Numbers 8:14

14 So you are to make the Levites separate from the children of Israel, and the Levites will be mine.

Numbers 8:14 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 8:14

Thus shalt thou separate the Levites from among the children
of Israel
By sprinkling the water of purification upon them; by offering sacrifices for them; by presenting them before the Lord, with the hands of the people of Israel put upon them; by offering and waving them before the Lord, and by setting them before Aaron and his sons, as their ministers:

and the Levites shall be mine:
in a special and peculiar manner devoted to his service, and by him given to his priests for that purpose; so the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan,

``and the Levites shall minister before me.''

Numbers 8:14 In-Context

12 And the Levites are to put their hands on the heads of the oxen, and one of the oxen is to be offered for a sin-offering and the other for a burned offering to the Lord to take away the sin of the Levites.

13 Then the Levites are to be put before Aaron and his sons, to be offered as a wave offering to the Lord.

14 So you are to make the Levites separate from the children of Israel, and the Levites will be mine.

15 After that, the Levites will go in to do whatever has to be done in the Tent of meeting; you are to make them clean and give them as a wave offering.

16 For they have been given to me from among the children of Israel; in place of every mother's first son, the first to come to birth in Israel, I have taken them for myself.