You and your sons with you shall keep your priesthood for everything of the altar, and for that within the veil. You shall serve. I give you the service of the priesthood as a gift. The stranger who comes near shall be put to death.”
Parallel Translations
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You and your sons with you shall keep your priesthood for everything of the altar, and for that within the veil. You shall serve. I give you the service of the priesthood as a gift. The stranger who comes near shall be put to death.”
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Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest’s office for every thing of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.
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And thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priesthood in everything that pertaineth to the altar, and to that within the veil; and ye shall serve; I give you the priesthood as a service of gift; and the common man that draweth nigh shall be put to death.'
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Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (16)
Passages linked to Numbers 18:7 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Numbers 3:10 You shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall keep their priesthood, but the stranger who comes near shall be put to death.”
- John 3:27 John answered, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.
- Romans 15:15-16 But I write the more boldly to you in part, as reminding you, because of the grace that was given to me by God, that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
- Numbers 16:5-7 He said to Korah and to all his company, “In the morning, Yahweh will show who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to him. Even him whom he shall choose, he will cause to come near to him. Do this: have Korah and all his company take censers, put fire in them, and put incense on them before Yahweh tomorrow. It shall be that the man whom Yahweh chooses, he shall be holy. You have gone too far, you sons of Levi!”
- Numbers 16:40 to be a memorial to the children of Israel, to the end that no stranger who isn’t of the offspring of Aaron, would come near to burn incense before Yahweh, that he not be as Korah, and as his company; as Yahweh spoke to him by Moses.
- Numbers 18:4-5 They shall be joined to you and keep the responsibility of the Tent of Meeting, for all the service of the Tent. A stranger shall not come near to you. “You shall perform the duty of the sanctuary and the duty of the altar, that there be no more wrath on the children of Israel.
- Numbers 18:20 Yahweh said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel.
- Exodus 29:9 You shall clothe them with belts, Aaron and his sons, and bind headbands on them. They shall have the priesthood by a perpetual statute. You shall consecrate Aaron and his sons.
- Leviticus 16:2 and Yahweh said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the Most Holy Place within the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark; lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud on the mercy seat.
- Leviticus 16:12-14 He shall take a censer full of coals of fire from off the altar before Yahweh, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil. He shall put the incense on the fire before Yahweh, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the covenant, so that he will not die. He shall take some of the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.
- Numbers 1:51 When the tabernacle is to move, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall set it up. The stranger who comes near shall be put to death.
- Numbers 3:38 Those who encamp before the tabernacle eastward, in front of the Tent of Meeting toward the sunrise, shall be Moses, and Aaron and his sons, keeping the requirements of the sanctuary for the duty of the children of Israel. The outsider who comes near shall be put to death.
- 1 Samuel 2:28 Didn’t I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? Didn’t I give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire?
- Ephesians 3:8 To me, the very least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
- Hebrews 5:4 Nobody takes this honor on himself, but he is called by God, just like Aaron was.
- Hebrews 9:3-6 After the second veil was the tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which was a golden pot holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; and above it cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat, of which things we can’t speak now in detail. Now these things having been thus prepared, the priests go in continually into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the services,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Or, gift.
Or, gift.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Num 18:7 Therefore thou and thy sons with thee…
Num 18:7 Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest’s office for every thing of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest’s office [unto you] as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.
Ver. 7. As a service of gift.] So our Saviour counts and calls his work a gift; "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." {Joh 17:4} Any employment for, and about God, is a special favour, a high honour.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The altar, to wit, of burnt-offering, as appears from…
The altar, to wit, of burnt-offering, as appears from the following words.
Within the veil. This phrase elsewhere signifies the inward or second veil, but here it signifies either the outward veil only, or rather both the veils, the singular number being put for the plural, as when the altar is put for both the altars, as hath been noted; and so this phrase comprehends both the holy and the most holy place.
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As a service of gift; as a gift which I have freely conferred upon you, and upon you alone; and therefore let no man henceforth dare either to charge you with arrogance and usurpation in appropriating this to yourselves, or to invade your office.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep…
Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest's office,.... Observe all the duties of it, and keep out others from intruding into it:
for everything of the altar: both of incense and of burnt offering with respect to burning incense on the one, and offering sacrifices on the other; both were to be done by priests, and by no other:
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and within the vail; in the most holy place, where the high priest entered but once a year, and he only with incense, and the blood of sacrifices, see Heb 9:7,
and ye shall serve; do all the business that is to be done at either altar, whether in the court, or in the holy place, and whatsoever is to be done in the most holy place within the vail:
I have given your priest's office unto you as a service of gift; it was not what they had taken to themselves of their own will, or had thrust themselves into, but what the Lord had called them to, and had freely invested them with, see Heb 5:4,
and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death; any common person, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan; any Israelite, one that is a stranger from the priests, though a Levite, as Aben Ezra; such an one might not come either to the altar of burnt offering to offer any sacrifice upon it, or the altar of incense, to burn incense on that, or trim the lamps, or put the shewbread in order, or to do anything peculiar to the priest's office.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The altar - Of burnt-offering. Within the veil -…
The altar - Of burnt-offering. Within the veil - This phrase here comprehends both the holy and the most holy place. As a gift which I have freely conferred upon you, and upon you alone; and therefore let no man henceforth dare either to charge you with arrogance in appropriating this to yourselves, or to invade your office.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Priests. Hebrew, "you shall serve in the ministry of…
Priests. Hebrew, "you shall serve in the ministry of priests which I have given you." The office was not due to them on account of any superior merit. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 7. Every thing of the altar — That is,…
