1 These also are the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day that the LORD spake with Moses in mount Sinai.We get lists of the male descendants of Aaron and Moses. Aaron's sons: "Nadab the firstborn, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar," the first two of whom God suddenly torched for using "strange fire" (they got mirrors where he's from?). They died childless (but, unfortunately for them, not godless).
2 And these are the names of the sons of Aaron; Nadab the firstborn, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.
3 These are the names of the sons of Aaron, the priests which were anointed, whom he consecrated to minister in the priest's office.
4 And Nadab and Abihu died before the LORD, when they offered strange fire before the LORD, in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children: and Eleazar and Ithamar ministered in the priest's office in the sight of Aaron their father.
5 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
6 Bring the tribe of Levi near, and present them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister unto him.
7 And they shall keep his charge, and the charge of the whole congregation before the tabernacle of the congregation, to do the service of the tabernacle.
8 And they shall keep all the instruments of the tabernacle of the congregation, and the charge of the children of Israel, to do the service of the tabernacle.
9 And thou shalt give the Levites unto Aaron and to his sons: they are wholly given unto him out of the children of Israel.
10 And thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall wait on their priest's office: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.
11 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
12 And I, behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of all the firstborn that openeth the matrix among the children of Israel: therefore the Levites shall be mine;
13 Because all the firstborn are mine; for on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast: mine shall they be: I am the LORD.
14 And the LORD spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, saying,
15 Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them.
16 And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD, as he was commanded.
17 And these were the sons of Levi by their names; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari.
18 And these are the names of the sons of Gershon by their families; Libni, and Shimei.
19 And the sons of Kohath by their families; Amram, and Izehar, Hebron, and Uzziel.
20 And the sons of Merari by their families; Mahli, and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to the house of their fathers.
21 Of Gershon was the family of the Libnites, and the family of the Shimites: these are the families of the Gershonites.
22 Those that were numbered of them, according to the number of all the males, from a month old and upward, even those that were numbered of them were seven thousand and five hundred.
23 The families of the Gershonites shall pitch behind the tabernacle westward.
24 And the chief of the house of the father of the Gershonites shall be Eliasaph the son of Lael.
25 And the charge of the sons of Gershon in the tabernacle of the congregation shall be the tabernacle, and the tent, the covering thereof, and the hanging for the door of the tabernacle of the congregation,
26 And the hangings of the court, and the curtain for the door of the court, which is by the tabernacle, and by the altar round about, and the cords of it for all the service thereof.
27 And of Kohath was the family of the Amramites, and the family of the Izeharites, and the family of the Hebronites, and the family of the Uzzielites: these are the families of the Kohathites.
28 In the number of all the males, from a month old and upward, were eight thousand and six hundred, keeping the charge of the sanctuary.
29 The families of the sons of Kohath shall pitch on the side of the tabernacle southward.
30 And the chief of the house of the father of the families of the Kohathites shall be Elizaphan the son of Uzziel.
31 And their charge shall be the ark, and the table, and the candlestick, and the altars, and the vessels of the sanctuary wherewith they minister, and the hanging, and all the service thereof.
32 And Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest shall be chief over the chief of the Levites, and have the oversight of them that keep the charge of the sanctuary.
33 Of Merari was the family of the Mahlites, and the family of the Mushites: these are the families of Merari.
34 And those that were numbered of them, according to the number of all the males, from a month old and upward, were six thousand and two hundred.
35 And the chief of the house of the father of the families of Merari was Zuriel the son of Abihail: these shall pitch on the side of the tabernacle northward.
36 And under the custody and charge of the sons of Merari shall be the boards of the tabernacle, and the bars thereof, and the pillars thereof, and the sockets thereof, and all the vessels thereof, and all that serveth thereto,
37 And the pillars of the court round about, and their sockets, and their pins, and their cords.
38 But those that encamp before the tabernacle toward the east, even before the tabernacle of the congregation eastward, shall be Moses, and Aaron and his sons, keeping the charge of the sanctuary for the charge of the children of Israel; and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.
39 All that were numbered of the Levites, which Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of the LORD, throughout their families, all the males from a month old and upward, were twenty and two thousand.
40 And the LORD said unto Moses, Number all the firstborn of the males of the children of Israel from a month old and upward, and take the number of their names.
41 And thou shalt take the Levites for me (I am the LORD) instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel; and the cattle of the Levites instead of all the firstlings among the cattle of the children of Israel.
