Numbers 4:31

4:31 This is what they are responsible to carry as their entire service in the tent of meeting: the frames ¹  of the tabernacle, its crossbars, its posts, its sockets,

Numbers 4:27

4:27 “All the service of the Gershonites, whether ²  carrying loads ³  or for any of their work, will be at the direction of ⁴  Aaron and his sons. You will assign them all their tasks ⁵  as their responsibility.

Numbers 4:32

4:32 and the posts of the surrounding courtyard with their sockets, tent pegs, and ropes, along with all their furnishings and everything for their service. You are to assign by names the items that each man is responsible to carry. ⁶ 

¹ sn More recent studies have concluded that these “boards” were made of two long uprights joined by cross-bars (like a ladder). They were frames rather than boards, meaning that the structure under the tent was not a solid building. It also meant that the “boards” would have been lighter to carry.

² tn The term “whether” is supplied to introduce the enumerated parts of the explanatory phrase.

³ tn Here again is the use of the noun “burden” in the sense of the loads they were to carry (see the use of carts in Num 7:7).

⁴ tn The expression is literally “upon/at the mouth of” (עַל־פִּי, ’al-pi); it means that the work of these men would be under the direct orders of Aaron and his sons.

⁵ tn Or “burden.”

³ tn Heb “you shall assign by names the vessels of the responsibility of their burden.”