Bilangan 8:12

8:12 When ¹  the Levites lay their hands on the heads of the bulls, offer ²  the one for a purification offering and the other for a whole burnt offering to the Lord, ³  to make atonement for the Levites.

Bilangan 8:26

8:26 They may assist ⁴  their colleagues ⁵  in the tent of meeting, to attend to needs, but they must do no work. This is the way you must establish ⁶  the Levites regarding their duties.”

Bilangan 9:13

9:13 But ⁷  the man who is ceremonially clean, and was not on a journey, and fails ⁸  to keep the Passover, that person must be cut off from his people. ⁹  Because he did not bring the Lord’s offering at its appointed time, that man must bear his sin. ¹⁰ 

Bilangan 18:23-24

18:23 But the Levites must perform the service ¹¹  of the tent of meeting, and they must bear their iniquity. ¹²  It will be a perpetual ordinance throughout your generations that among the Israelites the Levites ¹³  have no inheritance. ¹⁴  18:24 But I have given ¹⁵  to the Levites for an inheritance the tithes of the Israelites that are offered ¹⁶  to the Lord as a raised offering. That is why I said to them that among the Israelites they are to have no inheritance.”

Bilangan 18:26

18:26 “You are to speak to the Levites, and you must tell them, ‘When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them as your inheritance, then you are to offer up ¹⁷  from it as a raised offering to the Lord a tenth of the tithe.

Bilangan 18:30

18:30 “Therefore you will say to them, ¹⁸  ‘When you offer up ¹⁹  the best of it, then it will be credited to the Levites as the product of the threshing floor and as the product of the winepress.

Bilangan 22:4

22:4 So the Moabites said to the elders of Midian, “Now this mass of people ²⁰  will lick up everything around us, as the bull devours the grass of the field. Now Balak son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at this time.

Bilangan 31:30

31:30 From the Israelites’ half-share you are to take one portion out of fifty of the people, the cattle, the donkeys, and the sheep – from every kind of animal – and you are to give them to the Levites, who are responsible for the care of the Lord’s tabernacle.”

Bilangan 31:47

31:47 From the Israelites’ share Moses took one of every fifty people and animals and gave them to the Levites who were responsible for the care of the Lord’s tabernacle, just as the Lord commanded Moses.

Bilangan 35:6

35:6 Now from these towns that you will give to the Levites you must select six towns of refuge to which a person who has killed someone may flee. ²¹  And you must give them forty-two other towns.

[8:12]  ¹ tn The clause begins with a vav (ו) on the noun “the Levites,” indicating a disjunctive clause. Here it is clearly a subordinate clause prior to the instruction for Moses, and so translated as a circumstantial clause of time.

[8:12]  ² tn The imperative is from the verb “to do; to make,” but in the sentence it clearly means to sacrifice the animals.

[8:12]  ³ sn The “purification offering” cleansed the tabernacle from impurity, and the burnt offering atoned by nullifying and removing the effects of sin in the Levites.

[8:26]  ⁴ tn The verb is the Piel perfect of שָׁרַת (sharat, “to serve, minister”). Here the form has the vav (ו) consecutive, and so is equal to the imperfect tense stressing permission. After the Levites reached the age of retirement, they were permitted to assist the others, but were not permitted to do the work themselves.

[8:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “brothers,” but the meaning in this context is “fellow Levites.”

[8:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “you shall do, make.”

[9:13]  ⁷ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) signals a contrastive clause here: “but the man” on the other hand….

[9:13]  ⁸ tn The verb חָדַל (khadal) means “to cease; to leave off; to fail.” The implication here is that it is a person who simply neglects to do it. It does not indicate that he forgot, but more likely that he made the decision to leave it undone.

[9:13]  ⁹ sn The pronouncement of such a person’s penalty is that his life will be cut off from his people. There are at least three possible interpretations for this: physical death at the hand of the community (G. B. Gray, Numbers [ICC], 84-85), physical and/or spiritual death at the hand of God (J. Milgrom, “A Prolegomenon to Lev 17:11,” JBL 90 [1971]: 154-55), or excommunication or separation from the community (R. A. Cole, Exodus [TOTC], 109). The direct intervention of God seem to be the most likely in view of the lack of directions for the community to follow. Excommunication from the camp in the wilderness would have been tantamount to a death sentence by the community, and so there really are just two views.

[9:13]  ¹⁰ tn The word for “sin” here should be interpreted to mean the consequences of his sin (so a metonymy of effect). Whoever willingly violates the Law will have to pay the consequences.

[18:23]  ¹¹ tn The verse begins with the perfect tense of עָבַד (’avad) with vav (ו) consecutive, making the form equal to the instructions preceding it. As its object the verb has the cognate accusative “service.”

[18:23]  ¹² sn The Levites have the care of the tent of meeting, and so they are responsible for any transgressions against it.

[18:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Levites) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[18:23]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew text uses both the verb and the object from the same root to stress the point: They will not inherit an inheritance. The inheritance refers to land.

[18:24]  ¹⁵ tn The classification of the perfect tense here too could be the perfect of resolve, since this law is declaring what will be their portion – “I have decided to give.”

[18:24]  ¹⁶ tn In the Hebrew text the verb has no expressed subject (although the “Israelites” is certainly intended), and so it can be rendered as a passive.

[18:26]  ¹⁷ tn The verb in this clause is the Hiphil perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive; it has the same force as an imperfect of instruction: “when…then you are to offer up.”

[18:30]  ¹⁸ tn The wording of this verse is confusing; it may be that it is addressed to the priests, telling them how to deal with the offerings of the Levites.

[18:30]  ¹⁹ tn The clause begins with the infinitive construct with its preposition and suffixed subject serving to indicate the temporal clause.

[22:4]  ²⁰ tn The word is simply “company,” but in the context he must mean a vast company – a horde of people.

[35:6]  ²¹ tn The “manslayer” is the verb “to kill” in a participial form, providing the subject of the clause. The verb means “to kill”; it can mean accidental killing, premeditated killing, or capital punishment. The clause uses the infinitive to express purpose or result: “to flee there the manslayer,” means “so that the manslayer may flee there.”