Duties of priests and Levites
18
📚And the LORD said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your father’s household with you will bear the guilt of any sins against the sanctuary, and you and your sons with you will bear the guilt of any failure in your priesthood. 2 📚And bring with you your brethren also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, so that they may join you, and serve with you. But you and your sons with you shall minister before the tabernacle of testimony. 3 📚And they are to wait on the duties you assign, the duties of the whole tabernacle, except that they shall not come near the furnishings of the sanctuary and the altar, so that neither they nor you die. 4 📚And they shall join you, and wait on the duties of the tabernacle of the congregation, for all the service of the tabernacle, but an outsider must not come near you. 5 📚“And you shall keep the responsibilities of the sanctuary, and the responsibilities of the altar, so that there be no more anger on the children of Israel. 6 📚And I, see, I myself, have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel. They are given as a gift to you, for the LORD, to do the work of the tabernacle of the congregation. 7 📚Therefore you and your sons with you shall serve as priests in everything relating to the altar and inside the veil, and you shall serve. I have given your service in the priesthood as a gift 📖; and the outsider who approaches the sanctuary is to be put to death”.
18:1-7 The work and responsibility of the priesthood was Aaron’s and his descendants. The Levites were to be assistants in the work outside, in the courtyard of the tabernacle.⚜
8 📚And the LORD spoke to Aaron, “See, I have also put you in charge of my lifted up offerings of all the consecrated things of the children of Israel; I have given them to you and to your sons as an anointed portion by an ordinance forever.
Support of priests and Levites
9 📚This shall be yours from the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every offering of theirs, that is, every grain offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs, which they offer to me, shall be most holy for you and for your sons. 10 📚You shall eat them in a very holy place; every male shall eat it; it shall be holy for you.
11 📚“And this is yours: the lifted up offering of their gift, with all the wave offerings of the children of Israel. I have given them to you, and to your sons and to your daughters with you, by a statute forever. Everyone who is clean in your house shall eat of it.
12 📚“All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, their firstfruits which they shall offer to the LORD, I have given them to you. 13 📚And whatever ripens first in the land which they bring to the LORD, shall be yours. Everyone who is clean in your house shall eat of it.
14 📚“Everything devoted to the LORD in Israel shall be yours. 15 📚Every first issue of the womb, of everything that has flesh, which they bring to the LORD, whether man or animal, shall be yours. However you must redeem the firstborn of man, also you must redeem the firstborn of unclean beasts. 16 📚And you must redeem those that are to be redeemed from a month old, according to your evaluation of five shekels 📖 of silver according to the sanctuary shekel, which is twenty gerahs.
17 📚“But you are not to redeem the firstborn of a cow, or the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat. They are holy. You shall sprinkle their blood on the altar, and shall burn their fat as an offering made by fire, a fragrant aroma to the LORD. 18 📚And their meat will belong to you, just as the wave breast and the right shoulder are yours. 19 📚All the lifted up offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer to the LORD I have given to you and to your sons and your daughters with you, by a statute forever. This is a covenant of salt forever before the LORD with you and with your offspring also”. 20 📚And the LORD spoke to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, nor shall you have any share among them. I am your share and your inheritance among the children of Israel. 21 📚“And, see, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance, for the work which they perform in the service of the tabernacle of the congregation. 22 📚From now on the children of Israel must not come near the tabernacle of the congregation, so that they will not bear guilt and die. 23 📚But the Levites shall perform the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity. This shall be a statute forever throughout your generations: they are to have no inheritance among the children of Israel. 24 📚But the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer as a lifted up offering to the LORD, I have given to the Levites to inherit. Therefore I said to them, ‘They shall have no inheritance among the children of Israel.’ ”
25 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 26 📚“Speak to the Levites, and tell them this: When you take from the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall offer a lifted up offering from it for the LORD, a tenth of the tithe. 27 📚And this lifted up offering of yours will be put to your account as if it were the grain of the threshing floor, and the fulness of the winepress. 28 📚Also, in the same way, you shall offer a lifted up offering to the LORD from all your tithes, which you receive from the children of Israel; and from it you shall give the LORD’s lifted up offering to Aaron the priest. 29 Out of all your gifts you shall offer each lifted up offering of the LORD from all the best of it, from the most holy part of it.
30 📚“Therefore you shall say to them, When you have presented from it the best of it, then it shall be put to the account of the Levites just as the increase of the threshing floor, and the increase of the winepress. 31 📚And you shall eat it any place, you and your households; for it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation. 32 📚And you shall bear no guilt for it, when you have presented from it the best of it. But you shall not defile the holy things of the children of Israel, so that you do not die”.
18:8-32 The priests and Levites were to be supported by the offerings and tithes of the people they served. This is God’s usual way of providing for His servants (Lev 7:14; Num 7:4-5). The priests and Levites were to recognize that these were holy gifts of God and be careful how they used them. The priests had their inheritance in God, not in land and property. In other words, they had the greatest inheritance of all the people. They signify believers in Christ who have their inheritance in Christ and not in this world (Eph 1:10-14; Col 1:12; 3:24; Heb 13:14; 1 Pet 1:4; Rev 21:7).⚜