The first chapter of Numbers describes the military census conducted when the Israelites were at Mt. Sinai early in the second year of the Exodus, preparing to break camp and head toward the Promised Land. This census included every Israelite tribe except the priestly tribe of Levi.
Details about the tribe of Levi are given in Numbers 3-4. Numbers 3 begins, "These are the generations of Aaron and Moses....." This wording is reminiscent of the book of Genesis (see Gen 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1, 32; 11:10, 27; 25:12,19; 36:1,9; 37:2) and implies continuity with the narrative begun in Genesis.
The following verses concentrate on Aaron's male descendants, his successors in the priesthood. We are reminded that two of those sons, Nadab and Abihu, had recently died when they "offered unauthorized fire before the Lord" (v. 4). The theme of the importance of protecting holy things and holy space continues in Num 3-4.
Aaron's remaining two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, "served as priests in the lifetime of Aaron their father." The phrase for "in the lifetime of" can also be translated as "in the presence of" or "under the supervision of", as in Deut 25:2; 1 Sam 2:11.
The rest of the tribe of Levi was set aside to serve at the tabernacle, as a gift to the priests. Their work was not primarily military, but it did have one military aspect. The Levites were to guard the tabernacle and its furnishings (vv 5-10), a kind of security detail.
The Levites represented all of the tribes of Israel in their service to the priests. At the Exodus God had saved the nation's firstborn sons, setting them aside for himself. The Levites would replace the firstborn of Israel in that role (vv 11-13).
A count of Levite males at least one month old gave 7500 descendants of Gershon, 8600 descendants of Kohath, and 6200 descendants of Merari, for a total of 22,300. There is an apparent error in the MT in verse 39, which gives the total as 22,000. One possible answer to this discrepancy can be found in the Lucianic recension of the Septuagint, which gives the total from Kohath as 8300 rather than 8600, leading to a total of 22,000 as in the MT.
The total of firstborn males from the other tribes is given as 22,273 (v 43). To redeem the extra 273 firstborn males, 5 shekels for each was paid to the priests. One fun question: How was it decided which 273 families were to pay the 5 shekel redemption price? A tradition preserved in the Talmud (b Sanhedrin 17a) proposes that Moses put 22,273 slips of paper in an urn. On 22,000 were written "son of Levi," and on 273 were written "5 shekels." Each family drew a slip of paper out of the urn to determine whether it would be paying 5 shekels.
As I have mentioned previously, the numbers in our English translations of Num 1-3 raise questions for readers. For one thing, we would not expect the total number of firstborn males from 11 tribes to be close to the total number of males from one of the twelve tribes, unless only about 1/11 of the males were firstborn males. Moreover, the total of 22,273 firstborn males is out of sync with the total of 603,550 adult males given in Num 1. We wouldn't expect only 1/27 of the males to be firstborn males. Again, we should keep in mind the main spiritual message of the numbers, which is that God has greatly blessed the Israelites in accordance with his promise to Abraham.
The redemption of the firstborn has a connection with Christian theology. Like the firstborn Israelites on the Exodus, Christians have been rescued from death and are "bought with a price" (1 Peter 1:18-20; 1 Cor 6:19-20).
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