Numbers 4

GENERAL REMARKS.

1 . The relatively small number of Levites (twenty-two thousand) must not be understood as a fact so extraordinary as to invalidate the account, as Bishop Colenso hints. It was, no doubt, a part of the prophetic curse of Jacob. Genesis 49:6-7; also Numbers 1:49, note. It is also probable that the numbers of the other tribes included many servants and dependents of “the mixed multitude” who accompanied Israel out of Egypt. But in the census of the Levites only pure Hebrews were numbered.

2 . In Numbers 4:3; Numbers 4:23; Numbers 4:30; Numbers 4:39; Numbers 4:43; Numbers 4:47, the minimum age of Levitical service is thirty years, but in Numbers 8:24-25, it is twenty-five years. The Seventy cut this knot by uniformly reading twenty-five for thirty throughout this chapter; but this is an arbitrary and unauthorized attempt at harmony. The Talmud, followed by some Christian writers, affirms that at twenty-five the Levites attended at the tabernacle for instruction during a term of five years. But in Numbers 8:24 they are called to “go in to wait upon the service of the tabernacle,” or, literally, “to enter into the (Levitical) army.” This is evidently more than mere pupilage. By reference to the two conflicting passages it will be found that in Numbers 4:30-31 the word burden is employed as descriptive of the duties of Levites who are thirty years old, while this term is omitted in Numbers 8:24, from which we infer that at the age of twenty-five they were permitted to perform the lighter work of guarding the tabernacle, while they were not allowed to assist in its transportation. The explanation which supposes that the age of thirty was for the period of their journeyings, and that the age of twenty-five was in anticipation of their abode in the Land of Promise, has no scriptural foundation. Its most plausible argument is, that in Palestine, when scattered in the Levitical cities, a larger number would be required than in the wilderness, where the whole body were present. Hence David reduced the age to twenty years. 1 Chronicles 23:24; 1 Chronicles 23:27.

3 . The tabernacle is, in the New Testament, figuratively employed to represent the human body; the holy things first removed, the soul; the curtains taken down, the consumed flesh; the disjointed boards, the scattered bones; the tabernacle removed and set up in another place, the resurrection. See John 1:14, εσκηνωσε , tabernacled; 2 Corinthians 5:1-4; 2 Peter 1:14. It is also used by John in the Revelation to represent the future dwelling of God among men. Numbers 7:15, σκηνωσει , shall tabernacle. Also Numbers 13:6; Numbers 21:3. Compare Ezekiel 37:27-28.