Numbers 1:50

50 But to them you are to give the care of the Tent of meeting with its vessels and everything in it: they are to take up the Tent, and be responsible for everything to do with it, and put up their tents round it.

Numbers 1:50 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 1:50

But thou shalt appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of
testimony
So called from the ark in it, in which was the law of God, which was a testimony of the will of God to his people:

and over all the vessels thereof;
the candlestick, table: and altars, as Aben Ezra notes:

and over all things that [belong] to it;
the vessels of vessels, as the same writer calls them; for the candlestick, shewbread table, and the two altars of incense and burnt offering had vessels appertaining to them:

they shall bear the tabernacle, and all the vessels thereof;
carry them from place to place when needful:

and they shall minister unto it;
by taking care of the instruments of it and the vessels in it, but not by doing any part of the priestly office in it, as offering sacrifice, burning incense, and the like:

and shall encamp round about the tabernacle;
they were a sort of camp or army of themselves, and their station was around the tabernacle, which was a kind of royal palace to God the King of kings; so that as they were the king's legion, and to be numbered alone, as Jarchi observes, in ( Numbers 1:49 ) , so they were a guard about his palace, and were placed between that and the camp of Israel.

Numbers 1:50 In-Context

48 For the Lord said to Moses,

49 Only the tribe of Levi is not to be numbered among the children of Israel,

50 But to them you are to give the care of the Tent of meeting with its vessels and everything in it: they are to take up the Tent, and be responsible for everything to do with it, and put up their tents round it.

51 And when the Tent of meeting goes forward, the Levites are to take it down; and when it is to be put up, they are to do it: any strange person who comes near it is to be put to death.

52 The children of Israel are to put up their tents, every man in his tent-circle round his flag.