Numbers 1:47

47 The Levites, however, were not numbered by their ancestral tribe along with them.

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 the whole number of the Israelites, by their ancestral houses, from twenty years old and upward, everyone able to go to war in Israel—

46 their whole number was six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty.

47 The Levites, however, were not numbered by their ancestral tribe along with them.

48 The Lord had said to Moses:

49 Only the tribe of Levi you shall not enroll, and you shall not take a census of them with the other Israelites.