A family (mostly used collectively in the singular)
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The Hebrew collective noun ṭap refers to the young children or little ones who belong to a family or household, often with the practical sense of dependents who travel, remain behind, face danger, or share in the community’s future. Exodus places the little ones inside Israel’s demand to leave Egypt and worship the Lord; Pharaoh’s attempts to retain them reveal that deliverance concerns whole households, not only.
Reader summary
Full entry for טַף (H2945) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew collective noun ṭap refers to the young children or little ones who belong to a family or household, often with the practical sense of dependents who travel, remain behind, face danger, or share in the community’s future. Exodus places the little ones inside Israel’s demand to leave Egypt and worship the Lord; Pharaoh’s attempts to retain them.
The BSB source-word alignment has 42 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include and children (9), children (4), the little ones (3), your children (2), . . . (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 34:29. Its strongest book concentrations include Numbers (10), Genesis (8), Deuteronomy (7), Exodus (3).
The Hebrew collective noun ṭap refers to the young children or little ones who belong to a family or household, often with the practical sense of dependents who travel, remain behind, face danger, or share in the community’s future. Exodus places the little ones inside Israel’s demand to leave Egypt and worship the Lord; Pharaoh’s attempts to retain them reveal that deliverance concerns whole households, not only able-bodied adults.
In the wilderness narratives, frightened adults speak of children becoming plunder, while God promises to bring those children into the land the adults rejected. Deuteronomy describes them as not yet knowing good from evil in the particular crisis. The word calls attention to communal responsibility and vulnerable belonging without making childhood spiritually automatic, morally inferior, or merely symbolic.
In Torah and conquest narratives, ṭap identifies young household dependents whose safety, movement, inheritance, and future are bound up with the covenant community’s decisions.
Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, “Go, worship the Lord. Even your little ones may go with you; only your flocks and herds must stay behind.”
Pharaoh offers limited worship while trying to control Israel’s households, showing why the little ones cannot be treated as negotiable leverage.
Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
The fearful generation imagines its wives and children becoming plunder, revealing how anxiety can invoke vulnerable dependents while resisting God’s command.
But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it.
God answers the adults’ fear by promising that the children they expected to lose will enter and enjoy the rejected land.
And the little ones you said would become captives—your children who on that day did not know good from evil—will enter the land that I will give them, and they will possess it.
Moses recalls that the little ones lacked adult discernment in that day’s rebellion and would receive the land as God promised.
Your wives, your young children, and your livestock may remain in the land that Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan. But all your mighty men of valor must be armed for battle to cross over ahead of your brothers and help them,
The eastern tribes’ wives, little ones, and livestock remain in their allotted territory while their warriors cross to assist their brothers.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Collective noun denoting young dependents; emphasizes vulnerability and familial bonds rather than individual identity.
Collective noun denoting young dependents; emphasizes vulnerability and familial bonds rather than individual identity.
a family (mostly used collectively in the singular) BDB: children Usage: (little) children (ones), families.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
טַף is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Ṭap keeps the little ones visible inside communal obedience and failure. Israel cannot describe freedom, worship, travel, warfare, or inheritance as though only independent adults matter. Pharaoh tries to bargain with household unity. The wilderness generation voices fear for children while refusing the Lord’s direction, but God turns that fearful prediction around by promising the children a future in the land.
This does not make children props in an adult lesson. It exposes the responsibility of leaders and communities whose choices affect dependents who have less agency and protection. Faithful teaching should therefore name both belonging and vulnerability: the little ones are members of households and communities, and adults answer for how their decisions expose, include, protect, or neglect them.
The word supports attentive care without pretending that age alone defines covenant faithfulness.
Num.14.31
Ṭap functions collectively rather than naming one particular child. English versions may render it as little ones, children, young children, or dependents according to the household and travel setting.
The New Testament continues to bring children and household dependents into view without making ancestry a substitute for faith. Jesus receives children and warns against causing little ones to stumble, while apostolic household instruction directly addresses relationships in which power and responsibility are unequal.