Numbers 3:40-43

Verses 40-43

Numbers 3:40-John : . The Numbers of the First-born Males in Israel above one Month.— The figure (22,273) is out of proportion to the total population given in 146; for if it is doubled (for an equal number of females), the result is only 44,546, so that for every first-born person there were approximately 44 who were not first-born, which implies that the average family numbered 45. It has been sought to evade this conclusion by assuming that account is taken of only those first-born who were not themselves heads of families; but there is no hint of this restriction in the text.

Numbers 3:41 . and the earth, etc. Since the firstlings of clean cattle could not be redeemed ( Numbers 18:15; Numbers 18:17), read, “ and the cattle of the Levites instead of the cattle of all the first-born among the children of Israel.”

Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Arthur Peake

Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Arthur Samuel Peake (1865-1929) was an English biblical scholar, born at Leek, Staffordshire, and educated at St John's College, Oxford. He was the first holder of the Rylands Chair of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis in the University of Manchester, from its establishment as an independent institution in 1904. He was thus the first non-Anglican to become a professor of divinity in an English university.In 1890-92 he was a lecturer at Mansfield College, Oxford, and from 1890 to 1897 held a fellowship at Merton College.In 1892, however, he was invited to become tutor at the Primitive Methodist Theological Institute in Manchester, which was renamed Hartley College in 1906. He was largely responsible for broadening the curriculum which intending Primitive Methodist ministers were required to follow, and for raising the standards of the training.In 1895-1912 he served as lecturer in the Lancashire Independent College, from 1904 to 1912 also in the United Methodist College at Manchester. In 1904 he was appointed Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis in the (Victoria) University of Manchester. (This chair was in the Faculty of Theology established in that year; it was renamed "Rylands Professor, etc." in 1909.)Peake was also active as a layman in wider Methodist circles, and did a great deal to further the reunion of Methodism which took effect in 1932, three years after his death. In the wider ecumenical sphere Peake worked for the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, serving as president in 1928, and was a member of the World Conference on Faith and Order held in Lausanne in 1927. He published and lectured extensively, but is best remembered for his one-volume commentary on the Bible (1919), which, in its revised form, is still in use.The University of Aberdeen made him an honorary D. D. in 1907. He was a governor of the John Rylands Library.... Show more

First published in 1919, Peake's commentary of the bible was a one-volume commentary that gave special attention to Biblical archaeology and the then-recent discoveries of biblical manuscripts. Biblical quotations in this edition were from the Revised Version of the Bible.... Show more

Verses 40-43

Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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