Bible School · Ministry and the church's offices · Class 19 of 27

Priests, Levites and the support of ministry: 'I am your portion'

Numbers 18 · about 20 minutes · Priests, Levites and the support of ministry

By the end of this class you should be able to

Distinguish the duties of the priests (Aaron and his sons) from those of the other Levites in Numbers 18.
List what the priests and Levites received for their support and explain why they held no tribal land.
Trace how this chapter stands behind the New Testament teaching on supporting those who minister (1 Corinthians 9; 1 Timothy 5) and behind the tithe argument of Hebrews 7.
State the main Christian answers to two questions: whether the tithe binds the church, and whether the Old Testament orders are a model for the church's ministry.
Identify how Aaron's role of bearing iniquity and entering the holy place points to Christ the high priest.

Read the passage

18So the LORD said to Aaron, “You and your sons and your father’s house must bear the iniquity involving the sanctuary. And you and your sons alone must bear the iniquity involving your priesthood. ²But bring with you also your brothers from the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, that they may join you and assist you and your sons before the Tent of the Testimony. ³And they shall attend to your duties and to all the duties of the Tent; but they must not come near to the furnishings of the sanctuary or the altar, or both they and you will die. ⁴They are to join you and attend to the duties of the Tent of Meeting, doing all the work at the Tent; but no outsider may come near you. ⁵And you shall attend to the duties of the sanctuary and of the altar, so that wrath may not fall on the Israelites again. ⁶Behold, I Myself have selected your fellow Levites from the Israelites as a gift to you, dedicated to the LORD to perform the service for the Tent of Meeting. ⁷But only you and your sons shall attend to your priesthood for everything concerning the altar and what is inside the veil, and you are to perform that service. I am giving you the work of the priesthood as a gift, but any outsider who comes near the sanctuary must be put to death.” ⁸Then the LORD said to Aaron, “Behold, I have put you in charge of My offerings. As for all the sacred offerings of the Israelites, I have given them to you and your sons as a portion and a permanent statute. ⁹A portion of the most holy offerings reserved from the fire will be yours. From all the offerings they render to Me as most holy offerings, whether grain offerings or sin offerings or guilt offerings, that part belongs to you and your sons. ¹⁰You are to eat it as a most holy offering, and every male may eat it. You shall regard it as holy. ¹¹And this is yours as well: the offering of their gifts, along with all the wave offerings of the Israelites. I have given this to you and your sons and daughters as a permanent statute. Every ceremonially clean person in your household may eat it. ¹²I give you all the freshest olive oil and all the finest new wine and grain that the Israelites give to the LORD as their firstfruits. ¹³The firstfruits of everything in their land that they bring to the LORD will belong to you. Every ceremonially clean person in your household may eat them. ¹⁴Every devoted thing in Israel belongs to you. ¹⁵The firstborn of every womb, whether man or beast, that is offered to the LORD belongs to you. But you must surely redeem every firstborn son and every firstborn male of unclean animals. ¹⁶You are to pay the redemption price for a month-old male according to your valuation: five shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel, which is twenty gerahs. ¹⁷But you must not redeem the firstborn of an ox, a sheep, or a goat; they are holy. You are to sprinkle their blood on the altar and burn their fat as an offering made by fire, a pleasing aroma to the LORD. ¹⁸And their meat belongs to you, just as the breast and right thigh of the wave offering belong to you. ¹⁹All the holy offerings that the Israelites present to the LORD I give to you and to your sons and daughters as a permanent statute. It is a permanent covenant of salt before the LORD for you and your offspring.” ²⁰Then the LORD said to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the Israelites. ²¹Behold, I have given to the Levites all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work they do, the service of the Tent of Meeting. ²²No longer may the Israelites come near to the Tent of Meeting, or they will incur guilt and die. ²³The Levites are to perform the work of the Tent of Meeting, and they must bear their iniquity. This is a permanent statute for the generations to come. The Levites will not receive an inheritance among the Israelites. ²⁴For I have given to the Levites as their inheritance the tithe that the Israelites present to the LORD as a contribution. That is why I told them that they would not receive an inheritance among the Israelites.” ²⁵And the LORD instructed Moses, ²⁶“Speak to the Levites and tell them: ‘When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you as your inheritance, you must present part of it as an offering to the LORD—a tithe of the tithe. ²⁷Your offering will be reckoned to you as grain from the threshing floor or juice from the winepress. ²⁸So you are to present an offering to the LORD from all the tithes you receive from the Israelites, and from these you are to give the LORD’s offering to Aaron the priest. ²⁹You must present the offering due the LORD from all the best of every gift, the holiest part of it.’ ³⁰Therefore say to the Levites, ‘When you have presented the best part, it will be reckoned to you as the produce of the threshing floor or winepress. ³¹And you and your households may eat the rest of it anywhere; it is the compensation for your work at the Tent of Meeting. ³²Once you have presented the best part of it, you will not incur guilt because of it. But you must not defile the sacred offerings of the Israelites, or else you will die.’”

