Numbers 7:5

7:5 “Receive these gifts ¹  from them, that they may be ²  used in doing the work ³  of the tent of meeting; and you must give them to the Levites, to every man ⁴  as his service requires.” ⁵ 

Numbers 8:12

8:12 When ⁶  the Levites lay their hands on the heads of the bulls, offer ⁷  the one for a purification offering and the other for a whole burnt offering to the Lord, ⁸  to make atonement for the Levites.

Numbers 17:2

17:2 “Speak to the Israelites, and receive from them a staff from each tribe, ⁹  one from every tribal leader, ¹⁰  twelve staffs; you must write each man’s name on his staff.

[7:5]  ¹ tn The object is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied.

[7:5]  ² tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; following the imperative, this could be given an independent volitive translation (“they shall be”), but more fittingly a subordinated translation expressing the purpose of receiving the gifts.

[7:5]  ³ tn The sentence uses the infinitive construct expressing purpose, followed by its cognate accusative: “[that they may be] for doing the work of” (literally, “serving the service of”).

[7:5]  ⁴ tn The noun אִישׁ (’ish) is in apposition to the word “Levites,” and is to be taken in a distributive sense: “to the Levites, [to each] man according to his service.”

[7:5]  ⁵ tn The expression כְּפִי (kÿfi) is “according to the mouth of.” Here, it would say “according to the mouth of his service,” which would mean “what his service calls for.”

[8:12]  ⁶ tn The clause begins with a vav (ו) on the noun “the Levites,” indicating a disjunctive clause. Here it is clearly a subordinate clause prior to the instruction for Moses, and so translated as a circumstantial clause of time.

[8:12]  ⁷ tn The imperative is from the verb “to do; to make,” but in the sentence it clearly means to sacrifice the animals.

[8:12]  ⁸ sn The “purification offering” cleansed the tabernacle from impurity, and the burnt offering atoned by nullifying and removing the effects of sin in the Levites.

[17:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “receive from them a rod, a rod from the house of a father.”

[17:2]  ¹² tn Heb “from every leader of them according to their fathers’ house.”