Numbers 3:26

3:14-39 The Levites were in three classes, according to the sons of Levi; Gershon, Kohath, and Merari; and these were subdivided into families. The posterity of Moses were not at all honoured or privileged, but stood upon the level with other Levites; thus it was plain, that Moses did not seek the advancement of his own family, or to secure any honours to it. The tribe of Levi was by much the least of all the tribes. God's chosen are but a little flock in comparison with the world.

And the hangings of the court,.... Which formed the great open court that encompassed the tabernacle, and was an hundred cubits long and fifty broad; Exodus 27:9 , and the curtain for the door of the court: which was an hanging of twenty cubits, of blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen, Exodus 27:16, which is by the tabernacle, and by the altar round about: this refers to the court, the hangings, and curtains of the door of it, which are spoken of; and this court surrounded the tabernacle, and the altar which was without the tabernacle, as Aben Ezra observes, and which was the altar of burnt offering that stood within this court; for the particle sometimes signifies "about" (s), and the word "around", being joined with it, requires this sense: and the cords of it; which seem to be the cords of the court, which fastened the hangings and curtains to brass pins, or stakes fixed in the ground to keep them tight, that the wind might not move them to and fro; but Jarchi says, these were the cords of the tabernacle and tent, and not of the court; and indeed the tabernacle had its cords as well as the court, Exodus 38:18; the cords of the court were in the charge of the Merarites, Numbers 3:37, for all the service thereof: for that part of the tabernacle and court which the Gershonites had in their care and custody. (s) Vid. Nold. Partic. Ebr. Concord. p. 992.

(26) And the hangings of the court . . . — See Exodus 27:9 and Note. And the cords of it for all the service thereof.—The pronominal suffixes do not seem to refer to the court, the cords belonging to which appear to have been under the custody of the Merarites (Numbers 3:37), but to the mishkan or Tabernacle itself. Or, the latter suffix (its service, or the service thereof) may be designed to refer to each of the various things mentioned, as in Numbers 3:31, inasmuch as the words for all the service thereof may mean for everything which had to be done in connection with the things mentioned.

26 . the court, which is by the tabernacle, and by the altar ] i.e. the court which encloses the dwelling and the altar of burnt-offering. the cords of it ] Cords are also assigned to the Merarites for transport ( Numbers 3:37 ). If the repetition is not merely an oversight of the narrator, it is just possible to understand the cords in the present verse to be those by which the outer covering of the dwelling was fastened down, and those in Numbers 3:37 to be the cords by which the hangings of the court were kept taut. Numbers 3:26

14-31. Number the children of Levi—They were numbered as well as the other tribes; but the enumeration was made on a different principle—for while in the other tribes the number of males was calculated from twenty years and upward [Nu 1:3], in that of Levi they were counted "from a month old and upward." The reason for the distinction is obvious. In the other tribes the survey was made for purposes of war [Nu 1:3], from which the Levites were totally exempt. But the Levites were appointed to a work on which they entered as soon as they were capable of instruction. They are mentioned under the names of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, sons of Levi, and chiefs or ancestral heads of three subdivisions into which this tribe was distributed. Their duties were to assist in the conveyance of the tabernacle when the people were removing the various encampments, and to form its guard while stationary—the Gershonites being stationed on the west, the Kohathites on the south, and the families of Merari on the north. The Kohathites had the principal place about the tabernacle, and charge of the most precious and sacred things—a distinction with which they were honored, probably, because the Aaronic family belonged to this division of the Levitical tribe. The Gershonites, being the oldest, had the next honorable post assigned them, while the burden of the drudgery was thrown on the division of Merari.

The Gershonites were divided into two families, containing 7500 males. They were to encamp under their chief Eliasaph, behind the tabernacle, i.e., on the western side ( Numbers 3:23 , Numbers 3:24 ), and were to take charge of the dwelling-place and the tent, the covering, the curtain at the entrance, the hangings round the court with the curtains at the door, and the cords of the tent, "in relation to all the service thereof" ( Numbers 3:25 .); that is to say, according to the more precise injunctions in Numbers 4:25-27 , they were to carry the tapestry of the dwelling (the inner covering, Exodus 26:1 .), and of the tent (i.e., the covering made of goats' hair, Exodus 26:7 .), the covering thereof (i.e., the covering of rams' skins dyed red, and the covering of sea-cow skin upon the top of it, Exodus 27:16 ), the hangings of the court and the curtain at the entrance ( Exodus 27:9 , Exodus 27:16 ), which surrounded the altar (of burnt-offering) and the dwelling round about, and their cords, i.e., the cords of the tapestry, coverings, and curtains ( Exodus 27:14 ), and all the instruments of their service, i.e., the things used in connection with their service ( Exodus 27:19 ), and were to attend to everything that had to be done to them; in other words, to perform whatever was usually done with those portions of the sanctuary that are mentioned here, especially in setting up the tabernacle or taking it down.

The suffix in מיתריו ( Numbers 3:26 ) does not refer to the court mentioned immediately before; for, according to Numbers 3:37 , the Merarites were to carry the cords of the hangings of the court, but to the "dwelling and tent," which stand farther off. In the same way the words, "for all the service thereof," refer to all those portions of the sanctuary that are mentioned, and mean "everything that had to be done or attended to in connection with these things."

18 . cords ] i.e. tent-cords, to attach the curtains of the Dwelling, and hangings of the Court, to the tent-pins fastened in the earth (cf. Exodus 39:40 , Numbers 3:26 ; Numbers 3:37 ; Numbers 4:26 ; Numbers 4:32 ). Not mentioned in Exodus 27:19 , but implied in the mention of ‘pins.’

[Reformed Biblical] committed it to those; or for their good, and service, and benefit; for their preservation, as the word may be rendered. Numbers 3:39 ## Object. But if the particular numbers, mentioned Num_3:22 ,28,34 , be put together, they make exactly 22,300. ## Answ. The odd 300 are omitted here, either according to the use of the Holy Scripture, which in so great numbers small sums are commonly neglected, or because they were the first-born of the Levites, and therefore belonged to God already, and so could not be given to him again instead of t he other firs t-born. See L ev_27:26. If this number o f first-born seem very sma ll to come fr om 22,000 Levites, it must be considered, that only such first- born are here named as were males, and such as continued in their parents families, not such as had erected new families of their own. Add to this, that God so ordered things by his wise providence for divers weig hty reasons, that this tribe should be much the least of all the tribes, as is evident by comparing the numb ers of the other tribes from twenty years old, Num 1 , with the number of this from a month old; and therefore it is not strange if the number of their first-born be less than in other tribes. Although if the other tribes had been computed from a month old, as this was, their number of 600,000 had probably been double or treble to that; and consequen