Numbers 8: Summary and Commentary

Verse 1

8:1-4 Here are specific guidelines for the placement of the elaborate lampstand (Hebrew menorah; see Exod 25:31-40) in the Tabernacle. Since the inside of the Tabernacle was dark, the illumination provided by this stylized tree of lamps aided Israel’s worship.

Verse 5

8:5-22 The Lord prescribed the dedication and cleansing of the Levites.

Verse 7

8:7 The ceremony to make the Levites ceremonially clean consisted of sprinkling with water, shaving all hair, and donning clean clothes; this resembled the ceremonies of cleansing from ritual defilement. • water of purification: This expression appears only here. This sprinkling symbolized the washing of sin from their lives and thus contained some of the symbolic significance of later Jewish washings and even of Christian baptism. Perhaps this water was the same as the sin-removing mixture that included ashes from the red heifer mentioned in 19:9 (see Heb 9:13). • The requirement to shave their entire body was also part of the process of being declared clean from the ritual impurity of defiling diseases (Lev 14:8). • The washing of clothing accompanied all instances of cleansing from ritual defilement (e.g., Lev 15:5-27).

Verse 10

8:10-11 By the laying on of hands, Israel recognized the Levites’ special status and offered them as their representatives before the Lord (8:16).

Verse 11

8:11 The reference to Aaron’s raised hands suggests that Israel offered the Levites to the Lord as a “wave offering”—the type of offering lifted up to the Lord (cp. Lev 7:30). The Levites were dedicated to duties that made them “living and holy sacrifices” (cp. Rom 12:1).

Verse 12

8:12-22 The Levites had to offer appropriate sacrifices before they performed their duties in the Tabernacle (8:15).

Verse 19

8:19 A plague was an appropriate punishment for unlawful actions (11:33; 14:37).

Verse 23

8:23-26 Guidelines regarding the Levites’ length of service. • Whereas 4:3 states that their Tabernacle service began at age 30, 8:24 gives the age as 25. The discrepancy might reflect age requirements followed in different periods when the number of Levite men available for service varied, or those aged 25–29 may have been considered unofficial workers or apprentices. • Both passages establish the retirement age at 50; retired Levites could serve the Tabernacle as guards (cp. Ps 84:10).

Verse 1

Directions were given long before this for the making of the golden candlestick (Exo 25:31), and it was made according to the pattern shown to Moses in the mount, Exo 38:17. But now it was that the lamps were first ordered to be lighted, when other things began to be used. Observe, 1. Who must light the lamps; Aaron himself, he lighted the lamps, Num 8:3. As the people's representative to God, he thus did the office of a servant in God's house, lighting his Master's candle; as the representative of God to the people, he thus gave them the intimations of God's will and favour, thus expressed (Psa 18:28), Thou wilt light my candle; and thus Aaron himself was now lately directed to bless the people, The Lord make his face to shine upon thee, Num 6:25. The commandment is a lamp, Pro 6:23. The scripture is a light shining in a dark place, Pe2 1:19. And a dark place indeed even the church would be without it, as the tabernacle (which had no window in it) without the lamps. Now the work of ministers is to light these lamps, by expounding and applying the word of God. The priest lighted the middle lamp from the fire of the altar, and the rest of the lamps he lighted one from another, which (says Mr. Ainsworth) signifies that the fountain of all light and knowledge is in Christ, who has the seven spirits of God figured by the seven lamps of fire (Rev 4:5), but that in the expounding of scripture one passage must borrow light from another. He also supposes that, seven being a number of perfection, by the seven branches of the candlestick is shown the full perfection of the scriptures, which are able to make us wise to salvation. 2. To what end the lamps were lighted, that they might give light over against the candlestick, that is, to that part of the tabernacle where the table stood, with the show-bread upon it, over against the candlestick. They were not lighted like tapers in an urn, to burn to themselves, but to give light to the other side of the tabernacle, for therefore candles are lighted, Mat 5:15. Note, The lights of the world, the lights of the church, must shine as lights. Therefore we have light, that we may give light.

