Setting up this religious machinery must have taken some time. As a member of the Church of England, there’s a fair amount of religious machinery about the place, but nothing on this scale. I don’t know whether to be impressed or completely put off.
First born redeemed
Numbers 3:40-51
Cleansing of the Levites
Numbers 8:5-26
Office of Eleazar
Numbers 4:16-20
Service of the Kohathites
Numbers 4:1-15
Service of the Gershonites
Numbers 4:16-20
Service of the Merarites
Numbers 4:29-33
The whole tribe of Levi, one twelfth of the population of Israel, was set aside for the business of worship. God said that they were to belong to him. The Israelites had got used to the idea of giving their first born to God, and having to buy them back with a sacrifice, so now God transfers this idea to the Levites. You’re my people, so you’re special and different. So you do things in a different way.
The details of their organisation are set out - who gets to carry the different bits of the Tabernacle when the more from place to place. This makes one thing clear - they’re going to be doing this job for quite some time. It will be years before they are settled, long years in the wilderness.
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