Numbers3chapter 3

Numbers 3:5-7

Clarke and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the Hebrew verb behind “Bring” in verse 6 is the word for presenting an offering, so the tribe is given as a gift. Numbers 8:11 later has Aaron present the Levites before the LORD as a wave offering from the Israelites. Verse 7 sets their duties “for him and for the whole congregation”, answerable to priest and people together.

John Calvin finds two commands here: the Levites are set apart for the sanctuary, and they answer to Aaron's house and act only by its authority. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown place them below the priests, who alone entered the holy place. John Wesley calls this the conferring of what was promised before.

John Wesley places the Levites' work outside the tent. The holy place belonged to the priests and the most holy place to the high priest. Wesley adds that the Levites did in the people's stead what the firstborn had once done.

Numbers 3:8-11

The Levites are given wholly to Aaron out of Israel, and the sentence closing verse 10 is the fence around the arrangement. That same clause stands four times in this book, at 1:51, here, at 3:38 and at 18:7, and the stranger it warns off is any Israelite outside Aaron's house, a Levite included. Wesley reads it that way, and Korah in chapter 16 is the case that tests whether it means what it says.

Matthew Henry counts only three pairs of hands for all the priestly work, Aaron's and his two surviving sons'. The whole tribe is given to help them. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say the Levites served God by obeying the priests.

Adam Clarke lists the priests' work: the sacrifices, the bread of the Presence, the drink offerings, the incense, the sprinkling of blood and the blessing of the people. Matthew Henry reports a Jewish tradition of a golden sword over the temple door, engraved with this verse's warning. The priests kept the door.

A new speech begins, and John Gill reads it as God giving the reason for the Levites' appointment. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown trace the tribe's consecration to God's own choice of them as substitutes for the firstborn. Verses 12 and 13 state the exchange.

Numbers 3:12-13

I have taken the Levites from: The exchange rests on the night of Exodus 12:29: “On the day I struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated to Myself all the firstborn in Israel”. Exodus 13:2 and 13:15 had set that claim down as a standing due, and one tribe is now taken in place of the whole class. Numbers now substitutes Levi for them.

Albert Barnes reads the close as the LORD's own claim on them, stated twice. Matthew Henry notes the order of events: God spared Israel's firstborn in Egypt before He claimed them for service. The favour came first.

Numbers 3:14-16

Levi is counted from “a month old or more”, while the other tribes were counted from twenty years at 1:3. The other tribes were mustered for war, and Levi is matched head for head against a class of firstborn that begins at a month. Clarke observes that a count from twenty years would have left the tribe far short of the firstborn it was to replace.

John Wesley notes two other ages for the Levites: twenty-five to begin serving, at Numbers 8:24, and thirty for the full office. Matthew Henry points out that only 8,580 of the 22,000 were of working age at 4:47-48. Infants were counted all the same.

Moses counts the Levites alone, though Moses and Aaron counted the other tribes together. Adam Clarke passes on the reason Bishop Kidder gave: the surplus redemption money would go to Aaron, so Aaron stood apart from a count that profited him. Verse 39 still names both brothers.

Numbers 3:17-20

And these were the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath and Merari are the three names Genesis 46:11 lists going down into Egypt and Exodus 6:16-19 sets out with their sons. The eight families named here are the working units of the rest of the chapter, since each of the three houses is about to receive a side of the tabernacle, a number, a chief and a load. Kohath is the second son and his house carries Moses and Aaron in it through Amram.

Libni, and Shimei: Gershon is Levi's firstborn, and his sons Libni and Shimei head the Libnite and Shimeite clans of verse 21. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the eldest house receives the second post, below Kohath, whose line holds the priesthood. Exodus 6:17 gives the same names.

John Gill traces the four Kohathite clans to these sons, with Moses and Aaron in the Amramite clan. Izhar is the father of Korah at Exodus 6:21, and Uzziel the father of Elizaphan, chief of the Kohathites at verse 30. One house holds priest, rebel and chief.

Mahli, and Mushi: Merari's two sons head the Mahlite and Mushite clans. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say the heavy labour of the move fell to this house, and Numbers 4:33 and 7:8 put its work under Ithamar son of Aaron. Gershon also answers to Ithamar at 4:28, while Eleazar oversees the holy things at 4:16.

