🔢WEB · Numbers 26:50
What does Numbers 26:50 mean?
"These are the families of Naphtali according to their families; and those who were counted of them were forty-five thousand four hundred."
— Numbers 26:50 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
These are the families of the sons of Asher according to those who were counted of them, fifty-three thousand and four hundred.
The sons of Naphtali after their families: of Jahzeel, the family of the Jahzeelites; of Guni, the family of the Gunites;
of Jezer, the family of the Jezerites; of Shillem, the family of the Shillemites.
These are the families of Naphtali according to their families; and those who were counted of them were forty-five thousand four hundred.
These are those who were counted of the children of Israel, six hundred one thousand seven hundred thirty.
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
“To these the land shall be divided for an inheritance according to the number of names.
Explanation
Numbers 26:50 records the final population figure for the tribe of Naphtali as part of the second wilderness census of Israel. In plain terms, it simply states that when the families descended from Naphtali were counted, tribe by clan, the total number of fighting-age men came to 45,400. This is a straightforward statistical summary closing out the section on Naphtali within a much longer chapter that counts every tribe of Israel.
The context is important for understanding why this verse exists at all. Numbers 26 records a census taken near the end of the forty years of wilderness wandering, shortly before Israel was to enter the Promised Land. Moses, along with Eleazar the priest (who had succeeded his father Aaron), conducted this count at God's command on the plains of Moab. This census served a specific purpose: the generation that had rebelled against God at Kadesh-barnea (Numbers 14) had died in the wilderness as judgment, and this new census counted the next generation, the one that would actually cross the Jordan and take possession of the land. The listing goes t
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