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Journey of a Passage

Numbers 3:28

The Kohathites: 8,600 or 8,300?

Numbers counts the three Levite clans at 7,500, 8,600 and 6,200, which make 22,300, yet the total in 3:39 is 22,000. Some Greek manuscripts read 8,300 for the Kohathites, which makes the sum exact. One Hebrew letter could explain the difference.

Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Ancient revision (recension)
  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. Original NumbersUnknown (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Numbers
Samaritan
  1. Samaritan PentateuchAncient tradition; medieval copiesDescends, through lost copies, from Original Numbers
Greek
  1. Septuagint (most manuscripts)Translated c. 250 BCTranslated from a Hebrew text of the 3rd century BC
  2. Septuagint (Lucianic manuscripts)Revision c. AD 300Ancient revision of the Old Greek tradition
Latin
  1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 400Translated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

The arithmetic

Gershon + Kohath + Merari (Hebrew)
7,500 + 8,600 + 6,200 = 22,300.
Numbers 3:39
"All that were numbered of the Levites… were twenty and two thousand."
With 8,300
7,500 + 8,300 + 6,200 = 22,000, matching 3:39 and the 22,273 firstborn of 3:43, who exceed the Levites by 273 (3:46).
Rabbinic answer
The Talmud (Bekhorot 5a) keeps 8,600 and says 300 Levites were themselves firstborn, so they could not redeem others.

Every witness, in order

  1. Unknown (debated)

    Original Numbers

    – No copy survives

    No original survives.

  2. Translated c. 250 BC

    Septuagint (most manuscripts)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from a Hebrew text of the 3rd century BC

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    8,600

    Read in Giguet's French translation of the Septuagint ("huit mille six cents"). Codex Vaticanus is reported with 8,600.

  3. Revision c. AD 300

    Septuagint (Lucianic manuscripts)

    ✓ Contains this passageAncient revision of the Old Greek tradition

    How the site knows this: Reported in scholarship; not checked by the site.

    8,300

    Reported in the scholarly literature; the exact manuscript sigla still need to be confirmed in a critical apparatus of Greek Numbers.

  4. c. AD 400

    Jerome's Vulgate

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    octo millia sexcenti

    8,600.

  5. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Numbers

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    שְׁמֹנַת אֲלָפִים וְשֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת

    eight thousand and six hundred

    שֵׁשׁ, "six." Read שָׁלֹשׁ, "three," and the total becomes 22,000.

  6. Ancient tradition; medieval copies

    Samaritan Pentateuch

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Numbers

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Samaritan Pentateuch, Kennicott's 1780 text digitized by A. Sigalov.

    שמנת אלפים ושש מאות

    eight thousand and six hundred

    The same as the Masoretic Text in the site's Samaritan text.

  7. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    eight thousand and six hundred

    Follows the Hebrew.

What changed, and why

The two Hebrew words, shesh (שש, six) and shalosh (שלש, three), differ by one letter, and in early spelling shalosh could be written without its vowel letter. Many scholars think an early copyist misread one for the other, and the Lucianic Greek preserves the original. Others think the Greek revisers corrected the number to make the sum work. The Hebrew, Samaritan, Vulgate and most Greek manuscripts all read 8,600.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedThe three Levite clan counts in the Hebrew text total 22,300, not the 22,000 of 3:39.
  • Strongly supportedSome Greek manuscripts read 8,300 for the Kohathites. Manuscript sigla to be confirmed in a critical apparatus.
  • Disputed8,300 is the original reading.

Sources

Related lessons

  • The Camp and Marching Order →Israel camps in a square around the tabernacle under four tribal banners. The Levites camp in an inner ring and carry the sanctuary: Kohath the holy furniture, covered by the priests; Gershon the curtains; Merari the frames. The Levites take the place of Israel's firstborn, and the numbers in chapter 3 contain a puzzle that an ancient Greek reading may solve.
  • How Numbers Came to Us →The date of the story, the age of its traditions, the shaping of the book and the age of its copies are four different questions. Here are the answers we can give for each: Moses and the scholars, silver amulets that are not a copy of Numbers, Dead Sea Scrolls that are, a Samaritan Torah with sixteen major expansions, Greek, Latin and Syriac translations, and what remains unchecked.