[Avodah] The Census Numbers In Bmidbar

[Jay F. Shachter]

In Avodah v43i32 someone wrote:

>
> If you look at the numbers 12 of the 13 tribes end in 00 and the 13th
> Yehuda ends with 50.
>

No, it was Gad (see Bmidbar 1:25), not Yehudah (Bmidbar 1:27)


>
> So the numbers seem to be clearly rounded and so says the Meshech
> Chochma.  However it is strange that only one tribe is rounded to
> 50.  If the Torah was rounding to the nearest 50 you would expect a
> more even distribution between 50 and 00.
>

No, the numbers (which were inherently approximate, vide infra) were
rounded to the nearest 100, except for one number which ended in 50,
which was kept at 50.  I don't know that this is true, but it is such
a simple and plausible explanation that I am satisfied with it.


>
> What is more difficult is the end of the parsha where the leviim
> redeem the first borns.  The Torah gives an exact number of first
> borns 22273 and matches it with a rounded number of leviim, 22000.
> Rashi points out that if you add up the numbers there were 22300
> leviim and therefore quotes Chazal that 300 were first borns, again
> a very suspiciously round number.  So how does that work using a
> rounded number and comparing it to an exact number?  To say that the
> numbers of leviim was exact both the total number (22300) and the
> number of first borns (300) seems to be quite difficult especially
> when all the other tribal numbers are rounded.
>

I have been hearing this question all my life, and I do not understand
why anyone has ever asked this question, because the answer is obvious.
I can only conclude that the people who have asked this question, have
not thought about it for more than 30 minutes.  Obviously a man would
normally know exactly whether or not he was a firstborn.  But how
would a man know whether he was 20 years old?  He could know that only
approximately.  Here are the 4th and 5th sentences of the
autobiography of Frederick Douglas:

 I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of
 his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time,
 harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time.

Our slave ancestors were not separated from their families the way the
African slaves in Maryland were separated from theirs, but nonetheless,
even if a man's parents told him on what day of the month he was born
(and I think that is implausible, there is no record of anyone in the
Bible except Pharaoh caring about, or even knowing, his date of birth)
and in what season he was born, how would he know whether he was born
in the 11th month or in the 12th month?  Or in the 13th month?
Obviously the number of men in a tribe who were over the age of 20 --
in contrast with the number of men in a tribe who were firstborn --
was a number that could be known only approximately.

(To what can this be compared?  To knowledge of the time of sunset,
which one can know precisely, because one can see the sun as it
touches the horizon.  In contrast, one can only know approximately the
time of peleg hamminxa.)


               Jay F. ("Yaakov") Shachter
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               When Martin Buber was a schoolboy, it must have been
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