Numbers 3

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:32:31utc

B. Organization of the Priests 3:1-4:49

This section is more complicated than appears on the surface. We are drawn back here from the larger circle of the tribes encamped around the tabernacle, to the inner circle of the Levites and priests.

The NIV reads here: "This is the account of the family of Aaron and Moses at the time the LORD talked with Moses on Mount Sinai." The KJV says: " These also are the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day that the LORD spake with Moses in mount Sinai." The Pulpit Commentary remarks on this verse: "The word 'generations' (toledoth) is used here in a peculiar and, so to speak, technical sense, with reference to what follows, as in Gen. ii. 4; vi. 9. It marks a new departure, looking down, not up, the course of history. Moses and Aaron were a beginning in themselves as the chosen heads of the chosen tribe: Moses having the higher office, but one entirely personal to himself; Aaron being the first of a long and eminent line of priests. The actual genealogy, therefore, is that of Aaron, and he is placed first."

Adam Clarke's Commentary is even a little more elucidating on the subject. He says: "[The generations of Aaron and Moses] Though Aaron and Moses are both mentioned here, yet the family of Aaron alone appears in the list; hence, some have thought that the word Moses was not originally in the text. Others think that the words wª'eeleh towlªdot , 'these are the generations,' should be rendered these are the acts, or transactions, or the history of the lives as the same phrase may be understood in <Gen. 2:4; 6:9>. However this may be, it is evident that in this genealogy the family of Aaron are alone mentioned, probably because these belonged to the priesthood. Moses passes by his own family, or immediate descendants; he gave no rank or privilege to them during his life, and left nothing to them at his death. They became incorporated with the Levites, from or amongst whom they are never distinguished. What a strong proof is this of the celestial origin of his religion! Had it been of man, it must have had the gratification of some impure passion for its object; lust, ambition, or avarice: but none of these ever appear during the whole of his administration amongst the Israelites, though he had it constantly in his power to have gratified each. What an essential difference between the religion of the Pentateuch and that of the Koran! The former is God's workmanship, the latter is a motley mixture of all bad crafts, with here and there a portion of heavenly fire, stolen from the divine altar in the Old and New Testaments, to give some vitality to the otherwise inert mass."[ 1 ] (Quite an astute analysis of the Koran!)

The chapter opens in the vs. 1-4 with a brief summary of Aaron's family, mentioning in passing that two of Aaron's four sons died when they performed priestly duties in an unauthorized way. The reference is to the tragedy described in Lev. 10. Aaron and his sons form the beginning of the Old Testament priesthood. But the revelation regarding their position, duties and privileges is given to Moses, not to Aaron. Aaron, however, was the only person who was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. His two sons could never go farther than the first room of the tabernacle. This all speaks of the fact that fellowship with God was restricted; it was not abolished, but it was limited. Fellowship with God was by representation. Every Israelite could only approach God "in Aaron." Yet, the message of this whole chapter is that, in principle, fellowship with God was meant to be for all. God's claim upon all the firstborn seems to imply this.

The point of the first 4 verses of this chapter seems to be that there were only three priests: Aaron, the high priest and his two sons: Eleazar and Ithamar.

The following section brings the whole tribe of Levi into the inner circle. We read in vs. 6 and 9: "Bring the tribe of Levi and present them to Aaron the priest to assist him. Give the Levites to Aaron and his sons; they are the Israelites who are to be given wholly to him." In the last phrase the verb "to give" appears three times in the Hebrew text. "To be given wholly" is made emphatic by the repetition of the word n^atuwnim, which is a form of nathan, to give. God gave the tribe of Levi to Aaron in an irrevocable way; it was a gift that could never be taken back. As we have seen already before, the Levites were to form a living insulation around the tabernacle. With their own lives the protected the ark from the sinful pollution of the people and, at the same time, protected the people from the lethal radiation of God's holiness. Vs. 10 tell us: "Anyone else who approaches the sanctuary must be put to death."

In giving the reasons for the dedication of the Levites, God reveals a profound principle that should make a difference in the life of every living being. God had told Moses earlier about the whole nation of Israel: "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."[ 2 ] "The whole earth is Mine," says the Lord. Satan may act as if he has the right of ownership, but in God's choosing of Israel, God contests this right, not by taking all of it back, but by laying His hand upon what He wants. Taking a part of the whole, instead of insisting upon all of it, is often a much more effective proof of ownership than taking the whole. Satan knows that God can come to this earth and take what He wants and there is nothing he can do to prevent this. This makes the giving of the Levites to Aaron such an emphatic act. As if God wants to say: "I give them to you, never to take them back."

