Numbers 1:47

Duties of the Levites

47 But the Levites were not registered with them by their ancestral tribe.

Numbers 1:47 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 1:47

But the Levites
The tribe of Levi were excepted from this muster, they being employed in a kind of warfare, and therefore not to be engaged in another:

after the tribe of their fathers, were not numbered among them:
the rest of the tribes; the reason follows.

Numbers 1:47 In-Context

45 So all the Israelites 20 years old or more, everyone who could serve in Israel's army, were registered by their ancestral houses.

46 All those registered numbered 603,550.

47 But the Levites were not registered with them by their ancestral tribe.

48 For the Lord had told Moses:

49 "Do not register or take a census of the tribe of Levi with the [other] Israelites.