Tanach · Rishonim on Tanach · Ibn Ezra · Torah

Ibn Ezra on Numbers 4:3/אבן עזרא על במדבר ד׳:ג׳

אמבן שלשים שנה. קרוב מארבע' שבועות:
1FROM THIRTY YEARS OLD AND UPWARD. Close to four weeks.2 is related to the word sheva (seven). Hence I.E. believes that shavu’a can also refer to seven years. Thus “four weeks” would equal 28 years. According to I.E. there is a mystical significance to the number seven. See I.E. on Gen. 8:5 (Vol. 1, p. 114, n. 16) and the notes thereto. Also see The Secret of the Torah, a translation and annotation of Ibn Ezra’s Yesod Morah by H. Norman Strickman (Jason Aaronson, NJ, 1995, p. 125).
בבן חמשים שבעה שבועות כי אז יחסר כח הגוף:
2[EVEN UNTIL FIFTY YEARS OLD.] A fifty-year-old is seven weeks of age. The body’s strength then declines.
גמלאכה באהל מועד. מלאכת המשא:
3TO DO WORK IN THE TENT OF MEETING. The work of bearing.