They shall keep your charge, and the charge of all the Tent: only they shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary and to the altar, that they not die, neither they, nor you.
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.
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They shall keep your charge, and the charge of all the Tent: only they shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary and to the altar, that they not die, neither they, nor you.
And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary and the altar, that neither they, nor ye also, die.
And they shall keep your keeping and the keeping of all the tent. Only to the vessels of the holy place and to the altar they shall not come near, so they will not die, both they and you.
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
They shall keep your charge, and the charge of all the Tent: only they shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary and to the altar, that they not die, neither they, nor you.
And they shall attend to your duties and to all the duties of the Tent; but they must not come near to the furnishings of the sanctuary or the altar, or both they and you will die.
And they shall attend to your duties and to all the duties of the Tent; but they must not come near to the furnishings of the sanctuary or the altar, or both they and you will die.
And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary and the altar, that neither they, nor ye also, die.
And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the Tent: only they shall not come nigh unto the vessels of the sanctuary and unto the altar, that they die not, neither they, nor ye.
And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the Tent: only they shall not come nigh unto the vessels of the sanctuary and unto the altar, that they die not, neither they, nor ye.
And they shall keepe thy charge, euen the charge of all the Tabernacle: but they shall not come neere the instruments of the Sanctuary, nor to the altar, lest they die, both they and you:
And the Levites shall watch to do thy commands, and about all the works of the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary nor the altar, lest both they die, and you also perish with them.
`And they have kept thy charge, and the charge of all the tent; only, unto the vessels of the sanctuary and unto the altar they do not come near, and they die not, either they or you;
And they have kept your charge, and the charge of all the tent; only, they do not come near to the vessels of the holy place and to the altar, and they do not die, either they or you;
They must serve you and the whole tent. However, they must not come near to anything in the holy place or connected with the altar, or they and also you will die.
And they shall keep your keeping and the keeping of all the tent. Only to the vessels of the holy place and to the altar they shall not come near, so they will not die, both they and you.
And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of the whole tent: only they shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary and to the altar, that they may not die, and you as well as they.
They shall keep your commands and the duty of the whole Tent; only they shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary and to the altar, that they not die, neither they nor you.
And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary and the altar, that neither they, nor ye also, die.
They will take care of your responsibilities and those relating to the Tent, but they must not come too close to the sacred objects of the sanctuary or the altar, otherwise they will die, and you will too.
They are to do your orders and be responsible for the work of the Tent; but they may not come near the vessels of the holy place or the altar, so that death may not overtake them or you.
And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the Tent; only they shall not come nigh unto the holy furniture and unto the altar, that they die not, neither they, nor ye.
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 36 words from the Hebrew and 31 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.
A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.
Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.
In the original languages it is 19 Hebrew tokens and 29 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.
Topical passages linked to Numbers 18:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
וְשָֽׁמְרוּ֙ מִֽשְׁמַרְתְּךָ֔ וּמִשְׁמֶ֖רֶת כָּל הָאֹ֑הֶל אַךְ֩ אֶל כְּלֵ֨י הַקֹּ֤דֶשׁ וְאֶל הַמִּזְבֵּ֨חַ֙ לֹ֣א יִקְרָ֔בוּ וְלֹֽא יָמֻ֥תוּ גַם הֵ֖ם גַּם אַתֶּֽם
They shall keep your charge, and the charge of all the Tent: only they shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary and to the altar, that they not die, neither they, nor you.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί φυλάσσω ὁ φυλακή σύ καί ὁ φυλακή ὁ σκηνή πλήν πρός ὁ σκεῦος ὁ ἅγιος καί πρός ὁ θυσιαστήριον οὐ προςἔρχομαι καί οὐ ἀποθνήσκω καί οὗτος καί σύ
And they shall keep your charges, and the charges of the tabernacle; only they shall not approach the holy vessels and the altar, so both they and you shall not die.
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →
The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.
וְיִטְרוּן מַטַרְתָּךְ וּמַטְרַת כָּל מַשְׁכְּנָא בְּרַם לְמָנֵי קוּדְשָׁא וּלְמַדְבְּחָא לָא יִקְרְבוּן וְלָא יְמוּתוּן אַף אִינוּן אַף אַתּוּן
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
וְיִטְרוּן מַטַרְתָּךְ וּמַטְרַת כָּל מַשְׁכְּנָא בְּרַם לְמָאנֵי קוּדְשָׁא וּלְמַדְבְּחָא לָא יִקְרְבוּן וְלָא יְמוּתוּן אוּף הִינוּן אוּף אַתּוּן
And they shall keep thy charge, and have charge of all the tabernacle; yet to the vessels of the sanctuary and to the altar they are not to come near, lest both they and you die.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.
Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 19 words (15 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is mishmereth (“guard”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on Numbers 18:3 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.
Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →
Trapp's Complete Commentary
John Trapp
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
Tyndale Open Resources
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Wesley's Explanatory Notes
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
unfoldingWord translationNotes
Door43 World Missions Community
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.