1 And the LORD said unto Aaron, Thou and thy sons and thy father's house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary: and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood."And the LORD said unto Aaron...." Well, that's new, isn't it? I don't recall YHWH ever talking directly with just Double-A.
2 And thy brethren also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of thy father, bring thou with thee, that they may be joined unto thee, and minister unto thee: but thou and thy sons with thee shall minister before the tabernacle of witness.
3 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.
4 And they shall be joined unto thee, and keep the charge of the tabernacle of the congregation, for all the service of the tabernacle: and a stranger shall not come nigh unto you.
5 And ye shall keep the charge of the sanctuary, and the charge of the altar: that there be no wrath any more upon the children of Israel.
6 And I, behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel: to you they are given as a gift for the LORD, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.
7 Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest's office for everything of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest's office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.
8 And the LORD spake unto Aaron, Behold, I also have given thee the charge of mine heave offerings of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel; unto thee have I given them by reason of the anointing, and to thy sons, by an ordinance for ever.
9 This shall be thine of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every oblation of theirs, every meat offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs which they shall render unto me, shall be most holy for thee and for thy sons.
10 In the most holy place shalt thou eat it; every male shall eat it: it shall be holy unto thee.
11 And this is thine; the heave offering of their gift, with all the wave offerings of the children of Israel: I have given them unto thee, and to thy sons and to thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: every one that is clean in thy house shall eat of it.
12 All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the firstfruits of them which they shall offer unto the LORD, them have I given thee.
13 And whatsoever is first ripe in the land, which they shall bring unto the LORD, shall be thine; every one that is clean in thine house shall eat of it.
14 Every thing devoted in Israel shall be thine.
15 Every thing that openeth the matrix in all flesh, which they bring unto the LORD, whether it be of men or beasts, shall be thine: nevertheless the firstborn of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem.
16 And those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thine estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.
17 But the firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem; they are holy: thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savour unto the LORD.
18 And the flesh of them shall be thine, as the wave breast and as the right shoulder are thine.
19 All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the LORD, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD unto thee and to thy seed with thee.
20 And the LORD spake unto Aaron, Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part among them: I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel.
21 And, behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.
22 Neither must the children of Israel henceforth come nigh the tabernacle of the congregation, lest they bear sin, and die.
23 But the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they have no inheritance.
24 But the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer as an heave offering unto the LORD, I have given to the Levites to inherit: therefore I have said unto them, Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.
25 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
26 Thus speak unto the Levites, and say unto them, When ye take of the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then ye shall offer up an heave offering of it for the LORD, even a tenth part of the tithe.
27 And this your heave offering shall be reckoned unto you, as though it were the corn of the threshingfloor, and as the fulness of the winepress.
28 Thus ye also shall offer an heave offering unto the LORD of all your tithes, which ye receive of the children of Israel; and ye shall give thereof the LORD's heave offering to Aaron the priest.
29 Out of all your gifts ye shall offer every heave offering of the LORD, of all the best thereof, even the hallowed part thereof out of it.
30 Therefore thou shalt say unto them, When ye have heaved the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshingfloor, and as the increase of the winepress.
31 And ye shall eat it in every place, ye and your households: for it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation.
32 And ye shall bear no sin by reason of it, when ye have heaved from it the best of it: neither shall ye pollute the holy things of the children of Israel, lest ye die.
Anyway, He says that Aaron and his father's gang "shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary," and he and his sons "shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood." So, they'll take the blame for any sins against (or in?) the sanctuary, or committed by the priests. Priests committing sins? Not very likely.
There's a lot of old news about the role of the other Levites and the priestly ones among them, the Aaronids, such as who's allowed in what parts of the tabernacle (lest they die), whom God gave to Aaron as a gift, and who gets to chow down on the sacrificial meat from the meagre flocks of the poor suckers that God is stranding in the wilderness to rot for 40 years.
Though the Levites don't get an inheritance per se, at least no land, they get an awesome royalty stream. "Every thing devoted in Israel shall be thine. Every thing that openeth the matrix in all flesh, which they bring unto the LORD, whether it be of men or beasts, shall be thine: nevertheless the firstborn of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem."
So, they even get the firstborn humans, though they must allow the old buyback "redemption" program. That's firstborn males, though, isn't it? Girls sometimes "open the matrix," no? But so far I'm under the impression that they won't do as proper gifts to God and Aaron.
Oh, and the Levites get the tithes, which are part of the overall pile of fauna and flora (often specifically the first and best stuff) that the Israelites are to bring to the tabernacle, presumably to give thanks for the Lord's mercy in dragging them into nowheresville, where nearly the entire first generation will die — frequently directly at YHWH's hand, via plagues and fire.
