Numbers 8:18

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

בְּכ֖וֹר

bᵉkôwr

H1060

“firstborn”

Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 118× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 10:15

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H1069

TWOT: 244a

firstborn, firstling - of men and women - of animals - noun of relation (figuratively)

About this verse

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 →

8: words
8: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

1 verb
5 nouns
1 preposition
1 particle

Verb forms

וָאֶקַּח֙ Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 15 words from the Hebrew and 16 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 8 Hebrew tokens and 10 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.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

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.

Hebrew Numbers 8:18 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וָאֶקַּח֙ אֶת הַלְוִיִּ֔ם תַּ֥חַת כָּל בְּכ֖וֹר בִּבְנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל

I have taken the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 8:18 Septuagint · lemma form

καί λαμβάνω ὁ λευίτης ἀντί πᾶς πρωτότοκος ἐν υἱός ἰσραήλ

And I took the Levites in the place of every firstborn among the children of Israel.

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 →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

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.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְקָרֵבִית יָת לֵוָאֵי חֲלַף כָּל בּוּכְרָא בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

(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.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וּקְרִיבַת יַת לֵיוָאֵי חוֹלַף כָּל בּוּכְרָא בִּבְנֵי יִשְרָאֵל

and I have taken the Levites instead of all the first-born of the sons of Israel,

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.

Commentary

Notes on Numbers 8:18 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 →

John Gill's Exposition

And I have taken the Levites for all the firstborn of the children of Israel. Gave up his right in the firstborn, and instead of them took the Levites for his use and service: see Num 3:12.

.

Numbers 8:19

num 8:19

num 8:19

num 8:19And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons, from among the children of Israel,.... Or I have given the Levites that were given; that is, the Lord gave to Aaron and his sons the Levites, that were first given to him; as they were, when brought before him, and the children of Israel laid hands on them, and they were offered before the Lord, Num 8:10,

to do the service of the children of Israel in the tabernacle of the congregation; to do what otherwise they must have done, watch and guard the tabernacle, carry the sacrifices to the priests, assist them at the altar, take down and set up the tabernacle, and carry it, and the vessels of it, from place to place:

and to make an atonement for the children of Israel; not by offering sacrifices for them, which was the work of the priests, but by being now offered themselves, Num 8:10; that they themselves might be the atonement of their souls as Aben Ezra expresses it, as well as they were by their service hereafter a means of preserving the Israelites from death; which may be interpreted of making an atonement, which Phinehas is said to do by his deed, though no sacrifice was offered, Num 25:7; which sense seems to be confirmed by what follows:

that there be no plague among the children of Israel, when the children of Israel come nigh to the sanctuary; by approaching nearer than they should, touching what they ought not, intruding themselves into service they were not called to, or doing it amiss, not being instructed in it, or inured to it as the Levites were. The phrase, "the children of Israel", is five times used in this verse, to denote the love of God to them, as Jarchi observes.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

I have taken the Levites ... instead of all the firstborn

The idea of "taking" is understood from the first part of the sentence and can be repeated in the second. AT: "I have taken the Levites .. instead taking all of the firstborn" (See: Ellipsis)

I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons

Yahweh appointing the Levites to help Aaron and his sons is spoken of as if they were a gift that Yahweh were giving to Aaron and his sons. (See: Metaphor)

I have taken them ... I have given them

Here "them" refers to the Levites.

when they come near

Here "they" refers to the people of Israel.

translationWords

Levi

gift

Aaron

son

tent of meeting

atonement

plague

holy place

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Lesson kit

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 8 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is bᵉkôwr (“firstborn”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “firstborn” (bᵉkôwr) contribute to the verse as a whole?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וָאֶקַּח֙» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how John Gill's Exposition and unfoldingWord translationNotes read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 10 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 9 words in this verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.