Open Numbers 18 in the reader (BSB)

01Background

Numbers is the fourth book of the Torah. Its Hebrew title, Bemidbar, means 'in the wilderness'. Jewish and Christian tradition has long ascribed the book to Moses. Many critical scholars assign chapters like this one, which are concerned with priestly duties and portions, to a priestly source gathered and edited later, while others defend a Mosaic core with some later updating. The events fall in the forty years between Sinai and the plains of Moab, dated by an early reckoning () to the fifteenth century BC and by a late one to the thirteenth.

answers a crisis. In Korah, a Levite of the clan of Kohath, joined Dathan and Abiram of Reuben and 250 leaders in challenging Moses and Aaron on the ground that the whole congregation is holy, so why should Aaron stand above them ()? The earth swallowed the leaders, fire consumed the 250, and a plague followed. In God settled the question of who may serve as priest: Aaron's staff alone budded. The people's reply () is a cry of fear that anyone who comes near the tabernacle will die. is God's answer, and it is addressed to Aaron himself. That is unusual in the Torah, where God normally speaks to Moses (compare , 8 and 20).

The first hearers had just watched a priestly claim end in death. They needed to know who may come near, who guards the sanctuary, and who is to be fed from it.

02Outline

Aaron and his sons bear the guilt of the sanctuary; the Levites are given to assist
What the priests receive: offerings, firstfruits, devoted things and the redeemed firstborn
What the Levites receive: Israel's tithe, in place of a land inheritance
The Levites give a tenth of the tithe to the priests

03How to read it

is law set inside narrative. It is a speech of God that regulates service and payment, placed between two stories (the rebellion and the budding staff before it, the red heifer ritual after it in ). The rule for reading such legislation is to ask first what it meant for Israel under the covenant at Sinai, and only then how the New Testament uses it. The New Testament does not treat every Old Testament command as binding on the church in the same way, but it does draw on this chapter in two places, and , and each use must be read in its own context.

Two cautions apply.

First, this is the priests' side of the arrangement. Deuteronomy describes the tithe from the worshipper's side (; ), and it does not read identically. Some interpreters harmonise the passages as describing more than one tithe; others read Deuteronomy as adapting the earlier law.
Second, the chapter describes a nation with a land, a tabernacle and a sacrificial system. What carries over to the church is a real question, taken up in the tradition note.

04What the text says

Verses 1–7

God tells Aaron that he, his sons and his father's house will 'bear' the iniquity connected with the sanctuary, and that Aaron and his sons will bear the iniquity connected with the priesthood. The verb is nasa awon, 'to carry guilt'. It does not mean the priests are sinners above others. It means they are held accountable if the holy things are mishandled. The same idea appears in , where Aaron wears a gold plate on his forehead and 'bears the iniquity' of the holy gifts, and in , where the priests eat the sin offering 'to bear the iniquity of the congregation' and make atonement. The priests stand in the line of fire so that the people do not.

The other Levites are assigned a separate role. God says they will be 'joined' to Aaron. The Hebrew verb is lavah, a deliberate sound-play on the name Levi (, where Leah hopes her husband will be 'joined' to her). They keep guard over the tent and do its work, but they must not come near the holy furnishings or the altar, or both they and the priests will die (). The Levites carried and guarded; the priests, and only the priests, handled the altar and went within the veil. The purpose clause matters: this order exists so that wrath will not fall on Israel again (). It is a protective order. Both are called a gift (matanah): the Levites are given to the priests (), and the priesthood is a gift of service (). The outsider (zar) who comes near is to be put to death ().

