Numbers 3:45

3:45 “Take the Levites instead of all the firstborn males among the Israelites, and the livestock of the Levites instead of their livestock. And the Levites will be mine. I am the Lord.

Numbers 8:15

8:15 “After this, the Levites will go in ¹  to do the work ²  of the tent of meeting. So you must cleanse them ³  and offer them like a wave offering. ⁴ 

Numbers 16:9-10

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 ⁵  the priesthood also?

Numbers 18:8-24

The Portion of the Priests

18:8 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 ⁶  and to your sons as a perpetual ordinance. 18:9 Of all the most holy offerings reserved ⁷  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. 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 25:12-13

25:12 Therefore, announce: ²¹  ‘I am going to give ²²  to him my covenant of peace. ²³  25:13 So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he has been zealous for his God, ²⁴  and has made atonement ²⁵  for the Israelites.’”

Deuteronomy 33:8-10

Blessing on Levi

33:8 Of Levi he said:

Your Thummim and Urim ²⁶  belong to your godly one, ²⁷ 

whose authority you challenged at Massah, ²⁸ 

and with whom you argued at the waters of Meribah. ²⁹ 

33:9 He said to his father and mother, “I have not seen him,” ³⁰ 

and he did not acknowledge his own brothers

or know his own children,

for they kept your word,

and guarded your covenant.

33:10 They will teach Jacob your ordinances

and Israel your law;

they will offer incense as a pleasant odor,

and a whole offering on your altar.

Psalms 106:30-31

106:30 Phinehas took a stand and intervened, ³¹ 

and the plague subsided.

106:31 This brought him a reward,

an eternal gift. ³² 

Ezekiel 34:25

34:25 “‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and will rid the land of wild beasts, so that they can live securely ³³  in the wilderness and even sleep in the woods. ³⁴ 

Ezekiel 37:26

37:26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be a perpetual covenant with them. ³⁵  I will establish them, ³⁶  increase their numbers, and place my sanctuary among them forever.

[8:15]  ¹ tn The imperfect tense could also be given the nuance of the imperfect of permission: “the Levites may go in.”

[8:15]  ² tn Heb “to serve.”

[8:15]  ³ tn The two verbs in the rest of this verse are perfect tenses with vav (ו) consecutive constructions, making them equal to the imperfect. Some commentators try to get around the difficulty of repetition by making these future perfects, “and you will have cleansed,” as opposed to a summary statement, “for thus you will cleanse….”

[8:15]  ⁴ tc The Greek text adds “before the Lord.”

[16:10]  ⁵ 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.”

[18:8]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “from the fire.” It probably refers to those parts that were not burned.

[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.

[25:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “say.”

[25:12]  ²² tn Here too the grammar expresses an imminent future by using the particle הִנְנִי (hinni) before the participle נֹתֵן (noten) – “here I am giving,” or “I am about to give.”

[25:12]  ²³ tn Or “my pledge of friendship” (NAB), or “my pact of friendship” (NJPS). This is the designation of the leadership of the priestly ministry. The terminology is used again in the rebuke of the priests in Mal 2.

[25:13]  ²⁴ tn The motif is reiterated here. Phinehas was passionately determined to maintain the rights of his God by stopping the gross sinful perversions.

[25:13]  ²⁵ sn The atonement that he made in this passage refers to the killing of the two obviously blatant sinners. By doing this he dispensed with any animal sacrifice, for the sinners themselves died. In Leviticus it was the life of the substitutionary animal that was taken in place of the sinners that made atonement. The point is that sin was punished by death, and so God was free to end the plague and pardon the people. God’s holiness and righteousness have always been every bit as important as God’s mercy and compassion, for without righteousness and holiness mercy and compassion mean nothing.

[33:8]  ²⁶ sn Thummim and Urim. These terms, whose meaning is uncertain, refer to sacred stones carried in a pouch on the breastplate of the high priest and examined on occasion as a means of ascertaining God’s will or direction. See Exod 28:30; Lev 8:8; Num 27:21; 1 Sam 28:6. See also C. Van Dam, NIDOTTE 1:329-31.

[33:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “godly man.” The reference is probably to Moses as representative of the whole tribe of Levi.

[33:8]  ²⁸ sn Massah means “testing” in Hebrew; the name is a wordplay on what took place there. Cf. Exod 17:7; Deut 6:16; 9:22; Ps 95:8-9.

[33:8]  ²⁹ sn Meribah means “contention, argument” in Hebrew; this is another wordplay on the incident that took place there. Cf. Num 20:13, 24; Ps 106:32.

[33:9]  ³⁰ sn This statement no doubt alludes to the Levites’ destruction of their own fellow tribesmen following the golden calf incident (Exod 32:25-29).

[106:30]  ³¹ sn The intervention of Phinehas is recounted in Num 25:7-8.

[106:31]  ³² tn Heb “and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, to a generation and a generation forever.” The verb חָשַׁב (khashav, “to reckon”) is collocated with צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “righteousness”) only in Ps 106:31 and Gen 15:6, where God rewards Abram’s faith with a land grant.

[34:25]  ³³ tn The phrase “live securely” occurs in Ezek 28:26; 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26 as an expression of freedom from fear. It is a promised blessing resulting from obedience (see Lev 26:5-6).

[34:25]  ³⁴ sn The woods were typically considered to be places of danger (Ps 104:20-21; Jer 5:6).

[37:26]  ³⁵ sn See Isa 24:5; 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; 50:5; Ezek 16:60, for other references to perpetual covenants.

[37:26]  ³⁶ tn Heb “give them.”