Numbers 8:14

Thus shalt thou separate the Levites from among the children of Israel: and the Levites shall be mine.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:5-26 Here we have directions for the solemn ordination of the Levites. All Israel must know that they took not this honour to themselves, but were called of God to it; nor was it enough that they were distinguished from others. All who are employed for God, must be dedicated to him, according to the employment. Christians must be baptized, ministers must be ordained; we must first give ourselves unto the Lord, and then our services. The Levites must be cleansed. They must be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. Moses must sprinkle the water of purifying upon them. This signifies the application of the blood of Christ to our souls by faith, that we may be fit to serve the living God. God declares his acceptance of them. All who expect to share in the privileges of the tabernacle, must resolve to do the service of the tabernacle. As, on the one hand, none of God's creatures are his necessary servants, he needs not the service of any of them; so none are merely honorary servants, to do nothing. All whom God owns, he employs; angels themselves have their services.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Offer ... offering - Compare the margin Aaron pointed to the Levites, and then waved his hands, indicating (compare Leviticus 7:30 note) that the offering was dedicated to God, and, again, by grant from Him, withdrawn for the use of the priests.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. and the Levites shall be mine—that is, exempt from all military duty or secular work—free from all pecuniary imposition and wholly devoted to the custody and service of the sanctuary.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thus shalt thou separate the Levites from among the children of Israel,.... By sprinkling the water of purification upon them; by offering sacrifices for them; by presenting them before the Lord, with the hands of the people of Israel put upon them; by offering and waving them before the Lord, and by setting them before Aaron and his sons, as their ministers:

and the Levites shall be mine: in a special and peculiar manner devoted to his service, and by him given to his priests for that purpose; so the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan,"and the Levites shall minister before me.''

Geneva Study Bible

Thus shalt thou separate the Levites from among the children of Israel: and the Levites shall be mine.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Numbers 8:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Levites were then to close this transfer of themselves to the Lord with a sin-offering and burnt-offering, in which they laid their hands upon the sacrificial animals. By this imposition of hands they made the sacrificial animals their representatives, in which they presented their own bodies to the Lord as a living sacrifice well-pleasing to Him. The signification of the dedication of the Levites, as here enjoined, is still further explained in Numbers 8:13-19. The meaning of Numbers 8:13. is this: According to the command already given (in Numbers 8:6-12), thou shalt place the Levites before Aaron and his sons, and wave them as a wave-offering before the Lord, and so separate them from the midst of the children of Israel, that they may be Mine. They shall then come to serve the tabernacle. So shalt thou cleanse them and wave them. The same reason is assigned for this in Numbers 8:16, Numbers 8:17, as in Numbers 3:11-13 (כּל בּכור for כּל־בּכור, cf. Numbers 3:13); and in Numbers 8:18 and Numbers 8:19, what was commanded in Numbers 3:6-9 is described as having been carried out. On Numbers 8:19 see Numbers 1:53.