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Responsibility of Priests and Levites18 The L ord said to Aaron: You and your sons and your ancestral house with you shall bear responsibility for offenses connected with the sanctuary, while you and your sons alone shall bear responsibility for offenses connected with the priesthood. 2So bring with you also your brothers of the tribe of Levi, your ancestral tribe, in order that they may be joined to you, and serve you while you and your sons with you are in front of the tent of the covenant. 3They shall perform duties for you and for the whole tent. But they must not approach either the utensils of the sanctuary or the altar, otherwise both they and you will die. 4They are attached to you in order to perform the duties of the tent of meeting, for all the service of the tent; no outsider shall approach you. 5You yourselves shall perform the duties of the sanctuary and the duties of the altar, so that wrath may never again come upon the Israelites. 6It is I who now take your brother Levites from among the Israelites; they are now yours as a gift, dedicated to the L ord, to perform the service of the tent of meeting. 7But you and your sons with you shall diligently perform your priestly duties in all that concerns the altar and the area behind the curtain. I give your priesthood as a gift; any outsider who approaches shall be put to death. The Priests’ Portion8 The L ord spoke to Aaron: I have given you charge of the offerings made to me, all the holy gifts of the Israelites; I have given them to you and your sons as a priestly portion due you in perpetuity. 9This shall be yours from the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every offering of theirs that they render to me as a most holy thing, whether grain offering, sin offering, or guilt offering, shall belong to you and your sons. 10As a most holy thing you shall eat it; every male may eat it; it shall be holy to you. 11This also is yours: I have given to you, together with your sons and daughters, as a perpetual due, whatever is set aside from the gifts of all the elevation offerings of the Israelites; everyone who is clean in your house may eat them. 12All the best of the oil and all the best of the wine and of the grain, the choice produce that they give to the L ord, I have given to you. 13The first fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the L ord, shall be yours; everyone who is clean in your house may eat of it. 14Every devoted thing in Israel shall be yours. 15The first issue of the womb of all creatures, human and animal, which is offered to the L ord, shall be yours; but the firstborn of human beings you shall redeem, and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. 16Their redemption price, reckoned from one month of age, you shall fix at five shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary (that is, twenty gerahs). 17But the firstborn of a cow, or the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat, you shall not redeem; they are holy. You shall dash their blood on the altar, and shall turn their fat into smoke as an offering by fire for a pleasing odor to the L ord; 18but their flesh shall be yours, just as the breast that is elevated and as the right thigh are yours. 19All the holy offerings that the Israelites present to the L ord I have given to you, together with your sons and daughters, as a perpetual due; it is a covenant of salt forever before the L ord for you and your descendants as well. 20Then the L ord said to Aaron: You shall have no allotment in their land, nor shall you have any share among them; I am your share and your possession among the Israelites. 21 To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for a possession in return for the service that they perform, the service in the tent of meeting. 22From now on the Israelites shall no longer approach the tent of meeting, or else they will incur guilt and die. 23But the Levites shall perform the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear responsibility for their own offenses; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations. But among the Israelites they shall have no allotment, 24because I have given to the Levites as their portion the tithe of the Israelites, which they set apart as an offering to the L ord. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no allotment among the Israelites. 25 Then the L ord spoke to Moses, saying: 26You shall speak to the Levites, saying: When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them for your portion, you shall set apart an offering from it to the L ord, a tithe of the tithe. 27It shall be reckoned to you as your gift, the same as the grain of the threshing floor and the fullness of the wine press. 28Thus you also shall set apart an offering to the L ord from all the tithes that you receive from the Israelites; and from them you shall give the L ord’s offering to the priest Aaron. 29Out of all the gifts to you, you shall set apart every offering due to the L ord; the best of all of them is the part to be consecrated. 30Say also to them: When you have set apart the best of it, then the rest shall be reckoned to the Levites as produce of the threshing floor, and as produce of the wine press. 31You may eat it in any place, you and your households; for it is your payment for your service in the tent of meeting. 32You shall incur no guilt by reason of it, when you have offered the best of it. But you shall not profane the holy gifts of the Israelites, on pain of death. New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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2. And thy brethren also. He here assigns their duties to the Levites, that they also may minister, but, as it were, under the hand of the priests, viz., that they may be ruled by their commands. Thus the authority was in the hands of the priests, but the Levites afforded them their assistance. On this ground they are prohibited from approaching the altar, or entering the greater sanctuary; in fact, a lower degree is assigned to them, half-way between the priests and the people. Hence did all learn how reverently God’s majesty must be served; for although He had adopted the whole people, yet so far was it from being lawful that any of the multitude should penetrate to the altar, that the Law even kept back the Levites from thence, although they were God’s peculiar ministers. Moreover, in this figure, we perceive how necessary is a Mediator for us to conciliate God’s favor towards us; for, if it was not allowable for the holy and chosen seed of Abraham to approach the typical sanctuary, how should we, who were aliens, 200200 “Qui estions estrangers, et rejettez au pris d’eux.” — Fr. now penetrate to heaven, unless a way of access were opened to us through Christ? Finally, when He forbids strangers from meddling with holy things, He does not mean only foreigners, but all the people, except the tribe of Levi; for here a distinction is drawn, not between the Church and heathen nations, but between the ministers of the sanctuary and the rest of the people. |