Study Desk

'I will let loose the [wild] animals of the field among you, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you so few in number that your roads will lie deserted and desolate.

'Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so despise them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God.

'If a man consecrates his house as sacred to the LORD, the priest shall appraise it as either good or bad; as the priest appraises it, so shall it stand.

'If the one who consecrates his house should wish to redeem it, then he shall add one-fifth of your valuation price to it, so that it may be his.

'If the one who consecrates the field should ever wish to redeem it, then he shall add one-fifth of the appraisal price to it, so that it may return to him.

So Moses and Aaron took these men who were designated by name,

just as the LORD had commanded Moses. So he numbered them in the Wilderness of Sinai.

So all those numbered of the sons of Israel, by their fathers' households, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go to war in Israel,

"But the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the Testimony, so that there will be no wrath against the congregation of the Israelites. The Levites shall be in charge of the tabernacle of the Testimony."

Thus the sons of Israel did these things; according to all that the LORD had commanded Moses, so they did.

"Then the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle) shall move out with the camp of the Levites in the middle of the [other] camps; just as they camp so shall they move out, every man in his place by their standards.

Thus the Israelites did [as ordered]; according to everything the LORD had commanded Moses, so they camped by their standards, and so they moved out, everyone with his family (clan), according to his fathers' household.

But Nadab and Abihu died in the presence of the LORD when they offered strange (unholy, unacceptable, inappropriate) fire before the LORD in the Wilderness of Sinai; and they had no sons. So Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the presence and under the supervision of Aaron their father.

"Bring the tribe of Levi near and present them before Aaron the priest, so that they may serve him.

"So you shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall observe and attend to their priesthood; but the layman (non-Levite) who approaches [the holy things] shall be put to death."

"Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the sons of Israel instead of and as a substitute for every firstborn, that is, the first that opens the womb among the Israelites. So the Levites shall be Mine,

So Moses numbered them just as he was commanded by the word (mouth) of the LORD.

So Moses numbered all the firstborn among the Israelites, just as the LORD had commanded him;

So Moses took the ransom (redemption) money from those who were in excess, beyond those ransomed by the Levites;

"When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all its furniture, as the camp sets out, after all that [is done, but not before], the sons of Kohath shall come to carry them [using the poles], so that they do not touch the holy things, and die. These are the things in the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle) which the sons of Kohath are to carry.