The Duties & Inheritance of the Priests and Levites – Numbers 18

Begin your study with prayer for the Lord to open your eyes to see who He is more clearly and how to respond to Him more deeply in heart affections and horizontal, radical love toward others.

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Numbers 18

Here Are Matthew Henry’s Comments on Numbers 19

 Vs 1-8 Aaron would see reason not to be proud of his preferment, when he considered the great care and charge upon him. Be not high-minded, but fear. The greater the trust of work and power that is committed to us, the greater danger there is of betraying that trust. This is a good reason why we should neither envy others' honours, nor desire high places.

Vs. 9-19 The priests were to be wholly devoted to their ministry, not diverted from it, or disturbed in it, by worldly care or business. Also, that they might be examples of living by faith, not only in God's providence, but in his ordinances. The best should be offered for the first-fruits unto the Lord. Those who think to save, by putting God off with the refuse, deceive themselves, for God is not mocked.
Vs 20-32 Those who have God for their Inheritance and their Portion forever, ought to look with holy contempt and indifference upon the possessions of this world. The Levites were to give God his dues out of their tithes, as well as the Israelites out of their increase.  God was necessarily to be regarded as the greatest possession of all, beyond which nothing greater is conceivable, and in comparison with which every other possession is to be regarded as nothing. Hence it was evidently the greatest privilege and highest honor to have Him for a portion and possession (Bhr, Symbolik, ii. p. 44). "For truly," as Masius writes (Com. on Josh.), "he who possesses God possesses all things; and the worship (cultus) of Him is infinitely fuller of delight, and far more productive, than the cultivation (cultus) of any soil." The possession of the priests and Levites did not consist in the revenues assigned to them by God, but in the possession of Jehovah, the God of Israel. In the same sense in which the tribe of Levi was the peculiar possession of Jehovah out of the whole of the people of possession, was Jehovah also the peculiar possession of Levi;
Parallel passages:  Deuteronomy 18:2 - They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.  Joshua 13:33 - But to the tribe of Levi, Moses had given no inheritance; the LORD, the God of Israel, is their inheritance, as he promised them. Joshua 18:7 - The Levites, however, do not get a portion among you, because the priestly service of the LORD is their inheritance. And Gad, Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh have already received their inheritance on the east side of the Jordan. Moses the servant of the LORD gave it to them. Ezekiel 44:28 I am to be the only inheritance the priests have. You are to give them no possession in Israel; I will be their possession.


End with Prayers of:

·         Adoration - Praise Him and Boast in Him for who He is in today's reading.

·         Thanksgiving - Offer humble gratitude for big and small blessings in your life - at least 3 new things

·         Confession - Admit to the Lord areas you have resisted him or grieved him privately or in relationship.

·         Petition - Ask him for specific help for the many needs of others and you - that you may have power to do His will and see it today.