7. Every thing of the altar — That is, in the first or priests’ court.
Within the vail — The holy of holies, accessible only to the high priest on the day of atonement. Lev_16:12, note.
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As a service of gift — The office of the priest was not to be discharged from constraint as a duty, but freely and gladly as an avenue through which the loving soul might pour its gratitude to the Giver. Thus Paul deemed himself the recipient of undeserved “grace,” that he might preach, not among his kinsmen, whom he loved better than his own life, but among the despised Gentiles, “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” The highest Christian experience has not been reached when the opportunity of the humblest service to Christ is not joyfully received as a gracious privilege. When the wife begins to care for the household from mere duty, and not from love to her husband, her home becomes a prison.
The stranger — All persons except the sons of Aaron. See Num_1:51, note.
Shall be put to death — Not by the verdict of a human tribunal, but by the judgment of God. See Num_4:18, note. In the days of Ezekiel God complains of the flagrant violation of this law, when strangers and people uncircumcised in heart and in flesh polluted the sanctuary. Eze_44:7.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 7. shall keep your priesthood] i.e. perform its distinctive…
7. shall keep your priesthood] i.e. perform its distinctive duties.
within the veil] viz. the first hanging, at the entrance to the Holy Place. The Levites were debarred from entering any part of the tent, and from contact with the altar of burnt-offering in the court.
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as a service of gift] The expression (if the text be correct) emphasizes the fact that the priests had done nothing to deserve these privileges; they were a free gift. The LXX. suggest a different reading—‘Ye shall perform the acts of service (as a) gift of your priesthood’; but the meaning is substantially the same. S. Paul gives similar teaching with regard to Christian privileges, 1Co_4:7.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (7) And within the vail.—i.e., the vail which separated…
(7) And within the vail.—i.e., the vail which separated the holy place from the most holy. The word which is employed in this place (parocheth) is used only of the second vail. (See Lev_16:12.) When the outer vail or hanging is designed to be understood, the word used is masak. The reference appears to be to the whole of the priestly duties which were discharged by Aaron and his sons, from those connected with the altar of burnt offering to those which were performed in the most holy place.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Shall keep your priests" office for everything of the…
Shall keep your priests" office for everything of the altar, and within the vail. That the Levites were made over to Aaron and his sons to relieve them of a great part of the mere routine and drudgery of their service was to be with them an additional and powerful motive for doing their priestly work so reverently and watchfully as to leave no excuse for sacrilegious intrusion. The altar (of burnt offering) and "that within the vail (of. Heb_6:19) were the two points between which the exclusive duties of the priesthood lay, including the service of the holy place. A service of gift. A service which was not to be regarded as a burden, or a misfortune, or as a natural heritage and accident of birth, but to be received and cherished as a favour accorded to them by the goodness of God.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Numbers
SERVICE A GIFT
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Num 18:7.
All Christians are priests-to offer sacrifices, alms, especially prayers; to make God known to men.
I. Our priesthood is a gift of God’s love.
We are apt to think of our duties as burdensome. They are an honour and a mark of God’s grace.
1. They are His gift-
{a} The power to do. All capacities and possessions from Him.
{b} The wish to do. ‘Worketh in you to will.’
{c} The right to do, through Christ.
2. They are a blessing.
{a} Note the good effects on ourselves-the increase of fellowship with Him, the strengthening of all holy desires.
{b} The future benefits. Apply this to prayer and to effort on behalf of our fellow-men.
II. Our priesthood is to be done as a service-under a sense of obligation to a master, with diligence {an [Greek: ergon], not a [Greek: parergon]}.
III. Our priesthood is to be done as a gift to God-to be done joyfully, giving ourselves back to Him: ‘Yield yourselves unto God’-’your reasonable service.’
Then only do we really possess ourselves, and ‘all things are ours, for we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 18:7 Any unauthorized person . . . will be…
18:7 Any unauthorized person . . . will be put to death: This verse warned Israelites at all levels in the sacred hierarchy to avoid areas where they were not allowed. Certain sacred places were off limits to those not qualified in a technical religious sense. Access to the most sacred areas was restricted, set apart for the holiest members of the religious community. Those who broke that taboo violated God’s holiness at the cost of their lives (see also 1:51, 53; 3:10, 29-38; 4:1-20).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.