When the host of Israel is upon the march, the Levitical family of the Kohathites has charge of carrj'ing the tabernacle and its vessels, after these have been covered by the jiriests from the view of the Levites, who may not look upon them (Nu 4"). None but Levites may attend to the carry- ing and the setting-up of the tabernacle ; any non- Levite doing so mu.st oe put to death (Nu 1" 18*- **). Hence the service of the Levites is si)oken of as a ' covering ' for the children of Israel, that no plague come upon them when they come nigh to the sanctuary (Nu 8'"). Then it is the Levites who, according to Ex 38-', under the direction of the Aaronite Itliamar, take cliarge of the ' num- bering of the dwelling of the testimony,' i.e. the keeping account of the gifts offered for its con- struction. There is no indication of any other duties performed by the Levites than tho.se of carrying the tabernacle, encamping around the sanctuary, and keeping the account just men- tioned. Wherein, apart from encamping round the sanctuary, consisted tlie charge assigned to the Levites over the dwelling of the testimony and all its vessels and everything belonging to it (Nu 1""), or 'tlie keeping of the charge' of the dwelling of the testimony and its vessels (Nu l"* 3* nl.), or the 'work' of the Levites 'about the tabernacle' (Nu 4''), or tlieir 'service' about the dwelling or the tabernacle (Nu S"- 4^ al.) — is not indicated. Thus we do not learn what the Levites have to do when tlie sanctuary is set up and the service is being cunducted in it, and tlius have, further, no indication of what is to be the work of the Levites once Israel has reached the goal of its wanderings and attaincil to a settled mode of life. It may only be Kujiposcd from the desig- nation of tlie Levite.s' work as 'service of the congregation,' that the intention of the law was to assign to the Levites some kind of intermediate function between tlie congregation and the priests. The lower services at the sanctuary, once it was set up, appear also to be pointed to in Nu 1°", wh >re the service of the tabernacle is presented as a duty distinct from that of carrying it.
The data regarding the period of service of the Levites are not hannonious. In Nu 4'"- it is given as from the thirtieth to the fiftieth year ; Nu 8^*", on the other hand, enacts that the Levites have to serve from their twentj'lifth year, and it is added that from their liftieth year onwards they are no longer to serve, but to assist their brethren
(the serving Levites). This enactment is clearly a later addition (Gesch. p. 34).
In Nu 8^"^- a ceremony for the installation of the Levites is described : tlie children of Israel (no doubt the elders) lay their hands upon them as upon an offering, and the Levites are waved be- fore Juhweh a* a gift of tlie Israelites — a repre- sentation which manifestly results from the con- ception of the Levites as a substitute for the ofl'ering of the firstborn of man. They are to be treated in this ceremony — which cannot be thought of as literally peifornicd, but simply gives expres- sion to a theory — like those sacrificial jiortions which fall to the priests, because the Levites also are given to the latter to be their own (so rightly A. Van Hoonacker, Le vosu de Jephthi, Louvain, 1893, p. 40 tr.).
The 'tribe of Levi,' t.e. probably the Levites and also the Aaronites, is exempted from bein" numbered amongst the children of Israel (Nu 1" 2^), i.e. from military service.
Sins affecting the sanctuary, i.e. any defilement of it, have to be expiated by the Aaronites and Aaron's father's house, the Kohathites, that bnuu !i of the Levites who have to carry the holiest vessels (Nu 18'). The Levite.s, without distinction, have to expiate the sins of their service (Nu 18^).
The di-Hinction betiveen priests and Levites is not rejiresented as having gained validity without opposition. The narrative of the rebellion of the Levite Korali against Aaron and Moses (Nu 16) serves to exhibit this distinction as one divinely determined : the prerogatives of Aaron are estab- lished in opposition to Korah. In this account, however, a still older narrative, belonging to an- other stratum of the Priests' Code, may be dis- entangled, in which Korah stands up, not for the preroi'atives of the Levites as against the Aaron- ites, but for those of the whole congiegation as against the Levites. To this older stratum at- taches itself the narrative of Nu IT""-, in which the budding of Aaron's rod conlirms the unique position, not of the Aaronites, but of the whole tribe of Levi {Gcsch. p. 34 ff. ; of. art. KOEAH, Datiian, Abiram).
e. 2'he serving women. — Only in a single pa.ssage in the Priests' Code is there mention of serving women (Ex 38'). They mini.ster at the door of the tabernacle ; and this service, like that of the Levites, is described by the term zCibd' ; but wherein it consisted we have not a word of information. We learn merely that these women were provided with mirrors of brass. The only other reference in the whole of the OT to such women as servin" at the sanctuary is in 1 S 2*'-'' (wanting in LXX except in A and Luc. ), where they are introduced as if they had been in existence in the time of Eli at Shiloli ; but as in this pa.ssage the ' tent of meeting' is spoken of, as in the Priests' Code, whereas, in other passages, at Shiloh a built temple is presupposed, we have to do, no doubt, with an interpolation based ujion the Priests' Code.