Leviticus 8:2

8:2 “Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, the anointing oil, the sin offering bull, the two rams, and the basket of unleavened bread,

Numbers 16:9-11

16:9 Does it seem too small a thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the community of Israel to bring you near to himself, to perform the service of the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the community to minister to them? 16:10 He has brought you near and all your brothers, the sons of Levi, with you. Do you now seek ¹  the priesthood also? 16:11 Therefore you and all your company have assembled together against the Lord! And Aaron – what is he that you murmur against him?” ² 

Numbers 17:2-9

17:2 “Speak to the Israelites, and receive from them a staff from each tribe, ³  one from every tribal leader, ⁴  twelve staffs; you must write each man’s name on his staff. 17:3 You must write Aaron’s name on the staff of Levi; for one staff is for the head of every tribe. ⁵  17:4 You must place them ⁶  in the tent of meeting before the ark of the covenant ⁷  where I meet with you. 17:5 And the staff of the man whom I choose will blossom; so I will rid myself of the complaints of the Israelites, which they murmur against you.”

17:6 So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and each of their leaders gave him a staff, one for each leader, ⁸  according to their tribes ⁹  – twelve staffs; the staff of Aaron was among their staffs. 17:7 Then Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the tent of the testimony. ¹⁰ 

17:8 On the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony – and ¹¹  the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted, and brought forth buds, and produced blossoms, and yielded almonds! ¹²  17:9 So Moses brought out all the staffs from before the Lord to all the Israelites. They looked at them, ¹³  and each man took his staff.

Numbers 17:2

17:2 “Speak to the Israelites, and receive from them a staff from each tribe, ¹⁴  one from every tribal leader, ¹⁵  twelve staffs; you must write each man’s name on his staff.

Numbers 26:18-21

26:18 These were the families of the Gadites according to those numbered of them, 40,500. ¹⁶ 

Judah

26:19 The descendants of Judah were Er and Onan, but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. 26:20 And the Judahites by their families were: from Shelah, the family of the Shelahites; from Perez, the family of the Perezites; and from Zerah, the family of the Zerahites. 26:21 And the Perezites were: from Hezron, the family of the Hezronites; from Hamul, ¹⁷  the family of the Hamulites.

Hebrews 5:1-5

5:1 For every high priest is taken from among the people ¹⁸  and appointed ¹⁹  to represent them before God, ²⁰  to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. 5:2 He is able to deal compassionately with those who are ignorant and erring, since he also is subject to weakness, 5:3 and for this reason he is obligated to make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people. 5:4 And no one assumes this honor ²¹  on his own initiative, ²²  but only when called to it by God, ²³  as in fact Aaron was. 5:5 So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming high priest, but the one who glorified him was God, ²⁴  who said to him, “You are my Son! Today I have fathered you,” ²⁵ 

¹ tn The verb is the Piel perfect. There is no imperfect tense before this, which makes the construction a little difficult. If the vav (ו) is classified as a consecutive, then the form would stand alone as an equivalent to the imperfect, and rendered as a modal nuance such as “would you [now] seek,” or as a progressive imperfect, “are you seeking.” This latter nuance can be obtained by treating it as a regular perfect tense, with an instantaneous nuance: “do you [now] seek.”

² sn The question indicates that they had been murmuring against Aaron, that is, expressing disloyalty and challenging his leadership. But it is actually against the Lord that they had been murmuring because the Lord had put Aaron in that position.

³ tn Heb “receive from them a rod, a rod from the house of a father.”

⁴ tn Heb “from every leader of them according to their fathers’ house.”

⁵ tn Heb “one rod for the head of their fathers’ house.”

⁶ tn The verb is the Hiphil perfect of נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest”), and so “to set at rest, lay, place, put.” The form with the vav (ו) consecutive continues the instruction of the previous verse.

⁷ tn The Hebrew text simply reads “the covenant” or “the testimony.”

⁸ tn Heb “a rod for one leader, a rod for one leader.”

⁹ tn Heb “the house of their fathers.”

¹⁰ tn The name of the tent now attests to the centrality of the ark of the covenant. Instead of the “tent of meeting” (מוֹעֵד, mo’ed) we now find the “the tent of the testimony” (הָעֵדֻת, ha’edut).

¹¹ tn Here too the deictic particle (“and behold”) is added to draw attention to the sight in a vivid way.

¹² sn There is no clear answer why the tribe of Levi had used an almond staff. The almond tree is one of the first to bud in the spring, and its white blossoms are a beautiful sign that winter is over. Its name became a name for “watcher”; Jeremiah plays on this name for God’s watching over his people (1:11-12).

¹³ tn The words “at them” are not in the Hebrew text, but they have been added in the translation for clarity.

¹⁴ tn Heb “receive from them a rod, a rod from the house of a father.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “from every leader of them according to their fathers’ house.”

¹⁶ sn The Gadites decreased from 45,650 to 40,500.

¹⁷ tc Smr and the Greek version have “Hamuel.”

¹⁸ tn Grk “from among men,” but since the point in context is shared humanity (rather than shared maleness), the plural Greek term ἀνθρώπων (anqrwpwn) has been translated “people.”

¹⁹ tn Grk “who is taken from among people is appointed.”

²⁰ tn Grk “appointed on behalf of people in reference to things relating to God.”

²¹ sn Honor refers here to the honor of the high priesthood.

²² tn Grk “by himself, on his own.”

²³ tn Grk “being called by God.”

²⁴ tn Grk “the one”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

²⁵ tn Grk “I have begotten you”; see Heb 1:5.