42 And Moses numbered, as the LORD commanded him, all the firstborn among the children of Israel.
43 And all the firstborn males by the number of names, from a month old and upward, of those that were numbered of them, were twenty and two thousand two hundred and threescore and thirteen.
44 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
45 Take the Levites instead of all the firstborn among the children of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of their cattle; and the Levites shall be mine: I am the LORD.
46 And for those that are to be redeemed of the two hundred and threescore and thirteen of the firstborn of the children of Israel, which are more than the Levites;
47 Thou shalt even take five shekels apiece by the poll, after the shekel of the sanctuary shalt thou take them: (the shekel is twenty gerahs:)
48 And thou shalt give the money, wherewith the odd number of them is to be redeemed, unto Aaron and to his sons.
49 And Moses took the redemption money of them that were over and above them that were redeemed by the Levites:
50 Of the firstborn of the children of Israel took he the money; a thousand three hundred and threescore and five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary:
51 And Moses gave the money of them that were redeemed unto Aaron and to his sons, according to the word of the LORD, as the LORD commanded Moses.
The other two carried on in the family ministry bidness.
God told Moses to bring the Levites near, so they can help with ministering, as well. Aaron will totally pwn them.
Again, "the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death." None of your Poltergeist "all are welcome" stuff with this crowd.
Yahweh says He's taking the Levites instead of the firstborns of the other tribes, and He totally pwns them.
When He nobly slaughtered every firstborn Egyptian, He claimed all the firstborn Israelite men and beasts. "Mine shall they be: I am the LORD."
The Lord tells Moe to do a census of the Levites, everyone one month or older, which of course he does. All the names are itemized, the descendants of Levi's sons Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, and there are 22,000 in all. Just a drop in the bucket in the massive metropolitan area known as "some random place in the wilderness."
The Gershonite males who made the cut (make your own bris joke) totaled 7,500. Like the other Levite sub-tribes, they're assigned a spot in the wilderness-camp constellation and specific tabernacle-related duties.
The month-plus Kohathite males totaled 8,600.
One of Kohath's sons, Amram, was Moses and Aaron's dad. And lest we forget, Kohath's sister Jochebed was Moses and Aaron's mother. The Old Testament makes strange Jochebedfellows, what with their great-aunt also being their mom. Good thing that happened before Leviticus 20:19 was written.
Aaron's son, Eleazar, "shall be chief over the chief of the Levites, and have the oversight of them that keep the charge of the sanctuary."
Interestingly, the number of firstborn males among the rest of the Israelites was only slightly more than the Levite's total male population (22,273 vs. 22,000). If I'm doing the math correctly, that suggests that the average family had about 27 sons (603,550 / 22,273).
Anyway, YHWH does give the rest of the Israelites a pass, instead deciding to pwn just the Levites and their cattle.
Well, not totally a pass, the Israelites freed from God's clutches have to be bought back for five shekels each.
The bonus money that comes from the excess sale of humans "redeemed" from God — the extra 273 that weren't swapped for Levites — goes to Aaron on sons, by way of Moses.
3 comments:
http://religioustolerance.org uses the 1-month-old census criteria as evidence against the "soul is created at inception" argument of right-wing evangelicals and Catholics today.
Cute.
This is still priestly source, but its one of the later layers added by later priestly writers from the same Aaronid group. Firstly there are snippits from the so called "Book of Generations" (essentially a name given by scholars to the temple's genealogy documents), which have been worked in by the redactor (who spliced the priestly source and jahwist-elohist text together), or a priestly editor, in both cases for the purpose of papering over the "that doesn't really fit into the narrative very well" gaps. The more original text of the chapter is the "buying back" ceremony at the end, and the "group X, who number Y, have responsibilities Z" bits; even these bits are still additions to the original priestly source, with the latter clearly being from the "lets repeat this long sentence unnecessarily" writer.
Eleazer and Ithamar are important genealogically; when the priestly source was written, there was a dispute between the Mushites and the Aaronids, about whether the Aaronids could have the priesthood exclusively to themselves or not. The Aaronids claimed that there had never been any non-Aaronid priests, which of course meant that they had to explain away the earlier non-Aaronid priests, INCLUDING the recent ones who were clearly NOT the ancestors of the living Aaronids; so the Aaronids claimed that the earlier (actually non-Aaronid) priests were descended from an "Ithamar", whose line had "recently" become illegitimate, while the (actual) Aaronids were descended from an "Eleazar".