It is surprising that this kind of lifestyle is praised by conservatives. Yes, it's pleasingly authoritarian and militaristic, but what rightwinger advocates all-powerful governance, unfulfilled promises of an "ownership society," and punitive taxes? I suppose if the tax burden stopped with the 10% rate, it wouldn't be too offensive to the Steve Forbeses of the world, but all those other offerings add up, no?
Perhaps the promises of real-estate stolen though genocide will come true, and it will be a happy, moral ending. Maybe in another book-a-half of the Pentateuch we'll find out...?
8 comments:
I'm curious as to your rationale for basing your commentary on "King Jim." It was a good translation for its day, but 400 years of scholarship have produced more accurate translations into modern languages.
The one I use most often is the Revised Standard Version (RSV), originally published in the middle of the last century and recently updated as the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). The Oxford Annotated Bible is a good edition of the original RSV with lots of notes on the sources and ambiguities.
Is it because King Jim is the best-known "standard" translation, or because the RSV is still under copyright and you'd get a world of grief for using it? (You wouldn't as long as you identified the source as RSV.)
Whatever you do, stay far away from the New International Version (NIV), which comes from a decidedly conservative-evangelical POV, and the "Living Bible," which is a paraphrase and therefore worse than useless.
mad lol,
My preference for KJV (or Jimbo, if you prefer), is that I wanted to read a Bible that sounded, y'know, biblical.
I've had various commenters suggest that this was an ideal choice and a terrible one, but I'm comfortable with the decision, and I compare with other editions when the lingo gets opaque.
Thanks for joining in!
No biggie, really. I was just curious. I like King Jim's poetic character, and sometimes I refer to it for that aspect even though I know it's not the "best" by modern standards. It's one of those "I know everything that's wrong with it, but I love it anyway" things. :-)
www.whyihatejesus.blogspot.com/
Hey, Moses died.
My apologies for a belated tribute to Mr. Moses. I should have Numbers #19 up later today....
This is an interruption by one of the later priestly writers adding to the Priestly Source. Again.
"bear iniquity in connection with ..." = "responsible for" - ie. "the manager"
Note the claim of exclusivity for the Aaronids. Also worth noting is that the writer claims that Levites were so-called because they were joined ("lavah") to the priesthood; in reality its because they were priests ("levi", in Minaean), an explanation that the Aaronids would never want to accept.
The description of the levites as being "given" is more significant than it appears. The word used for "given" is "Nethunim", which in the Book of Chronicles is used to describe a serving class DISTINCT from both Levites and (Aaronid) Priests; Chronicles is an pro-Aaronid work, but was written after 512BC - long after events - and is sometimes more honest about things such as identities and names.
"Most holy gifts" are the things which had to be eaten in the sanctuary itself, and therefore only by the priests.
"Holy gifts" were all the other offerings, and could be eaten by the families of the priests.
Basically, its the contrast between the priest's portion of sacrificial offerings, and the tithe that the priests receive.
The priestly writer imposes a very greedy tithe - according to which the Levites get the best of the oil, firstfruits, and grain (compare this to buddhist monks, who eat whatever food people put in their bowls).
The first-ripening fruits later were traditionally interpreted as just describing 7 fruits - wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, oil, and honey (from dates, not honeycomb).
It also imposes the Pidyon HaBen - the requirement that the firstborn must be repurchased; on the basis that the all the firstborn belong to God (and the subtle, gruesome, implication that they were originally sacrificed).
The ritually-unclean animals have to be repurchased because they can't be sacrificed.
Or, to put it another way, the ritually-pure animals can't be repurchased, because the priests want to eat them.
Its basically extortion and theft on the part of the Aaronids.
The worst though, is the Levite tithe.
The Levites get a 10th of everything, and the Aaronids get a 10th of that (in addition to the 10th they get for being Levites).
Its basically a massive distortion of the older traditional tithe. The Book of Amos, which is older than the Priestly Source, describes a much more lenient tithe, and Deuteronomy presents a tithe which is similar to that in Amos - ie. there is a continuity of the lenient tithe; the tithe here in the Priestly source, by contrast, is a distinct break with that tradition. Ie. the priestly writer, being greedy and extortionate, has sought in this chapter to overturn the tradition to make themselves rich.
A.,
So good to see you back here in comments. I'm not sure when I'll get back in an active posting regimen again myself, but I hope you'll poke in often enough to find the new stuff and hang in with me on this!
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