Verse 5

We read before of the separating of the Levites from among the children of Israel when they were numbered, and the numbering of them by themselves (Num 3:6, Num 3:15), that they might be employed in the service of the tabernacle. Now here we have directions given for their solemn ordination (Num 8:6), and the performance of it, Num 8:20. All Israel must know that they took not this honour to themselves, but were called of God to it; nor was it enough that they were distinguished from their neighbours, but they must be solemnly devoted to God. Note, All that are employed for God must be dedicated to him, according as the degree of employment is. Christian musts be baptized, ministers must be ordained; we must first give ourselves unto the Lord, and then our services. Observe in what method this was done:

I. The Levites must be cleansed, and were so. The rites and ceremonies of their cleansing were to be performed, 1. By themselves. They must wash their clothes, and not only bathe, but shave all their flesh, as the leper was to do when he was cleansed, Lev 14:8. They must cause a razor to pass over all their flesh, to clear themselves from that defilement which would not wash off. Jacob, whom God loved, was a smooth man; it was Esau that was hairy. The great pains they were to take with themselves to make themselves clean teaches all Christians, and ministers particularly, by repentance and mortification, to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, that they may perfect holiness. Those must be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. 2. By Moses. He must sprinkle the water of purifying upon them, which was prepared by divine direction. This signified the application of the blood of Christ to our souls by faith, to purify us from an evil conscience, that we may be fit to serve the living God. It is our duty to cleanse ourselves, and God's promise that he will cleanse us.

II. The Levites, being thus prepared, must be brought before the Lord in a solemn assembly of all Israel, and the children of Israel must put their hands upon them (Num 8:10), so transferring their interest in them and in their service (to which, as a part, the whole body of the people was entitled) to God and to his sanctuary. They presented them to God as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable, to perform a reasonable service; and therefore, as the offerers in all other cases did, they laid their hands upon them, desiring that their service might be accepted in lieu of the attendance of the whole congregation, particularly the first-born, which they acknowledge God might have insisted on. This will not serve to prove a power in the people to ordain ministers; for this imposition of hands by the children of Israel upon the Levites did not make them ministers of the sanctuary, but only signified the people's parting with that tribe out of their militia, and civil incorporations, in order to their being made ministers by Aaron, who was to offer them before the Lord. All the congregation of the children of Israel could not lay hands on them, but it is probable that the rulers and elders did it as the representative body of the people. Some think that the first-born did it because in their stead the Levites were consecrated to God. Whatever God calls for from us to serve his own glory by, we must cheerfully resign it, lay our hands upon it, not to detain it but to surrender it, and let it go to him that is entitled to it.

III. Sacrifices were to be offered for them, a sin-offering first (Num 8:12), and then a burnt-offering, to make an atonement for the Levites, who, as the parties concerned, were to lay their hands upon the head of the sacrifices. See here, 1. That we are all utterly unworthy and unfit to be admitted into and employed in the service of God, till atonement be made for sin, and thereby our peace made with God. That interposing cloud must be scattered before there can be any comfortable communion settled between God and our souls. 2. That it is by sacrifice, by Christ the great sacrifice, that we are reconciled to God, and made fit to be offered to him. It is by him that Christians are sanctified to the work of their Christianity, and ministers to the work of their ministry. The learned bishop Patrick's notion of the sacrifice offered by the Levites is that the Levites were themselves considered as an expiatory sacrifice, for they were given to make atonement for the children of Israel, (Num 8:19), and yet not being devoted to death, any more than the first-born were, these two sacrifices were substituted in their stead, upon which therefore they were to lay their hands, that the sin which the children of Israel laid upon them (Num 8:10) might be transferred to these beasts.

IV. The Levites themselves were offered before the Lord for an offering of the children of Israel, Num 8:11. Aaron gave them up to God, as being first given up by themselves, and by the children of Israel. The original word signifies a wave-offering, not that they were actually waved, but they were presented to God as the God of heaven, and the Lord of the whole earth, as the wave-offerings were. And in calling them wave-offerings it was intimated to them that they must continually lift up themselves towards God in his service, lift up their eyes, lift up their hearts, and must move to and fro with readiness in the business of their profession. They were not ordained to be idle, but to be active and stirring.

