Danger Levites at Work

NUMBERS 4

Have you ever had the experience of putting together something that came in a box? It can be a challenging task, and it is often one that takes far longer than you expected. One Christmas we bought a dollhouse for our daughters that had on the box the three most feared words in the English language: “Some assembly required.” The instructions claimed that it was a thirty-minute project. I don’t know what set of space-time coordinates they were operating within, but two days later I was still working on it!

One of the challenges of this kind of construction project is that the instructions often seem to be written by someone whose first language is not English. As a result, many steps in the process are hard to follow, and crucial instructions are often completely omitted. All of this leads to much frustration on the part of the construction engineer and those who are eager to play with the finished product. What you may not know, though, is that this experience is not confined to toy assembly. The commissioning procedure for the newly constructed oil terminal at Nigg Bay in Scotland in which I participated in my first job after graduation as an engineer was distressingly similar. The construction drawings frequently didn’t match what was actually there on the ground, instruction manuals were vague and sketchy, and we had to figure out many aspects of the operation as we went along. What made this rather more serious than constructing a child’s dollhouse was that very soon we were expecting the first oil tanker to dock and unload a cargo of crude oil! If the pieces were hooked up in the wrong way, the consequences for the surrounding environment would be catastrophic. In a situation where mistakes carried such serious potential consequences, what you longed for was a clear, incredibly detailed manual to follow.

In the light of that example, it is perhaps easier to understand why the detailed instructions of Numbers 4 were necessary. Moving the holy objects in the tabernacle from place to place was a delicate job, as fraught with risk as commissioning a nuclear reactor. One false step, one wrong move, and someone could die (vv. 18–20). The ministry of the Levites was always a labor of life or death, as we mentioned in the previous chapter, a ministry that could not be undertaken too carefully. Whereas the previous chapter focused on their first task of guarding the sanctuary and gave the rationale for why the Levites were assigned to assist Aaron and the priests, this chapter focuses in great detail on their second responsibility, that of moving the sacred objects of the tabernacle from one campsite to the next.


THE ORDERING OF THE LEVITES

Essentially the chapter breaks down into four parts. The first three assign to each of the Levite clans their respective responsibilities as part of the moving crew, while the fourth sums up the chapter and the entire unit that runs from chapter 1 to chapter 4 by recording the numbering of the three clans. The order of the clans in Numbers 4 matches the location each was assigned to camp around the tabernacle in the previous chapter. The clan of Kohath came first and carried the most important objects. They were to camp on the south side of the tabernacle, the position second only in rank to the priests, who camped on the east. Next came the clan of Gershon, who camped on the west and carried the middle-rank sacred objects. Finally, the clan of Merari was introduced, who camped on the least important north side and carried the odds and ends of the tabernacle.

We noted previously that this ordering is not the order of natural precedence. Gershon was the older brother of Kohath, and you would therefore normally have expected his clan to have the more important place. However, it was God’s prerogative to choose the younger over the older and to reverse the natural order, just as he did with Jacob and Esau and with Ephraim and Manasseh. God is sovereign, and he assigns us to the places he chooses for us. In this case there is no obvious reason why God chose the clan of Kohath ahead of the clan of Gershon. They are not the most numerous clan of the Levites, nor do they have any particular distinguishing virtues. God simply chose them out of his mercy and grace.

This is an important point to grasp because we are often far too impressed by the attributes that the world values. We look at the external features a person possesses: if a man is rich and famous or is a naturally gifted speaker and leader, he will often be pressed to use those natural gifts and abilities in the church. It seems that whenever a Hollywood celebrity, a pop singer, or a movie star becomes a Christian, he or she is instantly thrust into the limelight and paraded around the Christian speaking circuit, whether or not he or she knows anything about theology. Like the prophet Samuel, sent to interview the sons of Jesse for the job of Israel’s king, we too are struck by impressive features and natural giftedness. God, however, looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). Sometimes the people God chooses to use are not those with impressive presence and strong resumés. On the contrary, he often chooses the weak things in this world to shame the strong and the foolish things in the world’s eyes to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27). God’s chosen instruments are not necessarily the ones we would have picked.


