Numbers 3:12

3:12 “Look, ¹  I myself have taken the Levites from among the Israelites instead of ²  every firstborn who opens the womb among the Israelites. So the Levites belong to me,

Numbers 3:32

3:32 Now the head of all the Levitical leaders ³  was Eleazar son of Aaron the priest. He was appointed over those who were responsible ⁴  for the sanctuary.

Numbers 4:47

4:47 from thirty years old and upward to fifty years old, everyone who entered to do the work of service and the work of carrying ⁵  relating to the tent of meeting –

Numbers 7:8

7:8 and he gave four carts and eight oxen to the Merarites, as their service required, under the authority ⁶  of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest.

Numbers 11:10

Moses’ Complaint to the Lord

11:10 ⁷ Moses heard the people weeping ⁸  throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent; and when the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly, Moses was also displeased. ⁹ 

Numbers 21:30

21:30 We have overpowered them; ¹⁰ 

Heshbon has perished as far as Dibon.

We have shattered them as far as Nophah,

which ¹¹  reaches to Medeba.”

Numbers 26:10

26:10 The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and Korah at the time that company died, when the fire consumed 250 men. So they became a warning.

Numbers 26:37

26:37 These were the families of the Ephraimites, according to those numbered of them, 32,500. ¹²  These were the descendants of Joseph by their families.

Numbers 31:26

31:26 “You and Eleazar the priest, and all the family leaders of the community, take the sum ¹³  of the plunder that was captured, both people and animals.

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¹ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) here carries its deictic force, calling attention to the fact that is being declared. It is underscoring the fact that the Lord himself chose Levi.

² tn Literally “in the place of.”

³ tn The Hebrew construction has “the leader of the leaders of” (וּנְשִׂיא נְשִׂיאֵי, unÿsi’ nÿsi’ey).

⁴ tn Heb “the keepers of the responsibility” (שֹׁמְרֵי מִשְׁמֶרֶת, shomÿrey mishmeret). The participle is a genitive specifying the duty to which he was appointed (thing possessed); its cognate genitive emphasizes that their responsibility was over the holy place.

⁵ tn The text multiplies the vocabulary of service here in the summary. In the Hebrew text the line reads literally: “everyone who came to serve the service of serving, and the service of burden.” The Levites came into service in the shrine, and that involved working in the sanctuary as well as carrying it from one place to the next.

⁶ tn Heb “hand.”

⁷ sn Moses begins to feel the burden of caring for this people, a stubborn and rebellious people. His complaint shows how contagious their complaining has been. It is one thing to cry out to God about the load of ministry, but it is quite another to do it in such a way as to reflect a lack of faith in God’s provision. God has to remind the leader Moses that he, the Lord, can do anything. This is a variation on the theme from Exodus – “who am I that I should lead….”

⁸ tn The participle “weeping” is functioning here as the noun in the accusative case, an adverbial accusative of state. It is explicative of the object.

⁹ tn Heb “it was evil in the eyes of Moses.”

¹⁰ tc The first verb is difficult. MT has “we shot at them.” The Greek has “their posterity perished” (see GKC 218 §76.f).

¹¹ tc The relative pronoun “which” (אֲשֶׁר, ’asher) posed a problem for the ancient scribes here, as indicated by the so-called extraordinary point (punta extraordinaria) over the letter ר (resh) of אֲשֶׁר. Smr and the LXX have “fire” (אֵשׁ, ’esh) here (cf. NAB, NJB, RSV, NRSV). Some modern scholars emend the word to שֹׁאָה (sho’ah, “devastation”).

¹² sn This is a significant reduction from the first count of 40,500.

¹³ tn The idiom here is “take up the head,” meaning take a census, or count the totals.