Gary Gleans

The tribe of Levi was set apart by God for the work of the ministry.  This was a commission given by God as a means for accomplishing the work of ministry in the tabernacle.  The priests were given a huge task and responsibility before God but there is no way that the priests could do all the physical labor that was involved in making the sacrifices, caring for the tabernacle and transporting it.  However, it was not enough for the tribe of Levi to simply start doing their duties, they had to be purified and be dedicated to the work. DEDICATION: The children of Israel had to dedicate all of their first born children to the Lord.  This was the result of the covenant that was made at the Passover.  Instead of taking all of the first born from every family, God took all of them members of the tribe of Levi.  The entire nation presented the Levites to the Lord in an act of dedication and the Levites dedicated themselves to this service.  The nation realized that they would be respons

Giving and sacrifice were integral parts of the life and culture of the children of Israel.  Offerings were necessary for the support of the tribe of Levi who was responsible for maintaining the tabernacle and leading the people in worship.  Sacrifices were necessary in order to maintain fellowship with God as they recognized their sin and the need for blood to be shed in order to cover that sin.  Obviously the blood of goats, lambs and oxen were not sufficient to cover the sins of men, but these sacrifices were made in anticipation of the ultimate sacrifice of Christ that would be made for the forgiveness of sin.  Today we continue to give offerings in order to support those who lead us in worship and minister the Word of God in our lives.  We no longer make sacrifices of our livestock to cover our sin because Christ has already paid that price, so we lay our own lives down on the altar of service out of gratitude for the amazing sacrifice of Christ that was made on our behalf.

Vows are sacred promises made to God and are to be taken very seriously.  The Nazirite vow was a specific type of vow that a man or a woman could make separating themselves wholly to the Lord for a specific period of their life.  During this time they were to let their hair grow, abstain from unclean foods, not drink any sort of wine or even grape juice and they were not to come near to a dead body even if it was a very close family member.  At all costs they were to remain ceremonially clean.  Here are a few thoughts on vows. VOWS ARE VOLUNTARY: No one is required to make one of these vows.  They are entered into by choice with the full consent and knowledge of the person who enters into this vow.  Some may have a tendency to want to enter into a vow in order to impress others, but that type of commitment will rarely be kept in the face of the sacrifices that will be required in such circumstances.  If the conditions of a vow seem harsh or extreme the simple solution is to not e

Purity is a priority for God’s people.  This is true in both the physical and spiritual realm.  God did not want those who were impure due to physical disease to remain in the boundaries of the camp so that they rest of the members of the nation would not be infected.  Diseases can be contagious and God wanted to protect His people.  Sin can also be very contagious and God instructed His people to be pure and zealous so as to be protected from contamination through Sin. GOD CONDEMNS ADULTERY: God intends for marriage to be a faithful union between a man and a woman.  Adultery in condemned by God for it is the breaking of a vow of faithfulness made before God and man.  Both husband and wife are called to live in faithfulness to one another.  This passage talks about when the wife is away from her husband and she ends up committing adultery.  The best way to prevent an adulterous relationship is for the marital relationship to be close and united.  Marital conflict and periods of s

A big part of what the Levites had to do was take care of the tabernacle.  It was a sacred structure that required maintenance and it had to be carried from one place to another when the children of Israel were to move.  This created a serious problem because only Aaron and the priests were allowed to have access to the spaces and the objects within the tabernacle.  It is impressive to see how detailed God was in His insistence that care be taken with the tabernacle in order to keep it sacred and to keep those who responsible for its care alive. THE PREPARATION: Before anything could be moved and before the Levites were allowed access to the sacred spaces and objects, Aaron and his sons had to make detailed preparations.  Each object was to be covered with a special and specific cloth and they it was all to be wrapped with porpoise skins.  That which is sacred must never be treated with a flippant and carefree attitude.  God made it very clear that His presence was in this tabern

Since the children of Israel had been set free from Egypt through the death of all of the first born sons in Egypt, God had claimed every firstborn son in Israel as His own.  He now chooses to separate all of the tribe of Levi as His own in place of the first born from every tribe.  The Levites were then divided into groups and given their specific responsibilities for the care of the tabernacle.  The ministry in the tabernacle with all of the sacrifices, furniture and the structure as a whole was far too big of a responsibility for Aaron and his sons to handle alone.  This was God’s means of providing help for the priests that He had chosen.  God is faithful to provide for the needs of His work. GOD SUPPLIES LABORERS FOR HIS WORK: It always seems like the work of the ministry seems to suffer for lack of sufficient laborers.  There always seems to be more work than there are people to do that work.  In order to meet that need in the nation of Israel, God set aside the tribe of Le

