The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 51

,to have been used in the meat offering, the and its foot, and they shall put it into 11 two last in the drink offering. hyacinthine cover of skin, and put it on Ver. 8.-Bhall put in the stave■ thereof. bars." The burdens of the Kohathites weTe Thia formula ia repeated alike with reference six, not counting the !aver and its foot: (1) to the ark, the table, and the two altars. It the ark; (2) the table of shewbread; (3) the would therefore be natural to suppose that candelabrum; (4) the golden altar; (5) "in- the staves had all been taken out while the struments of ministry;" (6) the frame of the various coverings were put on. On the other brazen altar. •h1md, it is expressly directed in Exod.. llV. Ver. 16.-To the office of Eleazar, . . . 15 that the staves of the ark shall " not be oversij:'ht. Septuagint, i,rino1ro, 'E;l.,a{ap taken from it." Two explanations are pos- • . . 'I I ,r,111:oir,j. On him was laid the over- .9ible. Either the former command does not sight of and the responsibility for all the .contemplate the necessity of wrapping up the material appliances of Divine worship, and .ark, and only applies to all times when it in especial it devolved upon him to see to the was at 1·est, or in movement ; or else the oil, the incense, and the chrism, an<l the .la.tter direction only means, in the case of materials for the daily meat offering. No the ark, that the staves should be adjusted doubt it is intended, although not precisely for the purpQse of bearing. expressed, that the Kohathites were specially Ver. 9.-Snuft'-dishe■ . Some render this under his orders. word "extinguishers," but it could hardly Ver. 18.-Cut ye not oft' the tribe of the •bear that meaning, since it also signifies families of the Xohathites. The word tribe censers in eh. xvi. 6, and fin-pans in E:xod. (shebet) is used in an unusua.l way here, xxvii. 3. They were evidently shallow metal not in the sense of tri.bus, but of stirps. ;pans available for many different purposes. Perhaps as Levi was himself a microcosm of Ver. 10.-lJpon a bar-i. e. a bearing- all Israel, so his families ranked as tribes ; frame. 'E,r' tiva~op!wv, Septuagint; "upo11 and no doubt they remained more distinct a rest," Targum of Palestine. than the families of any other tribe. The Ver.12.-All theinatrumentaofmi.nistry. meaning of the command is plainly this, These do not seem to be, at any rate exclu- "Take care that the Kohathites are not cut ilively, the vessels pertaining to the ~olden off through any negligence or want of con- altar. They are not packed up with 1t, but sideration on your part;" and the form of separately, in a blne cloth and a skin cover- the command, "cut ye not off," conveye<l fog of their own. Probably they include most emphatically the warning, that if any all the vessels and utensils used inside the mischief befell the Kohathites which the tabernacle which have not been previonsly priests coul,l have prevented, they would be mentioned. responsible for it in the sight of God. No Ver. 13.-Take away the ashes. This is doubt, as a fact, the Kohathites would t;,i.ke omitted by the Septuagint. The Hebrew their cue from the conduct of the priests : if word for "ashes" is of somewhat doubtful they were irreverent llDd careless, the Levites meaning, being only used here and in Exod. would be the same, and would sooner or later xxvii. 3; Pa. Xl[. 3 (see margin). Being presume, and, presuming, would die . .connected with the word " fat," it may per- Ver. 19.-Thus do unto them, i. e. exnrtly haps mean the grease or dripping from the as commanded in vers. 5-15. bumt offerin~ The Targum of Palestine . Ver. 20.-They shall not go in to see renders it "cmders." As the altar was hol- when the holy things are covered. This low, o.nd was filled with earth or stones when translation is disputed. The word rendered used, there would he no need to cleanse it "are covered" is the Piel infinitive from from ashes ; if this be the moaning of the bala, to swallow, and so to destroy. It may word, the commnnd would ro.ther have been signify the extreme rapidity with which the to collect the living embers before the altar most holy things were hidden from sight was removed, in order to keep alive the sacred and removed from touch, so as to become, fire. That this fire was never allowed to go as it were, non-existent for the time. So out may be looked upon as certain. the Syriac, Arabic, Samaritan, and the Tar- Ver. 15.-These things are the burden of gums of Onkelos and Palestine. On the the sons of Xohath. One thing which the other hand, it may be a proverbial expression, Kohathites almost certainly had to carry is "in B swallow, at 11, gulp," i. e. "for an in- omitted here, possibly because it was carried stant," as in Job vii. 19. And so the Septua- without any cover at all, and was not regarded gint, l(air,va, and most modem scholars. as of equal sanctity with the rest. Anyhow, Whichever way, however, we take it, tho the omission is very remarkable, and may phrase, "they shall not go in to see," seem~ have been accidental It is supplied by the to limit the prohibition under pain of death to Septu11gint and the Samaritan text in the the deliberate act of entering the tabernal'le following addition to ver. 14 : "And thoy out of curiosity durin1L,the process of packing tihall take a purple cloth, and cover the l!lver up the holy things. ·rhe case of the men of  THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. [en, 1v. 1-49!.