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But the Levites have no part among you; for the priesthood of the LORD is their inheritance: and Gad, and Reuben, and half the tribe of Manasseh, have received their inheritance beyond Jordan on the east, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them.
Aaron and his descendants monopolized the priesthood, and this was a bitter grievance to other equally ambitious Levites. In short, the Mosaic leadership was vulnerable on every hand. Attack on Moses was, therefore, inevitable, and it came from Korah, who was leader of the opposition.
For the LORD had spoken unto Moses, saying, Only thou shalt not number the tribe of Levi, neither take the sum of them among the children of Israel: But thou shalt appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of testimony, and over all the vessels thereof, and over all things that belong to it: they shall bear the tabernacle, and all the vessels thereof; and they shall minister unto it, and shall encamp round about the tabernacle.
Then they began the Temple, in the second year after their return; the trumpeters blew with silver trumpets, the Levites sang, and the people shouted; but what was joy to the young, whose hope was fulfilled, was grief to the old, who had seen Solomon's Temple in its glory. Where was the Ark? where the manna? where the Urim and Thummim? where the Light upon the Mercy-seat?
The picture of the bloody sacrifice came before him the awe-inspiring congregation of two hundred thousand of 'God's chosen ones. At the ninth hour three blasts of the silver trumpet would start the surging chant of five thousand Levites and signal the beginning of the slaughter. And in the next six hours two hundred thousand lambs must be slain and carried away from the gate.
If this computation be correct, there was in the possession of the Hebrew chiefs land sufficient to allow to every Israelite capable of bearing arms a lot of about twenty acres; reserving for public uses, as also for the cities of the Levites, about one-tenth of the whole.
And all the pins of the tabernacle, and of the court round about, were of brass. This is the sum of the tabernacle, even of the tabernacle of testimony, as it was counted, according to the commandment of Moses, for the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, son to Aaron the priest. And Bezaleel the son Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that the LORD commanded Moses.
Then came near the heads of the fathers of the Levites unto Eleazar the priest, and unto Joshua the son of Nun, and unto the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel; And they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The LORD commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle.
But, on the contrary, houses in cities and large towns were, when sold, redeemable only during one year; after which the sale was held binding forever. There was indeed an exception in this case in favour of the Levites, who could at any time redeem "the houses of the cities of their possession," and who, moreover, enjoyed the full advantage of the fiftieth year.
And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this passover kept.
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