V. God here declares his acceptance of them: The Levites shall be mine, Num 8:14. God took them instead of the first-born (Num 8:16-18), of which before, Num 3:41. Note, What is in sincerity offered to God shall be graciously owned and accepted by him. And his ministers who have obtained mercy of him to be faithful have particular marks of favour and honour put upon them: they shall be mine, and then (Num 8:15) they shall go in to do the service of the tabernacle. God takes them for his own, that they may serve him. All that expect to share in the privileges of the tabernacle must resolve to do the service of the tabernacle. As, on the one hand, none of God's creatures are his necessary servants (he needs not the service of any of them), so, on the other hand, none are taken merely as honorary servants, to do nothing. All whom God owns he employs; angels themselves have their services.

VI. They are then given as a gift to Aaron and his sons (Num 8:19), yet so as that the benefit accrued to the children of Israel. 1. The Levites must act under the priests as attendants on them, and assistants to them, in the service of the sanctuary. Aaron offers them to God (Num 8:11), and then God gives them back to Aaron, Num 8:19. Note, Whatever we give up to God, he will give back to us unspeakably to our advantage. Our hearts, our children, our estates, are never more ours, more truly, more comfortably ours, than when we have offered them up to God. 2. They must act for the people. They were taken to do the service of the children of Israel, that is, not only to do the service which they should do, but to serve their interests, and do that which would really redound to the honour, safety, and prosperity of the whole nation. Note, Those that faithfully perform the service of God do one of the best services that can be done to the public; God's ministers, while they keep within the sphere of their office and conscientiously discharge the duty of it, must be looked upon as some of the most useful servants of their country. The children of Israel can as ill spare the tribe of Levi as any of their tribes. But what is the service they do the children of Israel? It follows, it is to make an atonement for them, that there be no plague among them. It was the priests' work to make atonement by sacrifice, but the Levites made atonement by attendance, and preserved the peace with heaven which was made by sacrifice. If the service of the priests in the tabernacle had been left to all the first-born of Israel promiscuously, it would have been either neglected or done unskillfully and irreverently, being done by those that were not so closely tied to it, nor so diligently trained to it, nor so constantly used to it, as the Levites were; and this would bring a plague among the children of Israel - meaning, perhaps, the death of the first-born themselves, which was the last and greatest of the plagues of Egypt. To prevent this, and to preserve the atonement, the Levites were appointed to do this service, who should be bred up to it under their parents from their infancy, and therefore would be well versed in it; and so the children of Israel, that is, the first-born, should not need to come nigh to the sanctuary; or, when any Israelites had occasion, the Levites would be ready to instruct them, and introduce them, and so prevent any fatal miscarriage or mistake. Note, It is a very great kindness to the church that ministers are appointed to go before the people in the things of God, as guides, overseers, and rulers, in religious worship, and to make that their business. When Christ ascended on high, he gave these gifts, Eph 4:8, Eph 4:11, Eph 4:12.

VII. The time of their ministration is fixed. 1. They were to enter upon the service at twenty-five years old, Num 8:24. They were not charged with the carrying of the tabernacle and the utensils of it till they were thirty years old, Num 4:3. But they were entered to be otherwise serviceable at twenty-five years old, a very good age for ministers to begin their public work at. The work then required that strength of body and the work now requires that maturity of judgment and steadiness of behaviour which men rarely arrive at till about that age; and novices are in danger of being lifted up with pride. 2. They were to have a writ of ease at fifty years old; then they were to return from the warfare, as the phrase is (Num 8:25), not cashiered with disgrace, but preferred rather to the rest which their age required, to be loaded with the honours of their office, as hitherto they had been with the burdens of it. They shall minister with their brethren in the tabernacle, to direct the junior Levites, and set them in; and they shall keep the charge, as guards upon the avenues of the tabernacle, to see that no stranger intruded, nor any person in his uncleanness, but they shall not be put upon any service which may be a fatigue to them. If God's grace provide that men shall have ability according to their work, man's prudence should take care that men have work only according to their ability. The aged are most fit for trusts, and to keep the charge; the younger are most fit for work, and to do the service. Those that have used the office of a servant well purchase to themselves a good degree, Ti1 3:13. Yet indeed gifts are not tied to ages (Job 32:9), but all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit. Thus was the affair of the Levites settled.

