbers 1:1-3). This was not a general population count but a military muster — determining how many men could serve as soldiers as Israel prepared to march toward the Promised Land. Each tribe, including Dan, receives its own verse with nearly identical wording, differing only in the tribe's name and final number. Dan was one of the largest tribes, descended from Jacob's son Dan
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