GRADED HOLINESS

Thus it was the clan of the middle brother, Kohath, that was charged with the task of carrying the most sacred objects rather than that of the elder brother Gershon. The sacred objects to be carried are listed in decreasing order of sacredness, with the first objects requiring special care and attention. First and foremost comes the ark of the covenant. This was the footstool of God’s throne and the box that contained the sacred documents of the covenant, the two tablets of stone that God gave Moses on Mount Sinai. Covenant treaty documents such as these were often buried at the feet of the respective gods of the nations in their temples. In Israel, however, there was only one God, and his footstool was mobile; so both copies of his covenant with Israel were contained in the ark. The ark was to be covered by the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the tabernacle. This curtain was made of cloth containing all three of the sacred colors: blue, purple, and scarlet (Exodus 26:31). The package was then to be further wrapped in a protective covering probably made of goatskin dyed yellow-orange. An outer layer of the most sacred color, blue, completed the covering process.

The second most precious object, the table on which the bread of the presence was laid out before the Lord, was covered with only two of the sacred colors, blue and scarlet, before it was wrapped in the protective layer. The lampstand and the gold altar and their associated articles received a single covering of the most sacred color, blue, while the bronze altar was also wrapped in a single layer, but of the less sacred color, purple. This was because the bronze altar was located outside the tabernacle proper in the courtyard and was therefore less sacred than the objects within the tabernacle.

In this passage, therefore, as in all of the texts dealing with the tabernacle, you can see visually depicted a theology of graded holiness. The objects that are at a distance from the Lord can be made of ordinary materials, such as bronze. However, the closer you come to the presence of God, the higher the standard of materials and workmanship required. Within the Holy of Holies itself, only pure gold may be used. The same graded standard that applies to the construction materials and to the packaging process applies to the people who approach God as well. Even common people could enter the outer courtyard to bring their offerings, but only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and that only once a year. In the camp of Israel, the ordinary tribes were encamped around the ark in the outer square, while the more holy Levites and priests formed the inner ring. The consistent message being communicated to God’s people by these diverse means was that only the very best and purest that we have is sufficient for the presence of the King of kings and that the closer we get to God, the greater the degree of holiness required.

Because of this principle of graded holiness, the Kohathites were not permitted to touch the sacred objects themselves. They had to carry them once they were safely packed up, but only the priests could do the packing. In fact, the Kohathites were not even allowed to look at the sacred objects lest they die (v. 20). Even though they were themselves wholly devoted to the Lord and were seeking to serve him faithfully, if they made one wrong move or stole one wrong glance, they would be struck dead. Only the priests possessed the holiness required to pack up the sacred things.

After the Kohathites had been charged with their responsibilities for the journey, the Gershonites and Merarites were assigned theirs. Because they were to carry the less holy, and therefore less dangerous, objects, the instructions given to them could be briefer. Whereas the Kohathites received twenty verses of instructions, the Gershonites only needed eight verses and the Merarites a mere four. Their ministry was less critical and therefore needed less attention. For all of the clans of the Levites, though, the ministry of porterage was only to be assigned to men aged from thirty to fifty years old. All of the Levites of whatever age were eligible for guard duty, but the duty of carrying the sacred things required men in the prime of their life, exercising all of their powers in the service of God. For the Levites, life really did begin at thirty!

Every aspect of the Levites’ work was to be done under the oversight and direction of the priests. God assigned the general duties to the clans, but the more specific assignments of who carried which piece of furniture, or even which tent peg, were not to be left to chance. Aaron and his sons were instructed to regulate every detail of the transportation process, ensuring that every aspect of the process was done in an appropriate manner. Finally, the account concludes with the details of the counting of the Levites, which sums up and draws together both this chapter and the whole first section of the book, Numbers 1–4. The conclusion emphasizes once again the point that we have seen throughout this section: everyone was counted and arranged exactly as the Lord commanded Moses, with each assigned to his own particular station and task.


