Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Bilang 2:27

לבני יוסף לאפרים, “For the children of Joseph,- for Ephrayim;” after the Torah had first enumerated all the sons of Leah it now turns to the sons of Rachel, mentioning Ephrayim ahead of Menashe the older seeing Yaakov had blessed Ephrayim first on is deathbed (compare Genesis 48,20). Afterwards the Torah mentioned the descendants of Binyamin. Although born last, the Torah honoured the memory of Rachel by mentioning him ahead of the sons of the maidservants. When listing the four sons of the maidservants, the Torah begins with Dan who was the senior of those four sons, whereas the Torah lists Asher next seeing that he was encamped next to Dan (compare 2,27). Next the Torah lists Gad who was the older of the sons of Zilpah. Next to him was Naftali.

לדן, “of Dan;” he is mentioned first among the four sons of the concubines, as he was the firstborn among them. Asher is mentioned next to him, as his tribe was the leading one in the group of tribes encamped around his flag. (Numbers 2,27) This is followed by Gad, who was the firstborn son of Leah’s servant maid.

מקל לבנה, the reason why the letter ק in the word מקל has the vowel patach instead of the vowel tzeyreh, as we might have expected, is because it is in a construct form to the word לבנה, the tree that this staff was cut from. We encounter a similar construction for the same reason in Leviticus 27,32 where the Torah speaks of Ma-assar bakar instead of ma-asser bakar, “tithe of the cattle.” The word מעשר is in a construct form to the word בקר. We find a similar construction in Jeremiah 6,26 with the expressionמספד תמרורים, as well as in Amos 5,16 and Numbers 18,26 and Numbers 22,27.