God told Moses just how He wanted the tribes to be assembled in their camp.  The camp is to be set up with the tabernacle and the tribe of Levi in the middle and then three tribes camped on each side of the tabernacle.  This made the tabernacle central to their lives so that worship would be seen as essential to their lives, and it placed the tabernacle in the most protected part of the camp.  There does not seem to be a logical pattern as to which tribes were placed together other than that Benjamin and the two tribes of Joseph were placed together as the descendents of Jacob through the wife that he loved, Rachel.  As I consider the placement of the tabernacle, there are these three thoughts that come to mind. THE PRIORITY OF GOD: It is very clear that the tabernacle, the center of worship, was placed in the area of priority within the camp.  It provided the point of reference around which all of the rest of the tribes were to gather.  One of the hardest things for us to do in

God is a God of order and He wanted the nation of Israel to be very well organized and ready to live as a nation.  God had started with the building of the tabernacle and instituting the sacrificial system.  He then established the laws of the people and the national calendar.  He is now organizing the people so that they can move forward with a clear recognition of each person’s role.  Israel has been called to conquer the land of Canaan so it was very clear that they needed to establish their military and organized the nation. GOD ESTABLISHES THE NATIONAL LEADERSHIP: The nation had already been divided into tribes according to the son’s of Israel.  Each person knew to which tribe be belonged.  The first item of business in organizing the nation and its army was to establish the leader of each tribe.  Leadership is vital to the success of every nation and organization.  It was clear that Moses and Aaron were the national leaders, but there is no way to lead a group of this size

One way that the children of Israel could express their gratitude for a blessing that God had given them was through a vow that they would make dedicating themselves or something that they owned to the Lord.  These vows were often made prior to the blessing being received as a promise that if the Lord would provide a certain blessing then the person would be bound to dedicate whatever was vowed to the Lord.  These vows were to be taken very seriously and were binding before both God and man.  However, there was provision for the person to purchase back his vow if for some reason he changed his mind and wanted to redeem his vow with silver or if the thing that was vowed was of no use to the priest, payment in silver could be made in place of the person or thing.  This chapter is dedicated to help the priest know what value to place on possessions or properties that were dedicated to God through a vow.  These are a few of the thoughts that came to me as I was reading through this chapte

One of the main purposes of Scripture is to reveal to us who God is and what He is like.  Knowing God is truly the ultimate reason for the study of Scripture.  If we what to know Him and understand what He expects of us we must find our answers in the Word of God.  This chapter gives us a very clear insight into who God is, what He wants us to do and how He responds to us.  I believe that if will grasp these basic truths about God and then live according to them; that our lives will be pleasing to Him, bless others and enjoyable for us.  Here are three basic truths about God that we can glean from this passage. GOD GIVES REWARDS FOR REVERENCE: God has spent a great deal of time reveling His will and law to His people.  There can be no doubt as to what God expects of His people.  He promises that if they will obey these laws and live a life of reverence before Him, He will bless them with many rich rewards.  He promises them prosperity in that their crops will be abundant, have suffi

The Lord cared very deeply about the land that He was giving to the children of Israel as well as the people to whom He was giving the land.  He did not want the land or the people to be abused so He established laws that would help the land to remain in the possession of the families to whom it was given.  He also made provision for those who were poor to be able work for those who were rich without losing the hope of freedom. GOD ESTABLISHED A YEAR OF REST FOR THE LAND: Just as men were to work for only six days of the week and then rest on the Sabbath, God determined that the land would only be planted and harvested for six years and then the seventh year it would rest.  This law seems to have two purposes.  First, it seems that this is sound agricultural practice as the land needed time to rest in order to retain its fertility.  This was before the days of fertilizers and modern equipment used for tilling the soil.  Second, it was an opportunity to trust God.  He promised to pro

God is zealous for the glory of His name and the purity of His people.  He created rituals that the priests were to observe and for which the people were to provide.  He also created rules that the people were required to follow and He instituted consequences for breaking those rules.  These rules and rituals were designed to demonstrate the glory of God, the greatness of His name and the holiness of His character.  He expects that we as His creation will worship and obey Him as the highest priority in our lives. THE WORSHIP OF GOD IS PRIORITY: God commanded that there be a light and twelve loaves of bread constantly on the altar before Him.  The people were responsible to bring the pure olive oil and the grain for these rituals and the priests were responsible to tend the light and prepare the bread so that the light would not go out and the bread would always be in order.  There seems to be one loaf of bread for each tribe and the light seems to represent God.  God wants His peopl

The Lord set up a calendar for His people to follow that included the holidays and festivals that His people were supposed to celebrate and remember each year.  These special dates were designed to remember events from the past, demonstrate gratitude for provision in the present as well as to prefigure events in the future.  These feasts give us a very clear illustration of God’s sovereignty in the lives of His people and the events of this earth.  The feasts were divided into two seasons of the year and I believe that they represent significant events in the two comings of Christ to the Earth. FEASTS FULFILLED IN THE FIRST COMING: The first feast was the Passover and was initiated as a means of remembering and celebrating the liberation of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt.  This was a hugely significant even in the Jewish calendar and continues to be to this day.  The children of Israel were to sacrifice a perfect lamb, spread that blood of the lamb on the doorposts of