Verses 8–20

The priests' support is stated at length. They receive the parts of the most holy offerings that are not burned: the grain offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering. Male members of a priest's family eat these in a holy place (). Their whole household may eat the wave offerings if ritually clean (). They receive the best of the oil, wine and grain as firstfruits (reshit, ), and the first ripe produce of the land (bikkurim, ). Everything devoted (cherem) to the LORD in Israel is theirs ().

The firstborn also belong to the priests' portion in a particular way. Since the Passover, the firstborn of Israel, of man and animal, belonged to the LORD (, -15). In and the Levites were taken in the firstborn's place, and the 273 firstborn who exceeded the Levites in number were redeemed at five shekels each. sets the continuing rule. A firstborn son is redeemed at five shekels of the sanctuary shekel, a firstborn of an unclean animal is redeemed, and a firstborn calf, lamb or kid is not redeemed but offered, with its blood sprinkled on the altar and its fat burned, and its meat goes to the priest ().

calls all this a 'covenant of salt', a lasting covenant before the LORD. Salt was required with every grain offering (), and it was a preservative, so the phrase marks a lasting, binding arrangement. The same expression is used of the Davidic covenant in . gives the reason priests are given no land: the LORD tells Aaron that he himself is Aaron's portion and inheritance among the Israelites. The word for portion is cheleq. states the same thing for all Levites. The priests are provided for in God, not in territory.

Verses 21–24

The Levites receive every tithe in Israel as an inheritance, in exchange for their service at the tent of meeting. A tithe is a tenth (maaser). had declared the tithe of the land's produce and of the herds holy to the LORD, without naming the recipient; here the recipient is named. The service is also tied to protection of the people: Israel may no longer 'come near' the tent, lest they bear sin and die (), while the Levites carry the guilt of that service ().

Verses 25–32

The Levites are then given a rule of their own. They must give a tithe of the tithe, 'the best' of it, to Aaron the priest as an offering to the LORD (terumah, ). It is counted as if it were their own grain from the threshing floor and winepress (, 30). The remaining nine tenths they may eat anywhere, with their households, because it is their wages for their service at the tent of meeting (). The closing warning is that they bear no sin for offering the best, but they must not profane Israel's holy offerings or they will die (). The people who receive tithes are themselves under the discipline of tithing.

05Key terms

bear iniquity nasa awon: To carry guilt. In 18:1 and 23 it means to be answerable for faults in the sanctuary and the priesthood (compare ; ).
be joined lavah: To attach oneself to. It sounds like 'Levi' and describes the Levites' attachment to the priests (, 4).
outsider zar: One who is not within the set-apart order. In 18:4 and 7 it forbids those not of Aaron's house from priestly service.
tithe maaser: A tenth. In it is Israel's tenth of the land's produce, given to the Levites (, 24).
contribution (heave offering) terumah: A portion lifted off and set apart for the LORD. The Levites' tenth of the tithe is a terumah to the priest ().
devoted thing cherem: Something set apart for the LORD beyond ordinary use (; compare , ).

06In the whole Bible

sets out three ideas that run through the rest of the Bible. The first is mediation with a price. Holiness is dangerous to those who approach it unfit, and the priesthood stands between the holy God and the people. The language of 'bearing iniquity' ties the priest's work to the sin-bearing of the whole sacrificial system, which reaches its climax in , where the Servant 'bore the sin of many'. Israel is a kingdom of priests (), yet God appoints one family to handle the holy things. Korah's claim that the whole congregation was holy was true in one sense and was refused as grounds for taking what God had assigned to others.

The second is that God supports those he sets apart. The principle is plain; the means are tied to Israel's land and sanctuary. When the arrangement lapsed, the ministry lapsed: in the Levites had left to farm because their portions had not been given (compare ). The New Testament takes up the principle without restating the percentage. Paul reasons in from those who serve in the temple and share the altar's offerings to the Lord's command that those who proclaim the gospel get their living from the gospel. and say the same of those who teach, citing the saying that the worker is worthy of his wages (compare ). Paul also did not use this right in Corinth (, ; ). The Bible joins the right of support to a warning against profit: elders are not to be lovers of money (; ), and condemns shepherds who feed themselves.

The third is that God himself is the portion of his servants. Worshippers reuse the language of : 'The LORD is my portion' (; compare ; ). The New Testament does not repeat the arrangement of Levites and priests as church offices. It speaks of a whole people as 'a royal priesthood' (, ) and of Christ as the great high priest (), as the next classes show.

