Deuteronomy 26:9-10

26:9 Then he brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 26:10 So now, look! I have brought the first of the ground’s produce that you, Lord, have given me.” Then you must set it down before the Lord your God and worship before him. ¹ 

Exodus 22:29

22:29 “Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. ²  You must give me the firstborn of your sons.

Exodus 23:19

23:19 The first of the firstfruits of your soil you must bring to the house of the Lord your God.

“You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk. ³ 

Leviticus 23:10

23:10 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am about to give to you and you gather in its harvest, ⁴  then you must bring the sheaf of the first portion of your harvest ⁵  to the priest,

Leviticus 23:17

23:17 From the places where you live you must bring two loaves of ⁶  bread for a wave offering; they must be made from two tenths of an ephah of fine wheat flour, baked with yeast, ⁷  as first fruits to the Lord.

Numbers 18:12-24

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. ⁸  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 ⁹  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, ¹⁰  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 ¹¹  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 ¹²  forever before the Lord for you and for your descendants with you.”

Duties of the Levites

18:20 The Lord spoke to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any portion of property ¹³  among them – I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites. 18:21 See, I have given the Levites all the tithes in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they perform – the service of the tent of meeting. 18:22 No longer may the Israelites approach the tent of meeting, or else they will bear their sin ¹⁴  and die. 18:23 But the Levites must perform the service ¹⁵  of the tent of meeting, and they must bear their iniquity. ¹⁶  It will be a perpetual ordinance throughout your generations that among the Israelites the Levites ¹⁷  have no inheritance. ¹⁸  18:24 But I have given ¹⁹  to the Levites for an inheritance the tithes of the Israelites that are offered ²⁰  to the Lord as a raised offering. That is why I said to them that among the Israelites they are to have no inheritance.”

Numbers 18:2

18:2 “Bring with you your brothers, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, so that they may join ²¹  with you and minister to you while ²²  you and your sons with you are before the tent of the testimony.

Numbers 31:4-10

31:4 You must send to the battle a thousand men from every tribe throughout all the tribes of Israel.” ²³  31:5 So a thousand from every tribe, twelve thousand armed for battle in all, were provided out of the thousands of Israel.

Campaign Against the Midianites

31:6 So Moses sent them to the war, one thousand from every tribe, with Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest, who was in charge ²⁴  of the holy articles ²⁵  and the signal trumpets. 31:7 They fought against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses, and they killed every male. ²⁶  31:8 They killed the kings of Midian in addition to those slain – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – five Midianite kings. ²⁷  They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. ²⁸ 

31:9 The Israelites took the women of Midian captives along with their little ones, and took all their herds, all their flocks, and all their goods as plunder. 31:10 They burned ²⁹  all their towns ³⁰  where they lived and all their encampments.

Nehemiah 12:44-47

12:44 On that day men were appointed over the storerooms for the contributions, first fruits, and tithes, to gather into them from ³¹  the fields of the cities the portions prescribed by the law for the priests and the Levites, for the people of Judah ³²  took delight in the priests and Levites who were ministering. ³³  12:45 They performed the service of their God and the service of purification, along with the singers and gatekeepers, according to the commandment of David and ³⁴  his son Solomon. 12:46 For long ago, in the days of David and Asaph, there had been directors ³⁵  for the singers and for the songs of praise and thanks to God. 12:47 So in the days of Zerubbabel and in the days of Nehemiah, all Israel was contributing the portions for the singers and gatekeepers, according to the daily need. ³⁶  They also set aside ³⁷  the portion for the Levites, and the Levites set aside the portion for the descendants of Aaron.

[26:10]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 26:2.

[22:29]  ² tn The expressions are unusual. U. Cassuto renders them: “from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses” (Exodus, 294). He adds the Hittite parallel material to show that the people were to bring the offerings on time and not let them overlap, because the firstfruits had to be eaten first by the priest.

[23:19]  ³ sn On this verse, see C. M. Carmichael, “On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws,” HTR 69 (1976): 1-7; J. Milgrom, “You Shall Not Boil a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” BRev 1 (1985): 48-55; R. J. Ratner and B. Zuckerman, “In Rereading the ‘Kid in Milk’ Inscriptions,” BRev 1 (1985): 56-58; and M. Haran, “Seething a Kid in Its Mother’s Milk,” JJS 30 (1979): 23-35. Here and at 34:26, where this command is repeated, it ends a series of instructions about procedures for worship.

[23:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “and you harvest its harvest.”

[23:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “the sheaf of the first of your harvest.”

[23:17]  ⁶ tc Smr, LXX, Syriac, Tg. Onq., and Tg. Ps.-J. insert the word חַלּוֹת (khallot, “loaves”; cf. Lev 2:4 and the note there). Even though “loaves” is not explicit in the MT, the number “two” suggests that these are discrete units, not just a measure of flour, so “loaves” should be assumed even in the MT.

