1These are the records of Aaron and Moses in the day YHWH spoke to Moses in Mount Sinai.
2And these are the names of Aaron’s sons: the firstborn Nadab, and Abihu and Eleazar and Ithamar.
3These are the names of Aaron’s sons, the anointed priests, who filled their hand to function as priests.
3:3. filled their hand to function as priests. See comment on Exod 29:29.
4And Nadab and Abihu died in front of YHWH when they brought forward unfitting fire in front of YHWH in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no sons; and Eleazar and Ithamar functioned as priests in front of Aaron, their father.
5And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,
6“Bring forward the tribe of Levi and stand it in front of Aaron, the priest, so they will attend to him.
7And they shall keep his charge and the charge of all the congregation in front of the Tent of Meeting, to do the work of the Tabernacle.
8And they shall keep all the equipment of the Tent of Meeting and the charge of the children of Israel, to do the work of the Tabernacle.
9And you shall give the Levites to Aaron and to his sons. They are given—given—to him from the children of Israel.
10And you shall appoint Aaron and his sons, that they shall keep their priesthood, and an outsider who comes close shall be put to death.”
11And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,
12“And I, here, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel in place of every firstborn, the first birth of the womb, from the children of Israel. And the Levites shall be mine.
13Because every firstborn is mine. In the day that I struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated every firstborn in Israel to me, from human to animal. They shall be mine. I am YHWH.”
14And YHWH spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, saying,
15“Count the children of Levi by their fathers’ house, by their families. You shall count them: every male from a month old and up.”
16And Moses counted them by YHWH’s word as he was commanded.
17And these were Levi’s sons by their names: Gershon and Kohath and Merari.
18And these are the names of Gershon’s sons by their families: Libni and Shimei.
19And Kohath’s sons by their families: Amram and Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel.
20And Merari’s sons by their families: Mahli and Mushi. These are the Levite families by their fathers’ house.
21Gershon had the Libnite family and the Shimeite family. These are the Gershonite families.
22Their counts by the number of every male from a month old and up: their counts were seven thousand five hundred.
23The Gershonite families were to camp behind the Tabernacle, to the west.
24And the chieftain of the Gershonite father’s house was Eliasaph son of Lael.
25And the charge of the sons of Gershon in the Tent of Meeting was the Tabernacle and the tent, its covering and the cover of the entrance of the Tent of Meeting
26and the courtyard’s hangings and the cover for the entrance of the courtyard that is all around the Tabernacle and the altar, and its cords, for all of its service.
27And Kohath had the Amramite family and the Izharite family and the Hebronite family and the Uzzielite family. These are the Kohathite families.
28By the number of every male from a month old and up: eight thousand six hundred keeping the charge of the Holy.
29The families of the children of Kohath were to camp to the south.
30And the chieftain of the father’s house for the Kohathite families was Elizaphan son of Uzziel.
31And their charge was the ark and the table and the menorah and the altars and the equipment of the Holy with which they minister and the cover and all of its service.
3:31; menorah. The lampstand has been compared in appearance—and as a symbol—to a tree, and especially to the tree of life. It is therefore notable that it is mentioned here as being the responsibility of the Kohathites. And then just a few verses later the Kohathites are identified as the Levite group who must be careful that their closeness to the holy not cause them to die (see the comment on 4:15). The menorah, the sacred object, which became a symbol of Israel (more properly so than the six-pointed star that became a symbol some two thousand years after this text), is also a reminder of the essential human relationship to life and death that begins the Torah.
32And the chieftain of chieftains of the Levites was Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest, with responsibility for those who keep the charge of the Holy.
33And Merari had the Mahlite family and the Mushite family. These are the Merarite families.
34And their counts by the number of every male from a month old and up: six thousand two hundred.
35And the chieftain of the father’s house for the Merarite families was Zuriel son of Abihail. They were to camp on the side of the Tabernacle to the north.
36And the responsibility of the charge of the children of Merari was the Tabernacle’s frames and its bars and its columns and its bases and all of its equipment and all of its service
37and the courtyard’s columns all around and their bases and their pegs and their cords.
38And those who camped in front of the Tabernacle, on the east, in front of the Tent of Meeting, to the east, were Moses and Aaron and his sons, keeping the charge of the holy place, for the charge of the children of Israel. And the outsider who will come close shall be put to death.
39All the counts of the Levites that Moses and Aaron made by YHWH’s word, by their families, every male from a month old and up were twenty-two thousand.
40And YHWH said to Moses, “Count every male firstborn of the children of Israel from a month old and up, and add up the number of their names.
41And you shall take the Levites for me—I am YHWH—in place of every firstborn in the children of Israel, and the Levites’ animals in place of every firstborn in the animals of the children of Israel.”
42And Moses counted, as YHWH commanded him, every firstborn in the children of Israel.
43And every male firstborn, by the number of names, from a month old and up, by their counts were twenty-two thousand two hundred seventy-three.
3:43. twenty-two thousand. The number of firstborn Israelite males is given here as 22,273. This indicates that those who take the word for “thousand” (Hebrew ’elep) to mean “clan” are mistaken, since firstborn sons as a group do not constitute clans. Those who try to understand this term as “clan” do this because they are troubled by the high numbers of Israelites in the census in Numbers. But we cannot escape the problem by redefining a term. Whatever we believe to have been the historical case, the fact is that the text depicts a vast population in the wilderness. And my concern is not to debate the numbers but rather to recognize the significance of the numbers to the Torah and to its story. Historically, only a portion of the Israelites may have had the experience of slavery in Egypt, but all of Israel came to see the experience as their own. For the Torah, it is important that the entire people of Israel be seen as present at Mount Sinai.
The complication of this number of 22,273 firstborn males of all ages is that it is utterly out of proportion to the number of over 600,000 adult males. I have seen no satisfactory solution to this problem.
44And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,
45“Take the Levites in place of every firstborn in the children of Israel, and the Levites’ animals in place of their animals, and the Levites shall be mine. I am YHWH.
46And for the redemption of the two hundred seventy-three who are left over above the Levites from the firstborn of the children of Israel,
47you shall take five shekels each per head; you shall take it by the shekel of the Holy. (The shekel is twenty gerah.)
48And you shall give the money to Aaron and to his sons for the redemption of those left over among them.”
49And Moses took the money of the redemption from those left over above those who were redeemed by the Levites.
50He took the money from the firstborn of the children of Israel: one thousand three hundred sixty-five by the shekel of the Holy.
51And Moses gave the money for those who were redeemed to Aaron and to his sons by YHWH’s word, as YHWH commanded Moses.
