Numbers 3:1
INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 3
In this chapter an account is given of the genealogy of the priests and Levites, and of the gift of the Levites to the priests, of the numbering of them, and the service they were to perform; and first of the priests, the sons of Aaron, Nu 3:1; and then of the Levites, as given unto them, to wait upon them, and assist them, Nu 3:5; and these were taken instead of the firstborn, Nu 3:11; and ordered to be numbered, which was done accordingly by their families, Nu 3:14; and the sum of each is given, and the particular work assigned to them; of the Gershonites, Nu 3:21; of the Kohathites, Nu 3:27; of the Merarites, Nu 3:33; the sum total of them is given, Nu 3:39; then the firstborn of the children of Israel, from a month old are ordered to be numbered, and were, Nu 3:40; and these appearing to be more in number than the Levites, by two hundred seventy three a direction is given that the two hundred seventy three should be redeemed at the rate of five, shekels apiece, and the money paid to Aaron and his sons, Nu 3:44; which was accordingly done, Nu 3:49.
Ver. 1. These also [are] the generations of Aaron and Moses,.... The descendants of them, those of the former, who is named first, because the eldest, were priests, and those of the latter Levites, and who are not very plainly pointed at, but are included among the Amramites, Nu 3:27; the posterity of Moses being very obscure, only Levites, and these not particularly named but swallowed up among the Kohathites: find the following account was as it stood,
in the day [that] the Lord spoke with Moses in mount Sinai; and not, altogether as it then, was when he spoke to him in the wilderness, of Sinai, for then Aaron had four sons, but now two of them were dead as is after observed; and it seems to be for the sake of this circumstance chiefly that this clause is so put.