The Lord has made special provisions for the priests who serve in the tabernacle so that they can dedicate themselves to their service to the Lord while at the same time they can provide for the needs of their family.  This was God’s gift to the priests, and as a gift from God to them it was to be treated with reverence and respect.  We must never treat the gifts of God to us with irreverence but must receive them with thanksgiving and obedience.  Every gift that God gives has a purpose and He is glorified when we use His gifts for their intended purpose. GOD’S PROVISION IS SACRED: The sacrifices that were brought to the tabernacle were God’s means of providing for the forgiveness of the people as well as for the support of the priests who offered these sacrifices.  It was very important to God that the priest realized the sacredness of this gift from God to them.  Only he and his family were allowed to eat this food.  However, they were only allowed to eat it when they were ceremon

God separated the priests from all the children of Israel as a group of men who were chosen to represent the people before God.  They were ministers in the tabernacle and in charge of burning the sacrifices before the Lord.  They had a special position amongst the people and as such they were held to a special standard.  Leadership is a privilege, but it is also a responsibility and it implies that those who are given positions of leadership will agree to the terms of this office.  Leadership requires the limitation of liberty. LEADERS WERE LIMITED IN THEIR MOURNING: Since the bodies of dead people were considered to be unclean for the children of Israel, the priest was not to make himself unclean by touching the body of a dead person unless it was a parent, spouse or child.  Death is a time for mourning for all people.  We love one another and when someone dies it is only natural for us to express our sorrow for that death.  However, the priest had a job to do that was unique befor

There are consequences to sin.  God’s desire to see that His people remain pure leads Him to establish very clear and just consequences for sins that would contaminate the people if left unpunished.  God’s grace and mercy are abundant, but He is also just and cannot leave sin unpunished.  We must take sin seriously and not try to minimize the consequences of the sin in the lives of those who sin as well as the impact that sin has on the entire community.  In order to prevent the rampant spread of sin throughout the people, there had to be clear and consistent consequences to sin. SOME SIN WAS PUNISHED BY DEATH: There were certain sexual as well as spiritual sins that were to be punished by the death of those participated in them.  Killing those who practiced these acts served as a means of deterring these sins as well as demonstrating how serious God was about the purity of His people.  Those who commit these types of sins are likely to continue to do so.  In order to protect others

God wants His people to be holy just as He is holy.  The laws of this chapter describe what that holiness looks like to the Lord.  It involves every aspect of our lives from our relationship with God to our relationships with the people around us.  It touches our business practices as well as our eating habits.  These laws are designed to help men be able to measure where they are in comparison with where God would have them to be.  These attitudes and actions help to reveal where our hearts truly are before the Lord.  Our hearts touch every single aspect of our lives so we must be very careful that we give over control of our hearts to the Lord. WE MUST PREVENT IDOLATRY: God’s greatest concern for our lives is our worship.  He does not want us to worship any other gods or to make images that are supposed to represent Him.  He wants a relationship with us that is exclusive of all others.  We live in a world that is both physical and spiritual.  God is very much concerned with both

The Lord is concerned with the holiness of His people and wants them to live in a way that is pleasing to Him and not in the way that they observed in Egypt or that they will observe in the people who are currently living in The Promised Land.  God wants His people to be different; to stand in stark contrast of the idolatry and immorality that is so prevalent in the lives of those who do not know or fear God.  The destruction of Egypt and the pending destruction of these other nations were due to their sinfulness.  God wants Israel to be different.  He continues to call us out from among the world to be different from them so that we can be a testimony to them.  We must provide a clear contrast from which the world can learn and to which the world can turn when they realize the futility and emptiness of sin. GOD FORBIDS INCEST:  God made it very clear to the children of Israel that they were not to have sexual relations with members of their own family.  Children, parents, siblings,

Idolatry is bound up in the heart of man since the fall in the Garden of Eden.  God created us to worship Him, which means that we, by nature are worshipers.  When we refuse to worship God in the way that He has prescribed or we worship other people or things, we are committing idolatry.  This is the sin that God has called us to avoid and we must strive to honor Him by obeying what He has commanded of us in our worship. SACRIFICE WAS TO BE MADE IN THE PROPER PLACE: The children of Israel were to present their sacrifices in the tabernacle and not in some place outside the camp.  This was the clear command of God in order to prevent men from worshiping other gods and setting up parallel religions.  God alone is worthy of our worship.  Israel was constantly breaking this command during its history as they would often set up altars on which they made sacrifices to God but not in the place that God had designated.  Since they sacrifice was made in the wrong place it was easy for that to