Exodus 30:12 - On the scope of the census

(The above rendering and its footnote come from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation.)

Despite the general label בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל “Israelites,” most of the populace is not directly in view—namely the women and children, as well as those men who do not qualify for the militia.

Here the expression בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל is used as a metonym, which is a conventional, compact linguistic device that works on more than one level at a time. (See the section “Gender and Figurative Language” in this introduction, pp. 3–4.)

God is speaking about the militia—while labeling them in terms of their occasional role as representatives (on the battlefield) of the nation. That is, a general term (here, “the Israelites”) is applied to a more specific body (here, those who serve in the militia), in order to indicate that the latter is to be regarded as acting on behalf of the former.

In addition to that linguistic convention, a social convention is presupposed, namely that censuses are a military measure only. That convention sets up a referential anomaly, whereby the utterance is more coherent if construed as metonymy than if it is taken literally.

Construing metonyms literally is a common mistake made by readers of translated texts, whenever the source text presupposes different conventions from those of the translation’s language. The result can be that the translation appears to be less coherent (and less plausible) than the original text is, particularly with regard to the gender of those in view.

Here, the metonymy, if taken literally, can be readily misunderstood—as if it were implying that:

• a census of the entire populace is to be undertaken; or
• the label בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל always applies only to those (men) who serve in the militia.

As for translation into English, the NJPS rendering “a census of the Israelites
according to their enrollment” is obscure to most contemporary readers, who are not aware of the social convention that censuses are a military measure. In order to make that convention more explicit, the modifier army is added to enrollment. Meanwhile, a new footnote points out the linguistic convention that is in play, so that it can be properly understood and appreciated.