[23:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “with leaven.” The noun “leaven” is traditional in English versions (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV), but “yeast” is more commonly used today.

[18:12]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn The “ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem) in Hebrew describes that which is exclusively the Lord’s, either for his sanctuary use, or for his destruction. It seems to refer to an individual’s devoting something freely to God.

[18:15]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Or “throw, toss.”

[18:19]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ tn The phrase “of property” is supplied as a clarification.

[18:22]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive construct of the verb “to bear” with the lamed (ל) preposition to express the result of such an action. “To bear their sin” would mean that they would have to suffer the consequences of their sin.

[18:23]  ¹⁵ tn The verse begins with the perfect tense of עָבַד (’avad) with vav (ו) consecutive, making the form equal to the instructions preceding it. As its object the verb has the cognate accusative “service.”

[18:23]  ¹⁶ sn The Levites have the care of the tent of meeting, and so they are responsible for any transgressions against it.

[18:23]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Levites) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[18:23]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew text uses both the verb and the object from the same root to stress the point: They will not inherit an inheritance. The inheritance refers to land.

[18:24]  ¹⁹ tn The classification of the perfect tense here too could be the perfect of resolve, since this law is declaring what will be their portion – “I have decided to give.”

[18:24]  ²⁰ tn In the Hebrew text the verb has no expressed subject (although the “Israelites” is certainly intended), and so it can be rendered as a passive.

[18:2]  ²¹ sn The verb forms a wordplay on the name Levi, and makes an allusion to the naming of the tribe Levi by Leah in the book of Genesis. There Leah hoped that with the birth of Levi her husband would be attached to her. Here, with the selection of the tribe to serve in the sanctuary, there is the wordplay again showing that the Levites will be attached to Aaron and the priests. The verb is יִלָּווּ (yillavu), which forms a nice wordplay with Levi (לֵוִי). The tribe will now be attached to the sanctuary. The verb is the imperfect with a vav (ו) that shows volitive sequence after the imperative, here indicating a purpose clause.

[18:2]  ²² tn The clause is a circumstantial clause because the disjunctive vav (ו) is on a nonverb to start the clause.

[31:4]  ²³ sn Some commentators argue that given the size of the nation (which they reject) the small number for the army is a sign of the unrealistic character of the story. The number is a round number, but it is also a holy war, and God would give them the victory. They are beginning to learn here, and at Jericho, and later against these Midianites under Gideon, that God does not want or need a large army in order to obtain victory.

[31:6]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew text uses the idiom that these “were in his hand,” meaning that he had the responsibility over them.

[31:6]  ²⁵ sn It is not clear what articles from the sanctuary were included. Tg. Ps.-J. adds (interpretively) “the Urim and Thummim.”

[31:7]  ²⁶ sn Many modern biblical scholars assume that this passage is fictitious. The text says that they killed every male, but Judges accounts for the Midianites. The texts can be harmonized rather simply – they killed every Midianite who was in the battle. Midianite tribes and cities dotted the whole region, but that does not mean Israel went and killed every single one of them. There apparently was a core of Midianites whom Balaam had influenced to pervert Israel.

[31:8]  ²⁷ sn Here again we see that there was no unified empire, but Midianite tribal groups.

[31:8]  ²⁸ sn And what was Balaam doing among the Midianites? The implication is strong. This pagan diviner had to submit to the revealed will of God in the oracles, but he nonetheless could be hired. He had been a part of the attempt to destroy Israel that failed; he then apparently became part of the plan, if not the adviser, to destroy them with sexual immorality and pagan ritual.

[31:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “burned with fire.”

[31:10]  ³⁰ tn The ban applied to the encampments and forts of this group of Midianite tribes living in the region of Moab.

[12:44]  ³¹ tc The translation reads מִשְּׂדֶי (missÿde, “from the fields”) rather than the MT reading לִשְׂדֵי (lisdey, “to the fields”).

[12:44]  ³² tn Heb “for Judah.” The words “the people of” have been supplied in the translation for clarity, since “Judah” is a proper name as well as a place name.

[12:44]  ³³ tn Heb “standing.”

[12:45]  ³⁴ tc With many medieval Hebrew MSS and the ancient versions the translation reads the conjunction (“and”). It is absent in the Leningrad MS that forms the textual basis for BHS.

[12:46]  ³⁵ tn Heb “heads.” The translation reads with the Qere the plural רֹאשֵׁי (ro’shey, “heads”) rather than the Kethib singular רֹאשׁ (ro’sh, “head”) of the MT.

[12:47]  ³⁶ tn Heb “a thing of a day in its day.”

[12:47]  ³⁷ tn Heb “were sanctifying.”