TRANSCENDENCE AND IMMANENCE

What, then, may we learn from this passage of Scripture? First, we need to see that this section of the book of Numbers presents a view of God that runs entirely counter to our culture and indeed perhaps every culture that ever lived. Every other culture or religion worships a god who is either transcendent or immanent. Their god is either transcendent—utterly distant and uninvolved with us—or he is immanent, present with us. Transcendent gods are completely unlike us, while immanent gods are a lot like us. In Islam, for example, Allah is transcendent—the high and holy one—but he is not immanent. He does not dwell with his people; he is completely Other. He cannot easily be approached by ordinary people, nor does he really involve himself personally and intimately with the lives of human beings. On the other hand, Norse gods like Thor and Wodin were utterly immanent: they were just like human beings, feasting and fighting, marrying and committing adultery. Apart from their raw power, there was nothing transcendent about them at all.

The Bible presents a far more profound and far more sophisticated understanding of God than any other religion. In the Scriptures we meet a God who is utterly transcendent and yet at the same time utterly immanent. Our God lives in a high and holy place (transcendence), yet also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit (immanence) (Isaiah 57:15). His ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not ours; yet he has created us in his image, and so we are able to know something of who he is. Both his transcendence and his immanence are prominently present as aspects of God’s character in Numbers 4. He pitched his tent in the midst of the camp of Israel, a radical act of immanence; yet at the same time his tent was surrounded by mystery and danger. It was not to be approached by ordinary people, or even by ordinary Levites, lest they die. The God who dwelt with Israel is a holy God, and all of his things are holy. The principle of graded holiness stressed the “otherness” and transcendence of God, that he is not like his people. At one and the same time, therefore, this God is thoroughly immanent, present with his people, and also utterly transcendent, completely Other.

What is your view of God? The profundity of the Scriptures always confronts the shallowness of our natural cultural and religious views. The Bible challenges those who worship a purely transcendent god, like the God of Islam or medieval Catholicism. Such a God can only be approached in a foreign language, through mystery, as in the Mass. In contrast, the Bible invites us to meet the God who is with us, the God who is not simply our exalted master and King but also our Father. On the other hand, though, the Bible also challenges the very immanent view of God that is present in American culture. God is usually perceived as being just like us on our better days, only with a little more power. Anyone can approach God anytime, anywhere without any special preparation or holiness. He is our buddy, our “copilot,” whose angels are friendly neighbors who are constantly using their supernatural powers to touch our lives and make them run a little more smoothly. According to our culture, he is a very safe, even tame God, who of course has a wonderful plan for our lives and the lives of everyone else in this world he has created. Songs of praise to such an immanent deity can sometimes barely be distinguished from poems of love for another human being. The Bible confronts those who believe in such a domesticated God with the reality that our God is a holy God, of purer eyes than to look upon evil, whose wrath is continually extended toward the wicked.

The God of the Bible is thus radically different from the God of our culture or of our imaginations. He is not tame, nor even necessarily “safe,” if by “safe” we mean that he will always work things out in ways that make sense to our wisdom. Though he dwells in the midst of his people, his holiness is always threatening to break out and consume the unholy people who are all around him. Nor is this merely an empty threat. As the rest of the book of Numbers will show us, the threat of death from God’s holiness is a clear and present danger throughout the wilderness wandering. The warnings that are presented in Numbers 3, 4 are found to be true in the rest of the book. An entire generation suffered the ultimate sanction for their unholiness and disobedience, being put to death in the wilderness. The God of the Bible is radically different from the way we tend to conceive of him.


TO LIVE AND NOT DIE

Yet the tragedy of those deaths in the book of Numbers is that every one of them was preventable. They were warned of the dangers, but they ignored the warnings. God is not an arbitrary tyrant who lashes out unpredictably and liquidates innocent bystanders. On the contrary, he gave detailed and clearly comprehensible instructions to his people as to how they should behave and what they should do, written in plain Hebrew so that all might understand their significance. The purpose of all of these detailed instructions for the Levites was declared in Numbers 4:19: “that they may live and not die when they come near to the most holy things.” In fact, this was the purpose behind all of the extensive ordering of the camp of Israel in Numbers 1–4. The people were being carefully arranged so that God could dwell in their midst as a blessing to them and not as a curse. As long as Moses and the people followed these instructions carefully, the result would be blessing and life.

