Numbers 8:15

15 And afterwards the Levites shall go in to perform the works of the tabernacle of witness; and thou shalt purify them, and present them before the Lord.

Numbers 8:15 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 8:15

And after that shall the Levites go in
Not into the sanctuary, where only the priests entered, much less into the most holy place, where only the high priest went, and that but once a year, in neither of which places the Levites had anything to do, but into the court of the tabernacle:

to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation:
to watch there, and to assist the priests at the altar of burnt offering, to take down the tabernacle and bear the vessels of it, and set it up, as occasion required:

and thou shalt cleanse them, and offer them [for] an offering;
cleanse them by sprinkling the water of purifying on them, and offer them by waving them as before; and indeed this is no new thing which is here observed, but what was already done, and therefore should be rendered, "when thou shalt have cleansed them", or "after thou hast cleansed them" and so the particle "vau" is sometimes used ^F20.

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FOOTNOTES:

F20 See Noldius, p. 289, 290, 299.

Numbers 8:15 In-Context

13 And thou shalt set the Levites before the Lord, and before Aaron, and before his sons; and thou shalt give them as a gift before the Lord.

14 And thou shalt separate the Levites from the midst of the sons of Israel, and they shall be mine.

15 And afterwards the Levites shall go in to perform the works of the tabernacle of witness; and thou shalt purify them, and present them before the Lord.

16 For these are given to me for a present out of the midst of the children of Israel: I have taken them to myself instead of all the first-born of the sons of Israel that open every womb.

17 For every first-born among the children of Israel mine, whether of man or beast: in the day in which I smote every first-born in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them to myself.