When the Torah lists the families of each Tribe counted for the census taken in the 40th year in the desert (Bamidbar 26:5-50), it closely resembles the list of the “seventy souls” who left Canaan to live (temporarily) in Egypt (B’raishis 46:9-25). As a matter of fact, Rashi (Bamidbar 26:24) tells us that these families were based on those who went down to Egypt, thereby inviting a direct comparison between the two lists.

Some Tribes (R’uvein, Z’vulun and Naftali) are exactly the same in both lists. Most of the differences in the other Tribes are minor (such as the only family in Dun being “Shucham” instead of “Chushim”), with these differences being easily attributable to how the family was referred to now as opposed to how the person was known (which can itself be attributable to various factors, including the need to alter the family name based on what the original name might have meant in the Egyptian language/culture). There are three Tribes, however (Shimon, Asher and Binyamin), that have fewer families listed in this census than there were individuals who went down to Egypt. What happened to the families of these individuals?

[Binyamin’s decline from ten names to seven families is a topic onto itself, as two of the seven are grandchildren with names that are the same or very similar (at least as similar as the other name discrepancies) to two of the sons who do not have corresponding families in the census. This issue deserves its own discussion (see Rashi on 26:24 for his take), but doing so here would distract from the discussion about the missing families. For our purposes, we will consider there to be corresponding families for only five of the ten sons who went down to Egypt, with the focus being on what happened to the missing ones.]

Some (e.g. Chizkuni) say that a family not being included here may simply be the result of not having enough descendants to warrant being considered a separate family. Other, more complicated, approaches are suggested as well, approaches that bring other issues with them.

Rashi (26:13) dismisses the possibility that these families were lost in the plague following the sin of P’or, as “only” 24,000 died in the plague, and there were significantly more than that lost in the Tribe of Shimon alone (comparing the numbers of this census with the one taken at the beginning of the second year in the desert). Rashi must agree with the Ramban’s contention (25:5) that no sinners ended up being prosecuted/executed by the courts (since Pinachas’ act of zealotry had already succeeded in calming G-d’s wrath), as otherwise many more than 24,000 would have died, just not in the plague. Nevertheless, it can be suggested that some court proceedings had already occurred before Pinachas killed Zimri, with many leading to executions — enough to cause the loss of several families (the sinners may have been concentrated among several families, similar to how Rashi assumes they were concentrated in one Tribe). Bear in mind that Zimri didn’t get involved with the Midianite princess until his Tribe demanded that he do something about being summoned to court (see Sifre). It may have even been seeing others executed that led Zimri’s Tribe to confront him, not just that courts were being convened.

As far as the Ramban’s point that the Torah never tells us that the judges did what Moshe had commanded them, if Pinachas’ act made it unnecessary to conduct any further trials (as opposed to none ever even starting, as the Ramban understands it), it could not be accurately said that they fulfilled Moshe’s instructions. The Torah may have relied on our comparing the numbers of the two censuses to realize that many more than 24,000 died for of the sin of P’or. It should be noted that the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 21:8 and Midrash Tanchuma Pinachas 5) says explicitly that the missing families “were lost because of the illicit relations that resulted from Bilam’s advice.”

Tz’ror HaMor (B’reishis 46:21) says that the five missing families from Binyamin died in Egypt because they were wicked; with so many having died during the plague of darkness, such a large loss (i.e. entire families, which might have occurred on a smaller scale to other Tribes as well) is very feasible. Proof that these families were lost in Egypt rather than in the desert is brought from the fact that in the second census there are significantly more people in the Tribe of Binyamin (45,600) than there were in the first census (35,400), something inconceivable if half of its families were lost between the two censuses. [The other changes in the family names are attributed to those families repenting (in Egypt) and taking a new name to reflect the change in their ways.]

