ויהי אחרי המגפה, “it was after the plague had ceased, etc.” At that time G–d instructed Moses to conduct another census of the people (males between 20-60 years of age). Joshua would have to know how many soldiers he had at his disposal when commencing his conquest of the land of the Canaanites. The people had been counted twice. In this count the names of the families in each tribe are mentioned. When they had been counted in the desert of Sinai, only the tribal allegiance of each person counted had been recorded. According to the plain meaning of the text, not all tribes entered the land of Israel in accordance with the families of their respective tribes. Some of them did not have male descendants of the requisite age, so that they would be lumped together with their brothers, sons of the same father. For instance, although we know that according to the count of Yaakov’s grandchildren descending to Egypt in Genesis chapter 46, six are listed, when the Torah reports the result of the present census only three, i.e. Ohad, Yachin, and Zochar are mentioned by name. Sometimes the name of the family is that of the third generation, as in the case of Zerach. We had never found that any of the six sons of Shimon included one named Zerach. Similarly, Gilad, a great grandson of Joseph appears to have been the mainstay of Menashe’s descendants, as he had performed deeds of valour. In some instances the names of the original sons of Yaakov were changed slightly by the time they constituted families of substantial numbers. For instance: Yemuel in Genesis became Nemuel in Numbers, and Chusham in Genesis became Chushim in Numbers.

ושם בת אשר שרח, “And Asher’s daughter was called Serach.” Seeing that she had been mentioned by name already in Genesis, when eligibility for army service was quite irrelevant, the Torah mentions her here again. [According to our tradition she was still alive after 250 years after Yaakov had come to Egypt. Ed.] There is reason to wonder why the verse mentioning her commences with the connective letter ו, “and.” There is also reason to wonder why the Targum apparently understood Serach as not being Asher’s daughter though she was the daughter of Asher’s wife. Asher apparently had raised her after her mother had died when she was a baby. This is why the Torah describes her as being Asher’s daughter. This would also account for the letter ו at the beginning of this verse, as if to hint that she did not become his daughter already at her birth. The difficulty with this interpretation is that if she had been born to one of the other tribes why did the Torah not mention this? If she was not born to any of the members of the 12 tribes, why is she listed as such in the count of the people Yaakov brought with him to Egypt? Perhaps she was indeed the biological daughter of Asher, and because already before the family descended to Egypt she had acquired a reputation of being especially pious, the Torah decided to mention her name.

אשר ילדה אותה ללוי, “which she had born for Levi.” For this was the name of Levi’s wife.