Numbers 8:16

16. Wholly given The Hebrew nethunim, nethunim, given, given, is emphatic by repetition. (See Numbers 3:9, note.) At first they were the only attendants of the priests, and performed all the menial service.

Subsequently they were re-enforced by three hundred and twenty captive Midianites, (Numbers 31:47,) and still later by the condemned Gibeonites. Joshua 9:27, note. When the service became more stately and onerous David and the princes further strengthened the Levites by the gift of the Nethinim, either prisoners of war or a remnant of the Canaanites, to live within the enclosure of the temple and to do its rougher work. Ezra 8:20. Two hundred and twenty of these were enrolled by Ezra among the Levites to supply their lack of service through a decline of their zeal for Jehovah.