Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 18:1-5
Context18:1 The Levitical priests 1 – indeed, the entire tribe of Levi – will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance. 2 18:2 They 3 will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; 4 the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them. 18:3 This shall be the priests’ fair allotment 5 from the people who offer sacrifices, whether bull or sheep – they must give to the priest the shoulder, the jowls, and the stomach. 18:4 You must give them the best of your 6 grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks. 18:5 For the Lord your God has chosen them and their sons from all your tribes to stand 7 and serve in his name 8 permanently.
Numbers 18:8-20
Context18:8 The Lord spoke to Aaron, “See, I have given you the responsibility for my raised offerings; I have given all the holy things of the Israelites to you as your priestly portion 9 and to your sons as a perpetual ordinance. 18:9 Of all the most holy offerings reserved 10 from the fire this will be yours: Every offering of theirs, whether from every grain offering or from every purification offering or from every reparation offering which they bring to me, will be most holy for you and for your sons. 18:10 You are to eat it as a most holy offering; every male may eat it. It will be holy to you.
18:11 “And this is yours: the raised offering of their gift, along with all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I have given them to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a perpetual ordinance. Everyone who is ceremonially clean in your household may eat of it.
18:12 “All the best of the olive oil and all the best of the wine and of the wheat, the first fruits of these things that they give to the Lord, I have given to you. 11 18:13 And whatever first ripe fruit in their land they bring to the Lord will be yours; everyone who is ceremonially clean in your household may eat of it.
18:14 “Everything devoted 12 in Israel will be yours. 18:15 The firstborn of every womb which they present to the Lord, whether human or animal, will be yours. Nevertheless, the firstborn sons you must redeem, 13 and the firstborn males of unclean animals you must redeem. 18:16 And those that must be redeemed you are to redeem when they are a month old, according to your estimation, for five shekels of silver according to the sanctuary shekel (which is twenty gerahs). 18:17 But you must not redeem the firstborn of a cow or a sheep or a goat; they are holy. You must splash 14 their blood on the altar and burn their fat for an offering made by fire for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 18:18 And their meat will be yours, just as the breast and the right hip of the raised offering is yours. 18:19 All the raised offerings of the holy things that the Israelites offer to the Lord, I have given to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual ordinance. It is a covenant of salt 15 forever before the Lord for you and for your descendants with you.”
18:20 The Lord spoke to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any portion of property 16 among them – I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites.
Numbers 35:2-8
Context35:2 “Instruct the Israelites to give 17 the Levites towns to live in from the inheritance the Israelites 18 will possess. You must also give the Levites grazing land around the towns. 35:3 Thus they will have towns in which to live, and their grazing lands will be for their cattle, for their possessions, and for all their animals. 35:4 The grazing lands around the towns that you will give to the Levites must extend to a distance of 500 yards 19 from the town wall.
35:5 “You must measure 20 from outside the wall of the town on the east 1,000 yards, 21 and on the south side 1,000 yards, and on the west side 1,000 yards, and on the north side 1,000 yards, with the town in the middle. 22 This territory must belong to them as grazing land for the towns. 35:6 Now from these towns that you will give to the Levites you must select six towns of refuge to which a person who has killed someone may flee. 23 And you must give them forty-two other towns.
35:7 “So the total of the towns you will give the Levites is forty-eight. You must give these together with their grazing lands. 35:8 The towns you will give must be from the possession of the Israelites. From the larger tribes you must give more; and from the smaller tribes fewer. Each must contribute some of its own towns to the Levites in proportion to the inheritance allocated to each.
[18:1] 1 tn The MT places the terms “priests” and “Levites” in apposition, thus creating an epexegetical construction in which the second term qualifies the first, i.e., “Levitical priests.” This is a way of asserting their legitimacy as true priests. The Syriac renders “to the priest and to the Levite,” making a distinction between the two, but one that is out of place here.
[18:1] 2 sn Of his inheritance. This is a figurative way of speaking of the produce of the land the
[18:2] 3 tn Heb “he” (and throughout the verse).
[18:2] 4 tn Heb “brothers,” but not referring to actual siblings. Cf. NASB “their countrymen”; NRSV “the other members of the community.”
[18:3] 5 tn Heb “judgment”; KJV, NASB, NRSV “the priest’s due.”
[18:4] 6 tn Heb “the firstfruits of your…” (so NIV).
[18:5] 7 tc Smr and some Greek texts add “before the
[18:5] 8 tn Heb “the name of the
[18:8] 9 tn This is an uncommon root. It may be connected to the word “anoint” as here (see RSV). But it may also be seen as an intended parallel to “perpetual due” (see Gen 47:22; Exod 29:28; Lev 6:11 [HT]).
[18:9] 10 tn Heb “from the fire.” It probably refers to those parts that were not burned.
[18:12] 11 tn This form may be classified as a perfect of resolve – he has decided to give them to them, even though this is a listing of what they will receive.
[18:14] 12 tn The “ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem) in Hebrew describes that which is exclusively the
[18:15] 13 tn The construction uses the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of the verb “to redeem” in order to stress the point – they were to be redeemed. N. H. Snaith suggests that the verb means to get by payment what was not originally yours, whereas the other root גָאַל (ga’al) means to get back what was originally yours (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 268).
[18:17] 14 tn Or “throw, toss.”
[18:19] 15 sn Salt was used in all the offerings; its importance as a preservative made it a natural symbol for the covenant which was established by sacrifice. Even general agreements were attested by sacrifice, and the phrase “covenant of salt” speaks of such agreements as binding and irrevocable. Note the expression in Ezra 4:14, “we have been salted with the salt of the palace.” See further J. F. Ross, IDB 4:167.
[18:20] 16 tn The phrase “of property” is supplied as a clarification.
[35:2] 17 tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive: “command…and they will give,” or “that they give.”
[35:2] 18 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[35:4] 19 tn Heb “one thousand cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about eighteen inches (45 cm) in length, so this would be a distance of 1,500 feet or 500 yards (675 meters).
[35:5] 20 tn The verb is the Qal perfect of מָדַד (madad, “to measure”). With its vav (ו) consecutive it carries the same instructional force as the imperfect.
[35:5] 21 tn Heb “two thousand cubits” (also three more times in this verse). This would be a distance of 3,000 feet or 1,000 yards (1,350 meters).
[35:5] 22 sn The precise nature of the layout described here is not altogether clear. V. 4 speaks of the distance from the wall as being 500 yards; v. 5, however, describes measurements of 1,000 yards. Various proposals have been made in order to harmonize vv. 4 and 5. P. J. Budd, Numbers (WBC), 376, makes the following suggestion: “It may be best to assume that the cubits of the Levitical pasture lands are cubit frontages of land – in other words on each side of the city there was a block of land with a frontage of two thousand cubits (v 5), and a depth of 1000 cubits (v 4).”
[35:6] 23 tn The “manslayer” is the verb “to kill” in a participial form, providing the subject of the clause. The verb means “to kill”; it can mean accidental killing, premeditated killing, or capital punishment. The clause uses the infinitive to express purpose or result: “to flee there the manslayer,” means “so that the manslayer may flee there.”
