This [is it] that [belongeth] unto the Levites
The fixed and settled time for their service, as is after
related: from twenty and five years old and upward, they
shall go in to wait
upon the service of the tabernacle of the
congregation;
in ( Numbers
4:3 ) ; the time for the Levites entering on the work of the
tabernacle is fixed to thirty years and upward, which Jarchi
reconciles thus; at twenty five years old the Levite goes in to
learn the rites of service, and he learns five years, and when
thirty years of age he services; the same is observed by others
F23; but what Aben Ezra proposes seems
much better; at thirty years of age a Levite entered into the
service of bearing and carrying burdens; and at twenty five years
of age he entered into the service of the tent or tabernacle,
where he was employed in lighter service, such as opening and
shutting the doors of the sanctuary, keeping out strangers and
unclean persons, and singing the songs of the sanctuary; but was
not concerned till thirty years of age in carrying the vessels of
the sanctuary on the shoulders, as the Kohathites; or in taking
down and setting up the tabernacle, loading and unloading the
wagons, as the Gershonites and Merarites; which is the business
assigned unto them, and spoken of in ( Numbers
4:22-35 ) , where the age of thirty years, and upward, is
mentioned, as the time of their entrance on it, ( Numbers 4:23
Numbers
4:30 ) .