Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Now that Moses has instructions from God about how to set up their society, and they know how to set up the camp properly, the next focus is on the service of the newly

built tabernacle in the wilderness, and that's what we looked at today. Aaron and his two living

sons, Elie Azar and Ithamar, were the ones God established as the heads of the tabernacle.

And all the other people from their tribe, the Levites, were there to help serve them and help them

serve. To bring some order and

intention to the situation, God calls for three different censuses. The first census is directly

related to something God has been working out for a while now. Typically, the firstborn of each

family would be consecrated and set apart for service to the Lord, but here we see God calls the

Levites his firstborn, among all of but here we see God calls the Levites his firstborn

among all of Israel. In 312, God says, I have taken the Levites from among the people of Israel

instead of every firstborn who opens the womb among the people of Israel. So God is making a kind of

trade here, Levites in exchange for firstborns.

Each of the male Levites will serve as a representative or a placement for each of the

firstborns from all the other tribes.

To make sure each firstborn of Israel is represented by a male Levite, they have to be counted

too. So Moses does census number two.

Once the counting is done,

the numbers are pretty close but not exact. There's still 273 male Levite short in accounting for all the firstborns of Israel. So in order to work out the numbers, God sets up a process

where those 273 families who weren't represented could give the tabernacle

five shekels instead. That way, even though the family can't benefit the tabernacle through the

service of a son, they can still at least benefit the tabernacle through the donation of their shekels.

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