Verse 2

Speak unto Aaron, &c.—The candlestick, which was made of one solid, massive piece of pure gold, with six lamps supported on as many branches, a seventh in the center surmounting the shaft itself (Exo 25:31; Exo 37:17), and completed according to the pattern shown in the mount, was now to be lighted, when the other things in the sanctuary began to be applied to religious service. It was Aaron's personal duty, as the servant of God, to light His house, which, being without windows, required the aid of lights (Pe2 1:19). And the course he was ordered to follow was first to light the middle lamp from the altar-fire, and then the other lamps from each other—a course symbolical of all the light of heavenly truth being derived from Christ, and diffused by His ministers throughout the world (Rev 4:5).

the seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick—The candlestick stood close to the boards of the sanctuary, on the south side, in full view of the table of showbread on the north (Exo 26:35), having one set of its lamps turned towards the east, and another towards the west; so that all parts of the tabernacle were thus lighted up.

Verse 6

THE CONSECRATION OF THE LEVITES. (Num. 8:5-22)

Take the Levites . . . and cleanse them—This passage describes the consecration of the Levites. Although the tribe was to be devoted to the divine service, their hereditary descent alone was not a sufficient qualification for entering on the duties of the sacred office. They were to be set apart by a special ceremony, which, however, was much simpler than that appointed for the priests; neither washing nor anointing, nor investiture with official robes, was necessary. Their purification consisted, along with the offering of the requisite sacrifices (Lev 1:4; Lev 3:2; Lev 4:4), in being sprinkled by water mixed with the ashes of a red heifer (Num 19:9), and shaved all over, and their clothes washed—a combination of symbolical acts which was intended to remind them of the mortification of carnal and worldly desires, and the maintenance of that purity in heart and life which became the servants of God.

Verse 9

thou shalt gather the whole assembly of the children of Israel together, &c.—As it was plainly impossible that the whole multitude of the Israelites could do this, a select portion of them must be meant. This party, who laid their hands upon the Levites, are supposed by some to have been the first-born, who by that act, transferred their peculiar privilege of acting as God's ministers to the Levitical tribe; and by others, to have been the princes, who thus blessed them. It appears, from this passage, that the imposition of hands was a ceremony used in consecrating persons to holy offices in the ancient, as, from the example of our Lord and His apostles, it has been perpetuated in the Christian Church.

Verse 11

And Aaron shall offer the Levites—Hebrew, "as a wave offering"; and it has been thought probable that the high priest, in bringing the Levites one by one to the altar, directed them to make some simple movements of their persons, analogous to what was done at the presentation of the wave offerings before the Lord. Thus were they first devoted as an offering to God, and by Him surrendered to the priests to be employed in His service. The consecration ceremonial was repeated in the case of every Levite who was taken (as was done at a later period) to assist the priests in the tabernacle and temple. (See on Ch2 29:34).

Verse 14

and the Levites shall be mine—that is, exempt from all military duty or secular work—free from all pecuniary imposition and wholly devoted to the custody and service of the sanctuary.

Verse 15

after that, shall the Levites go in to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation—into the court, to assist the priests; and at removal into the tabernacle—that is, into the door of it—to receive the covered furniture.

Verse 19

to make an atonement for the children of Israel, &c.—to aid the priests in that expiatory work; or, as the words may be rendered, "to make redemption for" the Levites being exchanged or substituted for the first-born for this important end, that there might be a sanctified body of men appointed to guard the sanctuary, and the people not allowed to approach or presumptuously meddle with holy things, which would expose them to the angry judgments of Heaven.

Verse 24

from twenty and five years old, &c.—(Compare Num 4:3). They entered on their work in their twenty-fifth year, as pupils and probationers, under the superintendence and direction of their senior brethren; and at thirty they were admitted to the full discharge of their official functions.

Verse 25

from the age of fifty years they shall cease waiting upon the service thereof, &c.—that is, on the laborious and exhausting parts of their work.

Verse 26

But shall minister with their brethren—in the performance of easier and higher duties, instructing and directing the young, or superintending important trusts. "They also serve who only wait" [MILTON].

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