Numbers 8:5

CLEANSING OF THE LEVITES

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Take the Levites from among the children of Israel, and cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do unto them, to cleanse them: sprinkle the water of expiation upon them, and let them cause a razor to pass over all their flesh, and let them wash their clothes, and cleanse themselves. Then let them take a young bullock, and its meal-offering, fine flour mingled with oil; and another young bullock shalt thou take for a sin-offering. And thou shalt present the Levites before the tent of meeting: and thou shalt assemble the whole congregation of the children of Israel: and thou shalt present the Levites before Jehovah. And the children of Israel shall lay their hands upon the Levites: and Aaron shall offer the Levites before Jehovah for a wave-offering, on the behalf of the children of Israel, that it may be theirs to do the service of Jehovah. And the Levites shall lay their hands upon the heads of the bullocks: and offer thou the one for a sin-offering, and the other for a burnt-offering, unto Jehovah, to make atonement for the Levites. And thou shalt set the Levites before Aaron, and before his sons, and offer them for a wave-offering unto Jehovah."

Unger listed the specifics required for the cleansing of the Levites thus:

(1) by sprinkling with water (Numbers 8:7a)

(2) by shaving all their flesh (Numbers 8:7b)

(3) by washing their garments (Numbers 8:7c)

(4) by atonement being made for them (Numbers 8:8-12)

(5) by identifying them with all Israel who were represented by them (Numbers 8:9,10)

(6) by their being waved before Jehovah (Numbers 8:11-13)

(7) by the subordination of the Levites to the priests (Numbers 8:13) and

(8) by commemorating the event of their being given unto Jehovah instead of the first-born (Numbers 8:16ff).[8]

There are a great number of things in this account that cannot be fully explained. Why? The passage does not contain a blueprint for repeating this ceremony. Many things known to ancient Israel with regard to this occasion are simply not revealed to us. Some of the things commanded here, of course, fall within the perimeter of our more complete understanding of what was done.

The washing of their garments, for example, was a customary act of all the Jews for ages prior to this time when preparing for worship. Jacob, it will be remembered, commanded his family to wash their clothes and change their garments upon the occasion of their return to Bethel, after the disaster at Shechem (Genesis 35:2). Likewise, the sprinkling with water was a ceremony practiced with variations in the cleansing of lepers.

However, the "waving" of the Levites before Jehovah is not explained, but our ignorance of exactly how this was done should not be the occasion of our unbelief that it was actually accomplished, by what means, we know not. We wish to cite here the comments of Gray, a famed critical scholar who, at the turn of the century wrote:

"Had the writer clearly thought out the ceremony, he would no doubt have expressed it intelligibly. Either the practical difficulty that a large body of over 20,000 men could not, like loaves of bread, be moved and waved to and fro before the altar never occurred to the author, and he introduced this without thinking HOW it could be done, or else the words have lost their original meaning."[9]

An inherent enmity against the Bible appears in such a comment. The notion that the Bible was written by some thoughtless fool who never "thought out" what was being commanded was a current thesis when Gray wrote, and, it is still a major proposition with many liberal scholars who consider themselves too intelligent to believe the Bible. It never occurs to such individuals that the wisest and best men of all ages have fully believed and appreciated the Bible, among them, the inimitable Sir Isaac Newton whose works are quoted in this series. All of the assumptions that support the type of comment in focus here are incorrect.

(1) It is nowhere stated that all 20,000 of the Levites were to be devoted to this service in a single ceremony, the thing in view here possibly being the ceremony that was observed for each one, as the times and occasions made their service necessary. It is preposterous that some 20,000 Levites were required to perform in the ordinary functions of that tabernacle at that time.

(2) As for the waving, what could be the source of Gray's assumption that this text required even one man, much less 20,000, to be waved in the same manner as a loaf of bread? Where did he get that? Could there not have been some other ceremony, unknown to us, that was observed in waving one man or a hundred thousand?

We have not introduced this comment for its value, since it has none, but we have used it as an example of the methods of critical scholars.

"Thou shalt assemble the whole congregation ..." (Numbers 8:9). "This was done through the device of some representative system."[10] It is an abuse of language to make this mean that over two million people, men, women and children, were assembled for this ceremony. Some things were so obvious that God did not need to give specific instructions concerning them. The "laying on of hands" (Numbers 8:10) was likewise "done in some representative way, e.g., by the laying on of hands by the twelve tribal leaders upon the heads of the three division leaders of the Levites."[11]

A great deal of scoffing comment concerns HOW the waving was done. First, it needs to be said that not the manner of waving, but the meaning of it is the principal thing here, namely, that the Levites were appointed unto the service of God by this ceremony. Dummelow was correct in the comment that, "HOW the waving was done is not certain, whether the Levites were led by Aaron back and forth before the altar, or whether he merely waved his hand over them."[12] Jamieson thought that, "Aaron brought the Levites one by one to the altar and directed them to make certain movements of their person before it."[13]

Cook pointed to some ancient tradition that Aaron "merely pointed to the Levites and then waved his hands appropriately before the altar."[14] If God had considered that all subsequent generations should know exactly how this was done, would he not have written it here?