Rashi (26:13), based on the Y’rushalmi (Soteh 1:10) says that seven families were lost during a civil war that occurred after Aharon’s death. Besides the five families from Binyamin, there was one family missing from Shimon (Ohad), bringing the total to six. A comparison of the list of names of those who went down to Egypt to the families listed here would lead to the conclusion that the seventh “missing family” was Asher’s son Yishvah, as despite any differences in the names of the families, no other Tribe has fewer families than the number of sons (or grandsons) who left Canaan for Egypt. However, Rashi says it was Gad’s son Etzbon, who is not mentioned in the census, even though another name, Uzni, is there instead. Not only does Rashi not account for Asher’s missing family and ignore the fact that there are the right amount of families of Gad, but later (26:16) Rashi himself says that Etzbon and Uzni are one and the same! This leads to a major discussion among the commentators as to how Rashi can contradict himself, as well as how he could ignore Asher’s missing family. To complicate matters further, our version of the Y’rushalmi says that there were eight families lost in the civil war, not seven, and the Midrash (Rabbah/Tanchuma) quoted above says there were six, but only has three missing from Binyamin (making it the equivalent of the Y’rushalmi’s eight). The Midrash has different families missing, making it even harder to reconcile with Rashi. It should be noted that neither the Y’rushalmi or the Midrash equates the two lists, so any name difference could be attributed to it being a totally different family, even one without a corollary in the first list. Rashi, however, does equate them, thereby limiting the possible explanations.

Mizrachi discusses the contradiction within Rashi, but has no way to explain it. (He also says there are only six families of Gad mentioned in the census, when there are clearly seven.) Gur Aryeh suggests that Uzni was Etzbon, but because they had lost so many in the war, it was considered as if the family was lost. The L’vush says that Uzni was one of Etzbon’s sons, and his offspring became such a large family that the entire “Etzbon” family became known as Uzni. During the civil war, all the others (besides those from Uzni) were lost, so Etzbon was considered a “lost” family while Uzni was able to take that slot in the census since his ancestor was among those listed going down to Egypt. (These approaches don’t address Asher’s missing family.) Nachalas Yaakov (see also Bartenura) points to Rashi’s second reference to Etzbon being preceded by the words “and I say,” indicating that first he quoted the Y’rushalmi’s approach and then gave his own. (He adds that Rashi could be of the opinion that the loss of Yishvah, the missing Asher family, was not related to the civil war, so wasn’t mentioned. I’m not sure why Rashy would ignore this missing family completely rather than say it was lost under different circumstances.)

Sefer HaZikaron assumes that naming Etzbon as a lost family is a misprint, and even found a manuscript that had Yishvah written instead of Etzbon. However, it is more likely that the scribe who wrote that manuscript purposely changed it because of these questions rather than all the other manuscripts being mistaken. If this was what Rashi meant, the primary questions fall away. It should be noted, though, that Asher gained almost 12,000 members since the first census, while Gad lost over 5,000, making it much more likely that such a loss came from Gad rather than from Asher.

The population growth experienced by Asher and Binyamin make it difficult (but not impossible) to attribute their lost families to something that occurred between the two censuses. Yet, this is precisely what Rashi does. [The Y’rushalmi itself is not trying to explain how these families were lost; the “eight families” mentioned there need not refer only to the families that qualify for the census, making the discrepancy in the amount of families irrelevant.] What if the bulk of each of these families died in Egypt, but the few members who survived were able to maintain the family name, and it was this remnant that died in the civil war, thereby completing the loss of these families? (If the “wickedness” of those who died during the plague of darkness was that they didn’t want to leave Egypt, the remnant of those families wanting to return to Egypt after Aharon died fits well.) The growth of the other families in the Tribe could account for its overall population growth, while the death of the few that remained from those families that had already been decimated in Egypt wouldn’t impact the numbers that much.

This works for the five lost families of Binyamin as well as for the lost family of Asher. And we don’t need to play with the numbers for the lost family of Shimon (who lost many at P’or as well). Nevertheless, there are two families from Shimon that are missing in the census, so Rashi has to point out which one was lost and which one just has a different name. He also had to discuss Binyamin because of the other issues there, including how many families were lost in the civil war (since there are seven families included in the census). But there is no reason to mention the lost family of Asher, since it is easy to figure out which one it was.

Rashi’s version of the Y’rushalmi might have also said that eight families were lost, with seven of them being the same seven families missing from the census. The eighth “family” lost during the civil war (thereby accounting for Gad’s population loss) was Etzbon, whose family was decimated yet had enough of a remnant to be included in the census. As Rashi points out, we don’t know why the family name was changed to Uzni. Was it because this remnant came from him, and after their loss in the civil war they didn’t want to be known by the same name anymore? Was it because the word Uzni is related to the word Etzbon (see B’er BaSadeh)? Was it a reference to them being warriors (see Maskil L’Dovid)? Either way, the family was still intact enough to be included in the census, but was so decimated in the civil war that it is considered (by the Y’rushalmi) to be a lost family. Therefore, when explaining the Y’rushalmi, Rashi adds that the name Etzbon isn’t included in the census based on their losses in the war.