Numbers 8:23-26 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,… 1. They were to enter upon the service at twenty-five years old (ver. 24). They were not charged with the carrying of the tabernacle and the utensils of it till they were thirty years old (Numbers 4:3). But they were entered to be otherwise serviceable at twenty-five years old — a very good age for ministers to begin their public work. The work then required that strength of body, and the work now requires that maturity of judgment and staidness of behaviour which men rarely arrive at till about that age : and novices are in danger of being lifted up with pride. 2. They were to have a writ of ease at fifty years old; then they were to return from the warfare, as the phrase is (ver. 25), not cashiered with disgrace — but preferred rather to the rest, which their age required, to be loaded with the honours of their office, as hitherto they had been with the burdens of it. They shall minister with their brethren in the tabernacle, to direct the junior Levites, and set them in; and they shall keep the charge, as guards upon the avenues of the tabernacle, to see that no stranger intruded, nor any person in his uncleanness; but they shall not be put upon any service which may be a fatigue to them. If God's grace provide that men shall have ability according to their work, man's prudence should take care that men have work but according to their ability. The aged are most fit for truths, and to keep the charge; the younger are most fit for work, and to do the service. "Those that have used the office of a servant well, purchase to themselves a good degree" (1 Timothy 3:13). Yet indeed gifts are not tied to ages (Job 32:9), but "all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit." ( Matthew Henry, D. D..). Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, |
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