The principle is shown in its deeper implications in vs. 13, where God says: "For all the firstborn are mine. When I struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, I set apart for myself every firstborn in Israel, whether man or animal. They are to be mine. I am the LORD." We can hear the blast of the trumpet in these last words: "I am the LORD!" During the night of the Passover, God proved that He had the right to every human life on earth. He gave His final answer to Pharaoh's impertinent question: "Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go?"[ 3 ] God could have taken every single life in Egypt, every single life on earth. He took only one life in every family, in order to prove His right. He took the life of a lamb in Israel and the life of a human being in Egypt. He is the Lord and if we want to live we have to pay for our life, either by our own blood or someone else's.

The principle is this: When man declared his independence, which he did when he took the forbidden fruit and ate it, he forfeited his life. One cannot take God's fruit, not even one single one, and not pay for it. The only form of payment is death. Since God is the source of all life, separation from God means death. Man can only live on earth and live on eternally, if he pays for it, or is paid for. The Passover night in Egypt proved this. The Egyptians paid themselves, the Israelites were paid for. In the desert, after the construction of the tabernacle and at the inauguration of its service, this principle showed itself in practice. God had taken Israel in this world, to demonstrate that the earth is His; He had taken all the first born of Israel to demonstrate that the whole nation was His and now He takes the Levites to demonstrate what it means to be wholly His. The Levites were taken as a payment for the whole nation, which is the application of the principle of payment with one's life. In a sense, God's choice of the Levites meant the end of their lives; it was a form of death. But at the same time, having died in a sense, they protect the tabernacle, and the people, with their lives. In their service to the Lord, death daily played a prominent part. All the bloody sacrifices spoke of payments that were being made. They bought every draught of breath for the whole nation.

Their position was, at the same time, the saddest and most glorious possible. They stood between the living God and people who were dead in sin. They were part of both worlds. In this way, Jacob's prophetic curse was fulfilled. On his deathbed, Jacob had said to Simeon and Levi: "I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel."[ 4 ] Levi was scattered in Israel, but their curse became the nation's greatest blessing.

There is confusion regarding the report of the count of the Levites, in that the total of the individual clans does not add up correctly. A simple addition comes to 22,300 not 22,000 as vs. 39 says. From Adam Clarke's Commentary we copy the following: "[All the males from a month old and upward, were twenty and two thousand.] This total does not agree with the particulars, for the Gershonites were 7,500, the Kohathites 8,600, the Merarites 6,200, total 22,300. Several methods of solving this difficulty have been proposed by learned men; Dr. Kennicott's is the most simple. Formerly the numbers in the Hebrew Bible were expressed by letters, and not by words at full length; and if two nearly similar letters were mistaken for each other, many errors in the numbers must be the consequence. Now it is probable that an error has crept into the number of the Gershonites, verse 22, where, instead of 7,500, we should read 7,200, as kaph ("k"), 500, might have been easily mistaken for resh ("r"), 200, especially if the down stroke of the kaph had been a little shorter than ordinary, which is often the case in MSS. The extra 300 being taken off, the total is just 22,000, as mentioned in the 39th verse."

Whereas in ch. 1:3 both Moses and Aaron were ordered to count all the men to be conscripted into the army, the counting of the Levites is specifically entrusted to Moses alone. The fact that they were to be a gift from the Lord to Aaron would make it awkward for him to participate in the counting. We may suppose, however, that Moses was allowed assistance from others in this count. Levi had three sons: Gershon, Kohath and Merari, which formed the major division into the clans of the tribe. We find the first mention of Levi's sons when Jacob sets out with his sons to go to Egypt: "The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath and Merari."[ 5 ] From these the tribe is divided into the Gershonites, the Kohathites and the Merarites. The Gershonite clan was subdivided into the clans of Libni and Shimei; the Kohathite clan into four sub-clans of Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel, and the Merarites into two sub-clans of Mahli and Mushi. Moses and Aaron were the sons of Amaram, so they belonged to the Kohathites. It was in the count of the Gershonite clan that, supposedly, the transcription error may have slipped and that they added up to 7,200 instead of the 7,500 our text mentions.

The Pulpit Commentary adds here: "The four families of the Kohathites, of which that of Amram was one, must have contained about 18,000 souls. Moses and Aaron were sons of Amram, and they seem to have had but two sons apiece at this time. If, therefore, the family of the Amramites was at all equal in numbers to the other three, they must have had more than 4000 brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces. It is urged in reply that Amram lived 137 years, and may have had many other children, and that the variations in comparative rates of increase are so great and so unaccountable that it is useless to speculate upon them. There is, however, a more serious difficulty connected with the genealogy of Moses and Aaron, as given here and elsewhere. If they were the great-grandchildren of Levi on their father's side, and his grandchildren on their mother's side, it is impossible to maintain the obvious meaning of Exod. xii, 40. Either the genealogy must be lengthened, or the time must be very much shortened for the sojourning in Egypt. The known and undoubted habit of the sacred writers to omit names in their genealogies, even in those which seem most precise, lessens the difficulty of the first alternative, whereas every consideration of numbers, including those in this passage, increases the difficulty of the second. To endeavor to avoid either alternative, and to force the apparent statements of Scripture into accord by assuming a multiplicity of unrecorded and improbable miracles at every turn (as, e.g., that Jochebed, the mother of Moses, was restored to youth and beauty at an extreme old age), is to expose the holy writings to contempt. It is much more reverent to believe, either that the genealogies are very imperfect, or that the numbers in the text have been very considerably altered. Every consideration of particular examples, still more the general impression left by the whole narrative, favours the former as against the latter alternative."

As the clans are counted, their place of encampment in relation to the tabernacle is indicated, and responsibility they would have in the tabernacle service, as well as the name of the leader of the whole clan. The leader of the Gershonites was Eliasaph son of Lael and they were responsible for the care of the tabernacle and tent, its coverings, the curtain at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the curtains of the courtyard, the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard surrounding the tabernacle and altar, and the ropes-- and everything related to their use.

The leader of the Kohathite clan was Elizaphan son of Uzziel; their position was on the south side of the tabernacle and they were responsible for the care of the ark, the table, the lampstand, the altars, the articles of the sanctuary used in ministering, the curtain, and everything related to their use. So theirs was the greatest responsibility.

The head of the Merarite clans was Zuriel son of Abihail. Their place was on the north side of the tabernacle and their responsibility was to take care of the frames of the tabernacle, its crossbars, posts, bases, all its equipment, and everything related to their use, as well as the posts of the surrounding courtyard with their bases, tent pegs and ropes. They were the bolts and nuts committee.

In fulfilling their task, the Levites did what, in principle the whole nation of Israel should have done. We read in vs. 8: "They are to take care of all the furnishings of the Tent of Meeting, fulfilling the obligations of the Israelites by doing the work of the tabernacle." This principle was implied in the appointment of the priests also. God had told Israel that He intended them to be "a kingdom of priests."[ 6 ] But as long as the propitiation was done by substitution, that is with animal blood, the tribe of Levi substituted for the whole nation and the priests for the whole tribe. It wasn't until the picture became reality and the precious blood of Jesus Christ was poured out instead of animal blood, that all reconciled men became priests.[ 7 ]

After the census of the Levites had been taken, all the first born Israelite males, one month old and above, were to be counted. It is supposed that the first born among the Levites were excluded from this. The total first born males came to 22,273, which was 273 short of the total of all the male Levites in that age bracket. The difference was to be settled in a payment to Aaron of ransom money of five shekel per person, bringing the total to 1365 shekel. TLB translates this as five dollar, which is probably an arbitrary rendering to make the transaction readable to modern readers. We are not told, where this money came from. Adam Clarke rejects the notion that there was a drawing of straws to determine who would be the unfortunate ones who had to pay. He supposes that the money came from a "general fund."

An interesting feature in all this is that, not only did the Levites substitute for all the first born males among the humans, but also their livestock took the place of that of the people. We read in vs. 41: "Take the Levites for me in place of all the firstborn of the Israelites, and the livestock of the Levites in place of all the firstborn of the livestock of the Israelites. I am the LORD." We are not given any account of the total of livestock and if any discrepancy occurred between the number of animals of the people and of the ones belonging to the Levites.

The Pulpit Commentary has an interest note on the relatively small number of first born in such a large nation. We copy: "Twenty and two thousand two hundred and threescore and thirteen. These were the first-born of the twelve tribes; but who were included under the designation 'first-born' is a matter of grave dispute. The smallness of their number (not much above one percent, of the whole population) has given rise to several conflicting theories, all of which seem to be artificial, arbitrary, and therefore unsatisfactory. ... One [other] explanation strives to satisfy the arithmetical condition of the problem by assuming that the whole of the Divine legislation in this matter was in reality directed against the worship of Moloch, and was designed to prevent the offering of first-born to him by redeeming them unto himself. As the rites of Moloch only demanded young children of tender age, only such were counted in this census. It may, indeed be very probably concluded that their heavenly Father did claim these first-born, party in order to save them from Moloch, because the people would thereafter be exposed to the fascination of the horrid superstition; but there is no proof whatever that they were acquainted with it at this time. These cruel rites, together with many other heathen abominations, are forbidden in Levit. xviii, 21 and Deut. xviii, 10, in view of the entry in Canaan, where they were practiced. The prophet Amos, when he reproaches them with having 'carried the tabernacle of 'their Moloch' even in the wilderness (Amos v. 26), absolves them by implication from any darker superstition; and the highly rhetorical passage Ezek. xx. 26 seems to refer to the consequences of disobedience at a later date, and can hardly be pressed against the entire silence of the Pentateuch. Anyhow it does not seem possible, on the strength of a supposed intention on the part of God of which no trace appears in the text, to impose a narrow and arbitrary limit upon the plain command to number 'all the first-born, from a month old and upward.' If we turn from these speculations to the reason and ground of the matter as stated by God himself, it will appear much more simple. It was distinctly on the ground of their preservation from the destroying angel in Egypt that the first-born of Israel were claimed as God's peculium now (see ver. 13). The command in Exod. xiii. 1 was no doubt prospective, but the sanctification of the first-born was based upon the deliverance itself; and this command was intended not to limit that sanctification for the present, but to continue it for the future. Now if we turn to Exod. xii. 29,30, and ask who the first-born were whom the destroying angel cut off, we see plainly enough that they included the eldest son, being a child, in every house; that every family lost one, and only one. On the one hand, Pharaoh himself was in all probability a first-born, but he was not in any personal danger, because he ranked and suffered as a father, but not as a son. On the other hand, the majority of families in which the first-born was a daughter, or had died, did not therefore escape: 'there was not a house where there was not one dead.' Taking this as the only sure ground to go upon, we may conclude with some confidence that the first-born now claimed by God included all the eldest sons in the families of Israel who were not themselves the heads of houses. These were the destroyed in Egypt - these the redeemed in Israel. How they came to be so few in proportion is a matter in itself of extremely slight importance, and dependent, perhaps, upon causes of which no record was left."

We could add to this interesting comment that the first-born at the time of the first Passover, had already been redeemed by the blood of the lamb. It would seem doubtful that God would take them again as a ransom, by way of having them substituted by the Levites. This would mean that only those who were born after the exodus would fall into this category. This would mean that in the one year since the exodus more than 2,000 babies had been born into young families. This is not too amazing, if we consider the effect the end of slavery would have upon a nation. A "baby-boom" could be expected in this first year of freedom.

The possibility that the first-born in question were all babies and young children, is reinforced by the price of five shekels that was levied for each of them, because this is the price fixed in the book of Leviticus for boys between the age of one months and five years. We read there: "If it is a person between one month and five years, set the value of a male at five shekels of silver and that of a female at three shekels of silver."[ 8 ]

Both the Levites and the amount of money gathered from the 273 first-born in excess of the tribe of Levi, were given to Aaron. Aaron and his office of high priest is greatly enhanced by this gesture. For God had said earlier in vs. 12 and 13: "I have taken the Levites from among the Israelites in place of the first male offspring of every Israelite woman. The Levites are mine, for all the firstborn are mine. When I struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, I set apart for myself every firstborn in Israel, whether man or animal. They are to be mine. I am the LORD," and here God gives the Levites and the money to Aaron as a present. This puts Aaron on the same level with God. Aaron will have used the money, as he used the Levites, for the service in the tabernacle; but he was, evidently, relatively free to use his own judgment and discretion as to how both were to be used. God gives here to a human, to one of His own creatures, an authority which is equal to His own. In all this Aaron foreshadows the man Jesus Christ, the real High Priest, to whom was given "all authority in heaven and on earth."[ 9 ]

Finally, we could ask the question why the tribe of Levi was chosen as a substitute for Israel's first-born. The first thought that comes to mind is that the fact that Moses himself was a Levite shows a conflict of interests. Blood is thicker than water. But it was God who chose, not Moses. The fact that Moses was a Levite may have played a role in God's choice. It has been suggested that God's choice of the Levites was influenced by their attitude during the incident with the Golden Calf. We read that, when the people had gone wild, Moses "stood at the entrance to the camp and said, 'Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.' And all the Levites rallied to him."[ 10 ] The Pulpit Commentary suggests that the number of the Levites comes closest to the number of first-born to be redeemed. As it is, God's choice of the Levites overturned Jacob's curse on them. He had said: "I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel."[ 11 ] They were scattered among the nation, but as God's salt, not as Jacob's ashes.

[ 1 ] Italics are mine.

[ 2 ] Ex. 19:5,6

[ 3 ] Ex. 5:2

[ 4 ] Gen. 49:7

[ 5 ] Gen. 46:11

[ 6 ] See Ex. 19:5

[ 7 ] See Rev. 1:5^b,6; 5:9

[ 8 ] Lev. 27:6

[ 9 ] Matt. 28:18

[ 10 ] Ex. 32:26

[ 11 ] Gen. 49:7