In reality, of course, the original myth had Eleazar as Moses' son, not Aarons. In the surviving bible, it describes Moses' son with the name "Eliezer", which is just a minor textual corruption of Eleazar (or vice-versa), perhaps in a vain attempt to hide the similiarity.
Similarly "Gerson", a generic "one of the four levite forefathers", is really "Gershom", the son of Moses. The older genealogy with Moses at the top of the tree is changed into one where the famous historic priests are all Aaronids, and the less famous ones are not priests and definitely not descended from anyone as legendarily powerful as Moses.
Due to the fact that Moses has to be Aaron's brother (its too well known for the priestly source to change), and Moses' parents are BOTH levites (according to the earlier Elohist narrative), you must have at least 1 generation between Aaron and Levi. There needs to be at least three in that generation, so that Aaron can have two Levite parents, and so that the priestly source can make it have Levites who are neither Aaronids nor descended from Moses (requiring at least 1 other). But more than two in the generation begins to imply that the generation somehow reflects an ancestral division among the levites; so lets base that generation on the divisions in the priestly source's time, hence 4 - Gershon, Merari, Kohath, and Jochebed.
The most important, and historically earliest developed, detail in Aaron's ancestry is not that Kohath is the father, but that Jochebed is the mother. Except that the name "Jochebed" is really "Jacob" in disguise (or, more likely, vice-versa); this is true of "Ichabod" later on as well, explaining the otherwise inexplicable significance of being the "brother of Ichabod" (compared to mentioning the father). The priestly source has made Kohath the father just to make Aaron have a Levite father as well as mother (as required to be consistent with the major details of the earlier legend). If you look at the way the Levites are divided up (Gershon, Merari, Kohath except Aaronids, Aaronids), its clear that Kohath (the division/clan) is treated as being really quite distinct from the Aaronids; Aaron is represented in the genealogy by Jochebed/Jacob ONLY (ie. Gershon, Merari, Kohath, Jochebed => Gershon, Merari, Kohath, Aaron).
Note how Kohath (which the priestly source here genealogically connects to Aaron) is given the most sacred of the objects to deal with, while Gershon and Merari just have the walls, doors, and ceiling.
You'll see the change, between all Levites being actual priests, and only the Aaronids being priests, in the Book of Ezekiel, which was written at the time this opinion began to gain political dominance, by a person supporting the claim that only Aaronids were priests; Ezekiel clearly expresses the view "Levites were all priests in the past", "but not now".
You've clearly spotted the fraudulent nature of the census statistics; 27 sons is ever so slightly implausible (in just 2 further generations - lets say about 40 years - there will be over 400 million Israelites, and in just 1 generation more - total of roughly just 60 years - that makes over 11 billion, which is more than the entire population of the whole planet in the present day; imagine the entire population of the earth squashed into the space of a tiny region near Canaan, allegedly hiding from the Egyptians, then double it). They are basically taken from official records written in different periods of time, and sometimes about different groups to the ones claimed.
Then its "no actually, you know that bit about 'the firstborn belongs to God', well I've changed my mind, its all the levites now". Of course this is down to the different sources; in the older sources (Jahwist and Elohist), the Levites are special because they are simply the priesthood, but in the priestly source the Levites are NOT the priesthood, so there must be a special reason for them to be special. Also, the "sacrifice firstborn children to God" thing wasn't in favour by the time the priestly source was written (although it was in earlier times, like when some parts of the Book of Judges were written).
What they are being "bought back" from is human sacrifice. Of course, when the priestly source was written, human sacrifice was dying out, but the practice of "buying back" children from it still existed - it was one of the major reasons that human sacrifice was dying out. Originally they couldn't be bought back, a vow was an unbreakable vow, but clearly some priests saw a way to make money. The ceremony (of buying back), "Pidyon haBen" ("redemption of the sons" - "ha..."="the", "ben"="son [of]"), still goes on among Orthodox Jews (yes, they are that barbarically primitive, and misogynistic - female children don't get bought back).
5 shekels is a WEIGHT of silver, not a particular coin, nor monetary value (in the older parts of the bible); ie. enough silver that it weighs 5 shekels. "Shekel of the sanctuary" refers to the older measurement system, compared to the newer one (ie. it dates the priestly source to a time after the change had occurred); the "shekel of the sanctuary" is about 224g, while the "common shekel" of later times was about 173g.
Remember the age range here of 30-60. Its contradicted in chapter 8.
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