Commento su Numeri 26:42

לשוחם OF SHUHAM — he is identical with Hushim (Genesis 46:23).

THESE ARE THE SONS OF DAN AFTER THEIR FAMILIES: [OF SHUHAM, THE FAMILY OF THE SHUHAMITES. THESE ARE THE FAMILIES OF DAN AFTER THEIR FAMILIES]. The meaning of this⁸⁰The difficulty here is that Scripture speaks of an individual [Shuham — the only son of Dan] in the plural, saying: these are ‘the families’ of Dan. is that Shuham had children who formed families which were called by the name of the [respective] fathers of the family, but they all traced back their lineage to Shuham the head [of them all], and [therefore] they were called by his name, so that one would say [for example]: “Of Daniel, the family of Daniel the Shuhamite; of Ezekiel, the family of Ezekiel the Shuhamite.” Thus [the sons of Shuham] consisted of many families, but [all identified themselves] as the one Shuhamite family, and therefore they are all ascribed to him. And according to those who say⁸¹I.e., Rashi — see Ramban above, Verse 13, at length. that the people traced their lineage [only] to those who went down to Egypt [with Jacob, we must say that] there were many families [descended from Dan] who were called by the name of their ancestor, and who were born in Egypt, and here Scripture described them [i.e., all the families of Dan’s descendants] as Shuhamites, because he [Shuham] alone [as the only son of Dan] went down to Egypt.⁸²Genesis 46:8; 23.

אלה בני דן למשפחותם, “these are the sons of Dan according to their families.” Nachmanides writes that Shuchim had many sons all of whom started families of their own, all of whom both called themselves in a manner recalling the founding father of the family, as well as reflecting in their name that of their respective immediate fathers. This is why at the end of the paragraph the Torah repeats the word משפחות twice in the line אלה משפחות דן למשפחותם, “these are the families of Dan according to their families.” According to the school of thought that claims that all these people counted traced themselves back to the members of Yaakov’s family that descended to Egypt, there must have been many families that simply called themselves by names born by their forefathers who had been born already in Egypt but that here they were all traced back to Shuchim as he was the only one of Dan’s sons who had been born before he came to Egypt.

V. 42. אלה משפחת דן למשפחתם, so auch V. 50: אלה משפחת נפתלי למשפחתם. Wir sahen schon oben, z. B. bei Menasche, dass der Begriff משפחה in engerer und weiterer Bedeutung zu fassen ist. Die משפחת המכירי faßt als Unterabteilung die משפחת הגלעדי, und diese wieder in noch fernerer Teilung noch sechs משפחות unter sich. Bedeutet doch משפחה von שפח, verwandt mit ספח ,שפע etc. eigentlich Gruppe und kann also größere und kleinere Gruppierungen bezeichnen. Von Dan ist eigentlich nur eine Familiengruppe השוחמי genannt. Diese selbst bestand schon aus verschiedenen משפחות, die sich wieder in noch ferneren משפחת verzweigte und so auch die משפחת נפתלי