Numbers 3:39

39 All the numbering of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered by the word of the Lord, according to their families, every male from a month old and upwards, two and twenty thousand.

Numbers 3:39 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 3:39

All that were numbered of the Levites, which Moses and Aaron,
numbered at the commandment of the Lord, throughout their families,
&c.] Whence it appears, that Moses was not alone, but Aaron with him, in numbering the Levites, and that by the appointment of the Lord. The word "Aaron", in the Hebrew text, has a dot on every letter, for what reason it is not certain; the word itself is left out in the Samaritan and Syriac versions:

all the males, from a month old and upward, [were] twenty and two
thousand;
22,000 men; but by putting the sums together they amount to three hundred more; for of the Gershonites there were 7,500, and of the Kohathites 8,600, and of the Merarites 6,200, in all 22,300; which difficulty some endeavour to remove by saying, as Aben Ezra observes, that the Scripture takes a short way, mentioning the thousands, and leaving out the hundreds but this, he says, is not right, nor is it the way of the Scripture in this chapter: and in an after account of the firstborn of the Israelites, not only the hundreds are mentioned, but the broken number of seventy three. Others think there is a corruption crept into the text somewhere in the particular numbers, through the inadvertency of some copyist; and suppose it to be in the number of the Kohathites, where they fancy (vv) , six, is put instead of (vlv) , three: but there is no occasion to suppose either of these, for which there is no foundation, since the reason why three hundred are left out in the sum total may be, because there were so many firstborn among the Levites, and these could not be exchanged for the firstborn of the other tribes; they, as such, being the Lord's, and one firstborn could not redeem another; and so it is said in the Talmud {t}, these three hundred were firstborn, and there is no firstborn redeems a firstborn, or frees from the redemption price of five shekels.

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FOOTNOTES:

F20 T. Bab. Becoroth, fol. 5. 1.

Numbers 3:39 In-Context

37 and the pillars of the court round about, and their bases, and their pins, and their cords.

38 They that encamp before the tabernacle of witness on the east Moses and Aaron and his sons, keeping the charges of the sanctuary according to the charges of the children of Israel; and the stranger that touches them, shall die.

39 All the numbering of the Levites, whom Moses and Aaron numbered by the word of the Lord, according to their families, every male from a month old and upwards, two and twenty thousand.

40 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Count every first-born male of the children of Israel from a month old and upwards, and take the number by name.

41 And thou shalt take the Levites for me—I the Lord—instead of all the first-born of the sons of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of all the first-born among the cattle of the children of Israel.