God has not changed in his commitment to holiness. He has given us too detailed instructions in his Word as to how we should live, instructions that are not merely suggestions but commandments. I remember once when our children were little hearing a young mother tell us that she never said no to her children because that word was too negative. Rather, she would tell them, “Please don’t.” My response was that if I meant “Please don’t” I would say that, but often precisely what I wanted to communicate to my children was “No!” There are times when our children’s lives may literally depend on their obedience to our word. Perhaps they are about to run out into the road in front of an oncoming truck. At times like that, “Please don’t” isn’t enough! Our children need to hear and heed the word no.
So also God in his Word has given us an abundance of detailed commandments. Some of them are “No!” while others are “Yes!” Don’t commit adultery or murder. Do honor your father and mother. Don’t take advantage of the poor and helpless. Do speak the truth in love. Why has God given us such a myriad of commandments, and why should we obey them? Is he simply trying to spoil our fun? On the contrary, he gives his law to us for the same reason that good fathers give their children a myriad of instructions to obey. These instructions are the way to life and joy, to spiritual health and peace. Out of his kindness and mercy, God has not left us to construct lives and families with a few vague and confusing instructions that are barely English, like the dollhouse manufacturer. Instead, in his Word he has given us an abundance of guidance that is clear, straightforward, and direct.


LOVING GOD’S LAW

Do we appreciate the magnitude of that gift? The psalmist said, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.… How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way” (Psalm 119:97–99, 103, 104). Is that the attitude you and I have toward God’s Law? Do we love it and give him thanks that he has given us such an abundance of detailed instruction? Or do we think to ourselves that we know what to do in our situation better than he does?

One reason why we don’t love God’s Law is because we have forgotten God’s transcendence. Why is it that teenagers in particular have a hard time obeying their parents’ instructions? It is because they are at an age when they don’t really believe their parents are smarter than they are. At five years old you think your parents know everything; at fifteen you think they know nothing at all. Then you are amazed at how rapid their learning curve is as you enter your twenties and thirties! You once again start to respect their wisdom and seek out their insight. In the same way, if we truly grasp the fact that God is vastly higher, holier, and wiser than we are, we will love his law and cherish his detailed instructions for life. His wisdom is so profound; how could I ever imagine that I know better than he does? How could I second-guess his providence and the paths he leads me down? They are not necessarily the paths I would have chosen, but is that surprising? On the contrary, if I remember that his thoughts are as high above mine as the heavens are above the earth, I would expect that to be the case. It would have been easy for the Gershonites to resent the privilege given to the clan of Kohath to carry the most holy things, unless they remembered who it was who gave the orders. Why should Kohath have top place and not Gershon? God knows the reason, and that is enough: we don’t necessarily need to know.

At the same time, though, to love God’s Law you not only need to remember his transcendence, you also need to remember his immanence. There is another reason why teenagers find it hard to obey their parents’ instructions, isn’t there? It is because they think their parents cannot identify with them in their situation. To a teenager, their parents naturally seem old and out-of-touch. “You just don’t understand” comes the cry, along with the expressive rolling of eyeballs. So too, if we only remember Godtranscendence, we may be tempted to think that he is out-of-touch with our situation. “He doesn’t understand what I’m going through,” we say to ourselves, excusing our sin. The God of the Bible, though, is not merely transcendent, he is immanent. He is with us in the midst of our situation. He knows what we wrestle with and sees our struggles. His law is not imposed upon us arbitrarily from a great height but is shaped to meet the needs of the creatures whom he made and whom he loves. There is therefore no cause for you to roll your eyes at God and think that he is out-of-touch with you. On the contrary, he knows your sorrows and your griefs. His law is wise and good not just for mankind in general but for you in particular. In some profound way, each clan’s burden was right for them, whether it was large or small. So too the personal burdens that you carry through life come to you by God’s assignment, and they are therefore in a profound way “right” for you. These are the good works that God has prepared in advance for you to do (Ephesians 2:10).


