Discovery BoxNumbers 8:24 
Context8:24 “This is what pertains to the Levites: 1 At the age of twenty-five years 2 and upward one may begin to join the company 3 in the work of the tent of meeting,
Numbers 18:16
Context18:16 And those that must be redeemed you are to redeem when they are a month old, according to your estimation, for five shekels of silver according to the sanctuary shekel (which is twenty gerahs).
Numbers 31:8
Context31:8 They killed the kings of Midian in addition to those slain – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – five Midianite kings. 4 They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 5
Numbers 31:28
Context31:28 “You must exact 6 a tribute for the Lord from the fighting men who went out to battle: one life out of five hundred, from the people, the cattle, and from the donkeys and the sheep.
1 tn The Hebrew text has “this [is that] which [pertains] to the Levites.” “This is what concerns the Levites, meaning, the following rulings are for them.
2 tc The age of twenty-five indicated in v. 24 should be compared with the age of thirty indicated in Num 4:3,23,30. In order to harmonize the numbers given in chapter 4 with the number given in Num 8:24 the LXX (and perhaps its Hebrew Vorlage) has thirty in all of these references. See further G. J. Wenham, Numbers (TOTC 4), 97-98.
3 tn The infinitive is לִצְבֹא (litsvo’), related to the word for “host, army, company,” and so “to serve as a company.” The meaning is strengthened by the cognate accusative following it.
4 sn Here again we see that there was no unified empire, but Midianite tribal groups.
5 sn And what was Balaam doing among the Midianites? The implication is strong. This pagan diviner had to submit to the revealed will of God in the oracles, but he nonetheless could be hired. He had been a part of the attempt to destroy Israel that failed; he then apparently became part of the plan, if not the adviser, to destroy them with sexual immorality and pagan ritual.
6 tn The verb is the Hiphil, “you shall cause to be taken up.” The perfect with vav (ו) continues the sequence of the instructions. This raised offering was to be a tax of one-fifth of one percent for the
