Numbers 8:23

Num_8:23-26

The Levites; from twenty and five years.

Service

I. The service God demands of all levites.

1. Burden-bearing.

2. Singing.

3. Study of the law, Search the Scriptures.

4. Attendance on the ordinances of the sanctuary.

II. God demands the service in our prime. From twenty and five.

III. God demands this service when it can be most easily rendered. He suits the burden to the back. All He asks is, that we shall do what we can. (R. A. Griffin.)

The Divine Master and His human servants

I. The necessity of fitness for the divine service. In learning any handicraft or trade, years are spent under instructors; for the practice of law or medicine men must have special training; and is it not important that they who engage in religious services should be qualified for such services?

II. The variety of employment in the divine service.

1. An encouragement to persons of feeble powers and narrow opportunities to try to do good.

2. A rebuke to those who plead inability as an excuse for their indolence in religious service.

III. The care of the great master for his servants. Conclusion. This subject supplies--

1. Encouragement to enter into this service. Come thou with us, &c.

2. Encouragement to persevere in this service. A glorious reward awaits those who patiently continue in well-doing. (W. Jones.)

Age and youth in relation to service

1. They were to enter upon the service at twenty-five years old (Num_8:24). They were not charged with the carrying of the tabernacle and the utensils of it till they were thirty years old (Num_4:3). But they were entered to be otherwise serviceable at twenty-five years old--a very good age for ministers to begin their public work. The work then required that strength of body, and the work now requires that maturity of judgment and staidness of behaviour which men rarely arrive at till about that age : and novices are in danger of being lifted up with pride.

2. They were to have a writ of ease at fifty years old; then they were to return from the warfare, as the phrase is (Num_8:25), not cashiered with disgrace--but preferred rather to the rest, which their age required, to be loaded with the honours of their office, as hitherto they had been with the burdens of it. They shall minister with their brethren in the tabernacle, to direct the junior Levites, and set them in; and they shall keep the charge, as guards upon the avenues of the tabernacle, to see that no stranger intruded, nor any person in his uncleanness; but they shall not be put upon any service which may be a fatigue to them. If Gods grace provide that men shall have ability according to their work, mans prudence should take care that men have work but according to their ability. The aged are most fit for truths, and to keep the charge; the younger are most fit for work, and to do the service. Those that have used the office of a servant well, purchase to themselves a good degree (1Ti_3:13). Yet indeed gifts are not tied to ages (Job_32:9), but all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

AGE LIMITS TO LEVITICAL SERVICE, Num_8:23-26.

There is great propriety in fixing the limits of active service in the case of all who are set apart to an office for life. Yet the priests for some reason were not restricted in this respect. The office of the sons of Aaron did not require the same degree of physical strength as that of the Levites; whereas, the service of the latter being more severe, especially until the tabernacle was permanently located, it was more necessary that they should be protected by the law. See Num_4:3. For the discrepancy between twenty-five years, the lower limit in this chapter, and thirty years, as prescribed in chapter iv, see General Remarks, (2,) at the end of the latter chapter. “In Moses’s time the Levites from the age of twenty-five were employed in the lighter kinds of service, while, for the transportation of the heavier materials of the tabernacle, when the Israelites were on the march, men older and stronger were required. After the temple was built, its much less onerous service permitted the standard of age to be lowered to twenty years. After the age of fifty the Levites were simply to keep the charge, or guard, in the tabernacle, but were exempted from all laborious duties.” — Haley.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8:23-26 Guidelines regarding the Levites’ length of service. • Whereas 4:3 states that their Tabernacle service began at age 30, 8:24 gives the age as 25. The discrepancy might reflect age requirements followed in different periods when the number of Levite men available for service varied, or those aged 25–29 may have been considered unofficial workers or apprentices. • Both passages establish the retirement age at 50; retired Levites could serve the Tabernacle as guards (cp. Ps 84:10).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

