Numbers 18:1-7

Duties of Priests and Levites

1 The LORD said to Aaron, “You, your sons and your family are to bear the responsibility for offenses connected with the sanctuary, and you and your sons alone are to bear the responsibility for offenses connected with the priesthood.
2 Bring your fellow Levites from your ancestral tribe to join you and assist you when you and your sons minister before the tent of the covenant law.
3 They are to be responsible to you and are to perform all the duties of the tent, but they must not go near the furnishings of the sanctuary or the altar. Otherwise both they and you will die.
4 They are to join you and be responsible for the care of the tent of meeting—all the work at the tent—and no one else may come near where you are.
5 “You are to be responsible for the care of the sanctuary and the altar, so that my wrath will not fall on the Israelites again.
6 I myself have selected your fellow Levites from among the Israelites as a gift to you, dedicated to the LORD to do the work at the tent of meeting.
7 But only you and your sons may serve as priests in connection with everything at the altar and inside the curtain. I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift. Anyone else who comes near the sanctuary is to be put to death.”

Numbers 18:1-7 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 18

This chapter gives an account of the distinct work and service of the priests and Levites, Nu 18:1-7; and of several things given to the priests for their maintenance, Nu 18:8-19; and of the tithes the Levites should have to live upon, since they were to have no inheritance in the land of Israel, Nu 18:20-24; and of the tenth out of those tithes they were to give to the high priest, Nu 18:25-32.

Cross References 12

  • 1. S Exodus 28:38
  • 2. Numbers 3:10
  • 3. S Numbers 3:32
  • 4. Numbers 1:51
  • 5. ver 7; Numbers 4:15
  • 6. S Numbers 3:38
  • 7. ver 3; Leviticus 6:12; Numbers 16:46
  • 8. S Numbers 3:9
  • 9. Numbers 3:8
  • 10. Hebrews 9:3,6
  • 11. ver 20; Exodus 29:9; Exodus 40:13; Hebrews 5:4
  • 12. ver 3; Numbers 3:10
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