Numbers 3:21-24

The Gershonites number 7,500 and camp “on the west, behind the tabernacle”, led by Eliasaph son of Lael, a name found only here in Scripture. Gill remarks that neither the text nor the Jewish writers say which of the two clans he belonged to. The fourth side of the tent waits until verse 38.

John Gill notes that Gershon's 7,500 is neither the largest nor the smallest of the three houses. Matthew Henry observes that Levi alone has each house counted separately, an honour given to God's own tribe. Of these, 2,630 were of serving age at 4:40.

behind the tabernacle: The tent faces the sunrise, so behind means west. John Gill places the Gershonites between the tabernacle and the camp of Ephraim, which also lies west at 2:18. The oldest Levite house guards the back wall.

Two men named Eliasaph hold command in this book: this Gershonite chief and Eliasaph son of Deuel, prince of Gad at 1:14. John Gill describes the chief's office as the direction of the two Gershonite clans. They answered to him.

Numbers 3:25-26

Gershon carries the cloth. The curtains, the tent, the covering, the door hanging, the hangings of the court and their cords are the soft parts of the structure, and Numbers 7:7 gives this house two wagons to move them. Everything in their charge folds or rolls, which is why the load is measured in wagons rather than in men.

the cords: Albert Barnes reads the cords here as the tabernacle's own cords, and he gives the cords of the courtyard hangings to the Merarites at verse 37. The Gershonites carried the fabric. John Wesley says these cords fastened the tabernacle to its pegs, citing Exodus 35:18.

Numbers 3:27-28

Kohath's four families number eight thousand six hundred, the largest of the three houses. The Amramites are the family of Moses and Aaron, and the Izeharites are the family of Korah, whom Numbers 16:1 traces through Izhar back to Kohath. The men who will carry the holy furniture and the man who will challenge the priesthood come out of the same house of Levi.

John Wesley reads the sanctuary here as the holy things kept in it, and the duty as an appointment each boy took up when able. Kohath's 8,600 is the largest Levite house. At Numbers 4:36, 2,750 of them were of serving age.

Numbers 3:29-30

Kohath camps on the south, where 2:10 also puts Reuben, so Korah the Kohathite and Dathan and Abiram of Reuben in 16:1 were neighbours before they were rebels. The Kohathite leader is Elizaphan son of Uzziel, the last of Kohath's four sons in verse 19, while Korah descends from the second. Gill passes on the Jewish reading that this promotion fed Korah's grievance, which chapter 16 does not state.

Elizaphan is the cousin Moses called at Leviticus 10:4 to carry the bodies of Nadab and Abihu out of the camp. John Gill and Matthew Henry both note the link. The man who buried the two priests now leads the house that carries the holy things.

Numbers 3:31-32

The ark, the table, the lampstand, the altars and the articles of the sanctuary go to Kohath, the heaviest honour with the least transport. Numbers 7:9 gives this house no carts, since they carried the holy objects “on their shoulders”, and 2 Samuel 6:3-7 shows the cost of setting that rule aside. Eleazar, set over the leaders of the Levites, heads the line the high priesthood passes into at 20:26.

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown and John Wesley take this office as the one later called the second priest, standing in for the high priest when he was ill or absent. 2 Kings 25:18 names Zephaniah the priest of second rank. Eleazar's oversight is spelled out at 4:16.

Numbers 3:33-35

Merari's two clans number 6,200, the smallest of the three houses, and they camp on the north under Zuriel son of Abihail. With Gershon on the west, Kohath on the south and Merari on the north, the Levites form an inner ring around the tent inside the outer ring of four standards in chapter 2. The east is left open in this list, and verse 38 says who fills it.

John Gill notes that Merari's 6,200 is the smallest of the three houses. Numbers 4:44 counts 3,200 Merarites of serving age, more than Kohath's 2,750 or Gershon's 2,630. The smallest house had the most working men.

Merari pitches north, on the side facing Dan's camp at 2:25. Matthew Henry says each Levite house knew its own business, since work left to everybody is often done by nobody. With Zuriel's house in place, three sides are filled.