DEALING WITH THE CURSE

There is a problem, though, with the arrangement of the camp of Israel, with a holy God dwelling in the midst of his people. The problem is that as long as it rests on human obedience, the result will always be a curse. If God’s favor toward me rests on my personal ability to keep God’s strict and detailed injunctions, then I am necessarily under a curse, because the fact is, I am a lawbreaker. Galatians 3:10 puts it like this: “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ ” If your ability to approach God is a function of your own obedience, then you will find him to be a consuming fire, for your obedience is always less than perfect. The God whom we see in the book of Numbers does not grade on a curve. He doesn’t say, “The last ninety-nine times you packed up this furniture you didn’t sneak an illegitimate peek at the holy things, so I’ll let you off this time.” No; one single error, one single glance in the wrong direction, was enough to kill. In fact, the surprising part of the book of Numbers is not that so many of the Israelites died but that any of them survived! You might ask, “Who would want to be a Levite, serving this close to the all-holy God?” Yet are we any safer than they were, since Jesus himself commanded us, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48)? Any lack of perfection in us is enough to condemn us not merely to physical death but to eternity in Hell.
So how then can God ever dwell in our midst without his holy, transcendent presence becoming a curse to us? How can he live in the center of our community without destroying us? The answer lies in the ultimate fusion of transcendence and immanence that took place in the Incarnation. There in the person of Jesus, the high and holy God took on flesh and dwelt in our midst. The disciples beheld his glory day by day as he walked on this earth and in heightened form on the Mount of Transfiguration, and yet they were not struck down for gazing at the face of God in Christ. Why not? Certainly it is not because they were free from sin. Rather, it is because in Jesus the transcendent, holy God took into himself the death that we deserved for our sins. Christ’s purpose in coming was so that we too might live and not die when we approach the most holy things.

This safety is not the result of our following the example of Christ and meriting approaching God in our own righteousness. Not at all. We could never match up to his standard of perfection. That requirement would crush us. No; Jesus came to live the life of perfect holiness that we could never live. He died the death our sins deserved. The result of his perfect life and sacrificial death is that the Old Testament gradations of holiness are eliminated. In the new Jerusalem depicted in the book of Revelation, there is no inner ring of Levites around the throne whose task is to keep us at the distance from God that our lives merit. On the contrary, the whole new Jerusalem has now become a gigantic Holy of Holies, completely covered in pure gold. It is a Holy of Holies where God himself has his throne, yet to which the doors stand constantly open. All those who are in Christ share his holiness and are therefore welcomed into the very center.

This means, on the one hand, that there is no place for despair. Do your sins mount up to Heaven and cry out your unfitness to enter there? So do mine! Yet the blood of Jesus shouts still louder, “This one is mine. I died to make him holy. I bled for these sins of hers. They are welcome to come in, for my sake.” No matter how slow the progress of your sanctification, you can never despair as long as Jesus stands there interceding for you, inviting you in. His good work begun in you will one day be brought to completion (Philippians 1:6).

On the other hand, it also means there is no room for complacency. If God took his holiness so seriously in the Old Testament and judged severely those who took it lightly, how can we treat it as a light thing whether or not we obey him? If God took the identity of the person who carried the tent pegs of his tabernacle through the wilderness so seriously, how can we be casual about breaking any of God’s laws? How can we trample the Ten Commandments underfoot and think that it doesn’t matter? We more easily recognize the sins of others in this regard, but we need to search our own hearts as well. We have not really delighted in God’s laws, meditating upon them day and night. We have not pondered deeply not only how to avoid breaking the letter of the Law but also how to fulfill wholeheartedly its spirit. In Christ, God not only eliminates the barriers that prevent access to him—he also raises the bar of holiness for all of his people. We are called to be a royal priesthood, a holy nation in his service (1 Peter 2:9). Every single one of us is to take our duty in God’s service as seriously as the Levites had to in the book of Numbers.

God has bought us with a price and has commissioned us for his service. We too are therefore to bear the emblems of his presence wherever we go. It is our privilege and responsibility to pick up the cross and carry its message everywhere we go day by day. For some, the good news of the gospel will be a welcome message, the aroma of life in a dark world. For others, it will be unwelcome, the stench of death because of their unwillingness to bow before the truth. But the calling to share Christ’s burden is a matter of great joy for us. We are ambassadors of the one holy and transcendent God who has dwelt among us in Christ and even now fills us with his Spirit. What a blessing it is to know this God and have the ministry of making him known to others!

Duguid, I. M., & Hughes, R. K. (2006). Numbers: God’s presence in the wilderness (pp. 57–66). Crossway Books.