The Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and complex history; its final form is possibly due to a Priestly redaction of a Yahwistic source made sometime in the early Persian period. The name of the book comes from the two censuses taken of the Israelites.

The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, also known in Hebrew as Miqra, is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, comprising the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the Ketuvim. Different branches of Judaism and Samaritanism have maintained different versions of the canon, including the 3rd-century BCE Septuagint text used in Second Temple Judaism, the Syriac Peshitta, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and most recently the 10th-century medieval Masoretic Text compiled by the Masoretes, currently used in Rabbinic Judaism. The terms "Hebrew Bible" or "Hebrew Canon" are frequently confused with the Masoretic Text; however, this is a medieval version and one of several texts considered authoritative by different types of Judaism throughout history. The current edition of the Masoretic Text is mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic.