Numbers18chapter 18

Numbers 18:1-4

Chapter 17 closes with Israel crying that every one who comes near the tabernacle dies. This chapter answers that cry by fixing where the danger is carried, and it lays it on Aaron and his sons. Adam Clarke points out the play on the name in verse 2, since Levi comes from a root meaning to be joined, and the Levites are the tribe joined to the priests as their assistants. The word here comes to Aaron directly rather than through Moses, which happens three times in this chapter and rarely anywhere else in the Torah.

Numbers 18:5-7

Verse 5 gives the purpose of the guard, that there be no wrath any more upon the children of Israel, so the barrier around the holy things is stated as protection for the people outside it. Verse 7 calls the priesthood a service of gift, which describes the office Korah demanded at 16:10 as something handed over. Matthew Henry reads the same verse as ruling out lordship, since what is given is service to God and to the congregation. The sentence on a stranger who comes near repeats 3:10, and 16:35 had just carried it out on the two hundred and fifty men with censers.

Numbers 18:8-14

The portions are sorted by two rules and the text marks the difference without explaining it. The most holy things of verses 9 and 10 are eaten by the males of the priestly families inside the sanctuary, while the heave offerings, the wave offerings and the firstfruits of verses 11 to 13 are eaten by every clean person in the priest's house, daughters included. Albert Barnes reads the phrase in the most holy place at verse 10 as among the most holy things, which turns the sentence from a place into a class. Paul cites this arrangement by name at 1 Corinthians 9:13, that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple.

Numbers 18:15-19

The claim on the firstborn made at Exodus 13:2 comes back here as income for the priests, and the five shekels of verse 16 is the price Numbers 3:46-51 set when the Levites were counted against the firstborn of Israel. Clean and unclean are separated in the payment, since a clean firstling is killed with its blood sprinkled and its flesh given to the priest, while a man and an unclean beast are bought back with money. Verse 19 calls the arrangement a covenant of salt, a phrase used of the meat offering at Leviticus 2:13 and of the throne of David at 2 Chronicles 13:5. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown tie it to the eating of salt as a pledge of fidelity in the East, which makes the shared meal the sign of the bond.

Numbers 18:20-24

Every portion listed above this verse exists because of it. Aaron is told he will hold no ground in the land, and the portion named in its place is God himself, I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel. Joshua 13:14 and 13:33 record the rule being kept when the land was actually divided, and Deuteronomy 18:1-2 repeats it to the next generation. Albert Barnes observes that Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek long before this at Genesis 14:20, and that verse 21 is where the tithe is first assigned to the Levites, which Hebrews 7:5 takes up by name.

Numbers 18:25-32

This word goes to Moses rather than to Aaron, and John Gill records the reason Aben Ezra gives, that the order concerned a payment into Aaron's own house. The Levites hand over a tenth of the tithe they receive, and verses 27 and 30 say it is reckoned to them as though it were the corn of their own threshingfloor and the fulness of their own winepress, so men with no fields are credited with a harvest. What they give up is the best of it, the standard verse 12 had already set for Israel. The last verse warns them against polluting the holy things, and calls what they eat a reward for their service in the tabernacle.