This is it that belongeth unto the Levites,.... The fixed and settled time for their service, as is after related:

from twenty and five years old and upward, they shall go in to wait upon the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; in Num 4:3; the time for the Levites entering on the work of the tabernacle is fixed to thirty years and upward, which Jarchi reconciles thus; at twenty five years old the Levite goes in to learn the rites of service, and he learns five years, and when thirty years of age he services; the same is observed by others (w); but what Aben Ezra proposes seems much better; at thirty years of age a Levite entered into the service of bearing and carrying burdens; and at twenty five years of age he entered into the service of the tent or tabernacle, where he was employed in lighter service, such as opening and shutting the doors of the sanctuary, keeping out strangers and unclean persons, and singing the songs of the sanctuary; but was not concerned till thirty years of age in carrying the vessels of the sanctuary on the shoulders, as the Kohathites; or in taking down and setting up the tabernacle, loading and unloading the wagons, as the Gershonites and Merarites; which is the business assigned unto them, and spoken of in Num 4:22, where the age of thirty years, and upward, is mentioned, as the time of their entrance on it, Num 4:23.

(w) Ben Gersom in loc. Bartenora in Pirke Abot, c. 5. sect. 21.

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

The Levitical period of service is fixed here at twenty-five years of age and upwards to the fiftieth year. "This is what concerns the Levites," i.e., what follows applies to the Levites. "From the age of twenty-five years shall he (the Levite) come to do service at the work of the tabernacle; and at fifty years of age shall he return from the service of the work, and not work any further, but only serve his brethren at the tabernacle in keeping charge," i.e., help them to look after the furniture of the tabernacle. "Charge" (mishmereth), as distinguished from "work," signified the oversight of all the furniture of the tabernacle (see Num 3:8); "work" (service) applied to laborious service, e.g., the taking down and setting up of the tabernacle and cleaning it, carrying wood and water for the sacrificial worship, slaying the animals for the daily and festal sacrifices of the congregation, etc.

Num 8:26

"So shalt thou do to the Levites (i.e., proceed with them) in their services." משׁמרת from משׁמרת, attendance upon an official post. Both the heading and final clause, by which this law relating to the Levites' period of service is bounded, and its position immediately after the induction of the Levites into their office, show unmistakeably that this law was binding for all time, and was intended to apply to the standing service of the Levites at the sanctuary; and consequently that it was not at variance with the instructions in ch. 4, to muster the Levites between thirty and fifty years of age, and organize them for the transport of the tabernacle on the journey through the wilderness (Num 4:3-49). The transport of the tabernacle required the strength of a full-grown man, and therefore the more advanced age of thirty years; whereas the duties connected with the tabernacle when standing were of a lighter description, and could easily be performed from the twenty-fifth year (see Hengstenberg's Dissertations, vol. ii. pp. 321ff.). At a later period, when the sanctuary was permanently established on Mount Zion, David employed the Levites from their twentieth year (Ch1 23:24-25), and expressly stated that he did so because the Levites had no longer to carry the dwelling and its furniture; and this regulation continued in force from that time forward (cf. Ch2 31:17; Ezr 3:8). But if the supposed discrepancy between the verses before us and Num 4:3, Num 4:47, is removed by this distinction, which is gathered in the most simple manner from the context, there is no ground whatever for critics to deny that the regulation before us could have proceeded from the pen of the Elohist.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

The Age at Which the Levites Served

v. 23. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

v. 24. This is it that belongeth unto the Levites, this is the special regulation fixing the age limit of the Levites: from twenty and five years old and upward they shall go in to wait upon the service of the Tabernacle of the Congregation, be engaged in the ministry connected with the Lord’s Sanctuary;

v. 25. and from the age of fifty years they shall cease waiting upon the service thereof and shall serve no more, not be obliged to do the heavy work connected with the transport of the Tabernacle;

v. 26. but shall minister with their brethren in the Tabernacle of the Congregation, to keep the charge, have the supervision over the furniture and the vessels of the Sanctuary, and shall do no service. Thus shalt thou do unto the Levites touching their charge, with regard to all the services which they were to perform. It was not a complete retirement which the Levites suffered, but they were relieved of the more difficult manual and physical labor connected with the offering of the sacrifices and with the service of the Tabernacle. David later modified these regulations by having all the Levites serve from the time they were twenty years old, 1Ch 23:24-25, and this ordinance remained in power while the kingdom of Judah existed.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

All of this is for the Levites

"All of these commandments are for the Levites"

twenty-five years old

"25 years old" (See: Numbers)

must join the company to serve in the tent of meeting

The word "company" refers to the rest of the people working in the tent of meeting. See how you translated this phrase in Numbers 4:3.

translationWords

Levi

tent of meeting

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