(Mic 5:2), another name for "families" or "clans" (see Nu 1:16; 10:4; Jos 22:14,21). Several "thousands" or "families" made up a "tribe."
These, are they who had been summoned by the assembly, being princes of the tribes of their fathers, - heads of the thousands of Israeli.
And, if, only once, they blow, then shall the princes, the heads of the thousands of Israel, gather themselves unto thee.
and ten princes with him, one prince of an ancestral house for each of the tribes of Israel, - they being, severally heads of their ancestral houses, among the thousands of Israel.
Then responded the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, - and spake unto the heads of the thousands of Israel:
Thou, therefore, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though, little, to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee, shall Mine come forth, to be ruler in Israel, - whose comings forth, have been from of old, from the days of age-past time.