Numbers 3:36-37

Merari carries the frame. The boards, the bars, the pillars, the sockets, the pins and the cords are the timber and the metal that hold the structure up, and Numbers 7:8 gives this house four wagons, twice what Gershon received for the curtains. The smallest of the three families draws the heaviest weight.

John Gill explains the pegs and ropes: the pegs were driven into the ground and the ropes tied the courtyard curtains to them, keeping them taut against the wind. Exodus 27:19 makes the pegs of bronze. Merari carried them all.

Moses, Aaron and Aaron's sons camp on the east, the side the door opens on, so they stand between the entrance and the camp. Judah's standard is on the east too at 2:3, which puts the tribe of the sceptre and the priesthood on the same face. The warning of verse 10 is repeated at the point where a man walking toward the tent would reach it.

The total is 22,000, while the three houses add to 22,300, a gap long argued, and the redemption of verses 43 to 46 depends on the lower figure. Gill passes on the answer that 300 Levites were themselves firstborn and could redeem no one else. Clarke suspects a copyist at Gershon's 7,500, since the Hebrew letters for two hundred and five hundred are easily confused.

Numbers 3:40-41

A second census follows at once, and it counts a class instead of a tribe, “every firstborn male of the Israelites a month old or more”. The livestock of the Levites stand in place of the firstborn livestock, so the exchange covers beasts as well as men, as Exodus 13:12-13 required. Two rolls are set side by side, and the point is the difference between them.

The Levites' livestock stand in for the firstborn of Israel's herds. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that the exchange covered the firstlings Israel then owned, so those were spared the altar. John Wesley says the Levites kept the animals for their support in God's work.

Numbers 3:42-45

The count finds 22,273 firstborn against 603,550 fighting men at 1:46, a proportion low enough that readers have asked about it for centuries. Some hold that only those born since the night in Egypt were counted, others that the rule reached only a male who opened his mother's womb, and the text gives no reason. Verse 45 then restates the exchange, “The Levites belong to Me; I am the LORD”.

Matthew Henry follows Bishop Patrick in counting only the sons born after the exodus. On that reading 22,273 firstborn arrived within about a year, and Henry infers that many couples married in the last and hardest year of slavery. They married in hope of deliverance.

This word comes once the two counts are in hand. Albert Barnes reads the exchange of livestock as made in the gross, the Levites' herds standing for all the firstborn animals of the other tribes. Later firstborn animals came under the law of Numbers 18:15.

Verse 41's order returns with the numbers known. Matthew Henry reads the livestock clause as the Levites given to God with all they owned, in place of the firstborn and all theirs. Henry adds that a man given to God brings his goods with him.

Numbers 3:46-48

The firstborn exceed the Levites by 273, and each is redeemed at five shekels, the figure Leviticus 27:6 sets for a male from a month to five years old. Numbers 18:16 makes it the standing price, and the verse defines its unit, “the sanctuary shekel of twenty gerahs”, as Exodus 30:13 had fixed it. The money goes to Aaron and his sons, the house the Levites themselves were given to.

John Gill values the five shekels at eleven or twelve shillings, Adam Clarke at about fifteen, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown at twelve shillings and sixpence. The weight is fixed by the sanctuary shekel of twenty gerahs. Numbers 18:16 keeps the same price.

Matthew Henry and John Wesley think the exchange ran from the eldest firstborn downward, so the 273 youngest were the ones redeemed with money. Henry prefers that reading to a lot or a payment from the common fund. The eldest were matched with Levites first.

Numbers 3:49-51

The sum is 1,365 shekels, which is 273 multiplied by five, and the text writes the arithmetic out. The chapter does not say how the 273 were chosen from the whole number, and Jewish tradition supplies a drawing of lots. A claim made on the night of the Passover in Egypt is settled in silver, and the tribe that replaced the firstborn now stands around the tent in their place.

Adam Clarke reckons the sum at about 204 pounds sterling and prefers payment from a common fund to the tale of drawn slips. He sets the verse beside 1 Peter 1:18-19, where believers are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. Silver redeemed the 273.

The chapter closes the firstborn account on the same words of obedience used at verses 16 and 42. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say the ransom money went to the use of the sanctuary, and the verse names Aaron and his sons as its receivers. The silver passed to the priests.