Numbers 8:14

14 In this way you are to separate the Levites from the rest of the Israelites so that the Levites will belong to Me.^[a]

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 Next the Levites are to lay their hands on the heads of the bulls. Sacrifice one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to the Lord, to make atonement for the Levites.

13 "You are to have the Levites stand before Aaron and his sons, and you are to present them before the Lord as a presentation offering.

14 In this way you are to separate the Levites from the rest of the Israelites so that the Levites will belong to Me.

15 After that the Levites may come to serve [at] the tent of meeting, once you have ceremonially cleansed them and presented them as a presentation offering.

16 For they have been exclusively assigned to Me from the Israelites. I have taken them for Myself in place of all who come first from the womb, every Israelite firstborn.

Footnotes

• [a]. Nm 3:12,45; 16:8-9