Exodus 6:25

6:25 Now Eleazar son of Aaron married one of the daughters of Putiel and she bore him Phinehas.

These are the heads of the fathers’ households ¹  of Levi according to their clans.

Exodus 38:21

The Materials of the Construction

38:21 This is the inventory ²  of the tabernacle, the tabernacle of the testimony, which was counted ³  by the order ⁴  of Moses, being the work ⁵  of the Levites under the direction ⁶  of Ithamar, son of Aaron the priest.

Exodus 4:14

4:14 Then the Lord became angry with ⁷  Moses, and he said, “What about ⁸  your brother Aaron the Levite? ⁹  I know that he can speak very well. ¹⁰  Moreover, he is coming ¹¹  to meet you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart. ¹² 

[6:25]  ¹ tn Heb “heads of the fathers” is taken as an abbreviation for the description of “households” in v. 14.

[38:21]  ² tn The Hebrew word is פְּקוּדֵי (pÿqude), which in a slavishly literal way would be “visitations of” the tabernacle. But the word often has the idea of “numbering” or “appointing” as well. Here it is an accounting or enumeration of the materials that people brought, so the contemporary term “inventory” is a close approximation. By using this Hebrew word there is also the indication that whatever was given, i.e., appointed for the tabernacle, was changed forever in its use. This is consistent with this Hebrew root, which does have a sense of changing the destiny of someone (“God will surely visit you”). The list in this section will also be tied to the numbering of the people.

[38:21]  ³ tn The same verb is used here, but now in the Pual perfect tense, third masculine singular. A translation “was numbered” or “was counted” works. The verb is singular because it refers to the tabernacle as a unit. This section will list what made up the tabernacle.

[38:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “at/by the mouth of.”

[38:21]  ⁵ tn The noun is “work” or “service.” S. R. Driver explains that the reckonings were not made for the Levites, but that they were the work of the Levites, done by them under the direction of Ithamar (Exodus, 393).

[38:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “by the hand of.”

[4:14]  ³ tn Heb “and the anger of Yahweh burned against.”

[4:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “Is not” or perhaps “Is [there] not.”

[4:14]  ⁵ sn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 29) suggests that the term “Levite” may refer to a profession rather than ancestry here, because both Moses and Aaron were from the tribe of Levi and there would be little point in noting that ancestry for Aaron. In thinking through the difficult problem of the identity of Levites, he cites McNeile as saying “the Levite” referred to one who had had official training as a priest (cf. Judg 17:7, where a member of the tribe of Judah was a Levite). If it was the duty of the priest to give “torah” – to teach – then some training in the power of language would have been in order.

[4:14]  ⁶ tn The construction uses the Piel infinitive absolute and the Piel imperfect to express the idea that he spoke very well: דַבֵּר יְדַבֵּר (dabber yÿdabber).

[4:14]  ⁷ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) with the participle points to the imminent future; it means “he is about to come” or “here he is coming.”

[4:14]  ⁸ sn It is unlikely that this simply means that as a brother he will be pleased to see Moses, for the narrative has no time for that kind of comment. It is interested in more significant things. The implication is that Aaron will rejoice because of the revelation of God to Moses and the plan to deliver Israel from bondage (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 93).