Numbers 11 and Up

Five at a time, from 11 up to 3,000, then the ages in Genesis 5 and the counts in Numbers 1, piece by piece.

Numbers 11 and up: build them from pieces

In Numbers 1–10 you met one to ten, each with a form for masculine nouns and a form for feminine nouns. Bigger numbers are built from those pieces, joined with וְ “and”. Read them piece by piece, and add them up.

11 to 19 are a number from 1 to 9, then “ten”. Here “ten” has two forms of its own: עָשָׂר with a masculine noun, עֶשְׂרֵה with a feminine noun. So וַיִּהְיוּ בְנֵי־יַעֲקֹב שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר “and the sons of Jacob were twelve” (Genesis 35:22), but שְׁתֵּים עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה “twelve years” (Genesis 14:4), because שָׁנָה “year” is feminine.

16 to 19 follow the same pattern. Eleven also has a second form, עַשְׁתֵּי עָשָׂר, as in “in the eleventh month” (Deuteronomy 1:3).

The tens are the numbers 3 to 9 with the plural ending ־ִים, and twenty comes from ten. They stay the same with masculine and feminine nouns. A hundred and a thousand are words of their own:

Ages. “… years old” is בֶּן … שָׁנָה, “a son of … years”: וּמֹשֶׁה בֶּן־מֵאָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה “Moses was a hundred and twenty years old” (Deuteronomy 34:7). Genesis 5 gives the ages of the first fathers, often with the big piece first: Adam lived תְּשַׁע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה וּשְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה “nine hundred years and thirty years”, so 930 years (Genesis 5:5). After 2 to 10 the noun is plural, שָׁנִים “years”. From 11 up, “year” usually stays שָׁנָה.

Counts. Numbers 1 counts the men of Israel, tribe by tribe. The total is read the same way, piece by piece: שֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת אֶלֶף וּשְׁלֹשֶׁת אֲלָפִים וַחֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת וַחֲמִשִּׁים “six hundred thousand, and three thousand, and five hundred, and fifty”: 603,550 (Numbers 1:46).

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