07Where Christ is

Aaron's role is a type of Christ's, and Hebrews says so. Aaron is chosen by God, not by himself (; ), and he alone goes within the veil on the Day of Atonement (; ). presents Christ as the high priest who entered the greater and more perfect tent, not by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood, once for all. The priests of must also bear the guilt of their own office; says that Christ, unlike them, had no need to offer first for his own sins. The comparison is real, and so is the contrast. The old priests were mortal and stood at a barrier. Christ opens it. The command that an outsider who comes near shall die () stands behind the New Testament statements that believers now have 'confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus' () and are 'no longer foreigners and strangers' (), a fulfillment of what the barrier pictured.

The redemption of the firstborn is an echo that the New Testament makes more than once. records that Jesus was presented in the temple as a firstborn male, called holy to the Lord, according to the law. Peter draws the language of redemption price into the gospel: believers were redeemed not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ (). The five shekels in buy back a child; the blood of Christ buys back a people. calls the church 'the assembly of the firstborn', and , names Christ the firstborn over creation and from the dead.

The promise that the LORD is the portion of his servants also reaches the new covenant, where believers receive an inheritance kept in heaven (; , ).

08How traditions read it

Two questions in this chapter divide Christians, and each is argued by people who take Scripture seriously. The first is whether the tithe continues. Many Baptist, Pentecostal and evangelical churches teach that the tithe does, pointing to the fact that Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek () and Jacob promised one () before the law of Moses, to Jesus' words in that tithing should not be neglected, and to , where Christ, who lives, is the one now said to receive tithes. Many Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican and other Christians answer that the tithe of was a part of Israel's national and sanctuary law, that the New Testament never commands churches to tithe, and that it teaches giving that is proportionate, planned, generous and willing (; ). The Catholic Church teaches a duty to provide for the church's needs without prescribing a percentage (Catechism 2043). Historically, the western church pressed tithes as a duty in the early Middle Ages (sixth-century Frankish councils, such as Mâcon in 585, are often cited), and later rulers made it law. Critics note that tithe teaching has sometimes been used to enrich leaders or to promise blessings in return; defenders reply that abuse of a principle does not abolish it.

The second question is whether Aaron, the priests and the Levites are the model for the church's own ministers. Early on, writers drew the parallel as an argument from order. Clement of Rome (writing about AD 96 to Corinth) cites the high priest, priests and Levites as an example that God's people should keep order and each fulfil their own ministry (1 Clement 40-41), though his purpose was to settle a dispute over removed leaders, not to give them the title priest. The Didache (a church manual of uncertain date, probably late first or second century) tells believers to give firstfruits to the prophets, who are called their high priests (). By the third century Cyprian of Carthage (died 258) called the bishop a priest (sacerdos) and cited Korah's punishment as a warning against those who defied him. Jerome, in a letter to Evangelus (c. AD 400), wrote that what Aaron, his sons and the Levites were in the temple, bishops, presbyters and deacons are in the church.

Catholic and Orthodox teaching builds on this. The Council of Trent (1563) taught that the New Testament has a visible, external priesthood and a hierarchy of bishops, priests and ministers, and Vatican II (Lumen Gentium 10, 1964) teaches that the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood of all the baptized differ in essence and not only in degree. Protestant churches generally answer that the New Testament never calls any individual church officer by the Greek word for priest (hiereus), that it calls the whole people a priesthood (, ) and that Christ's priesthood is unique and unrepeatable (; ). Luther in 1520 (To the Christian Nobility and The Babylonian Captivity of the Church) argued that all baptized believers are priests and that the minister's office is one of preaching and sacraments. Anglican churches keep the threefold order and the word priest, which they trace to the English contraction of presbyter (presbyteros), not to the Levitical hiereus. Later classes take up the question directly.

09Review questions

What are the different duties given to Aaron and his sons and to the other Levites in , and why does the passage say they must not overlap?
List the portions the priests received in , and explain what the five-shekel redemption of the firstborn recalls from and .
Why did the Levites and priests receive no tribal land, and what does the LORD say instead in ?
How does Paul use the logic of the temple's support in , and what other New Testament passages teach support for those who teach?
What do and share, and how do the two main Christian answers to the question of the tithe differ?

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