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Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us as Fr. Stephen DeYoung teaches verse-by-verse on the podcast The Whole Counsel of God. Fr. Stephen holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies and is an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Okay, we'll go ahead and get started. When we get started, we're going to be picking up at the beginning of Numbers chapter 18. Continue our way through the exciting book of Numbers. More exciting than people thought going in, I bet. That's true. But that was a low bar for some folks, I think. So once again tonight, we're not going to have a ton of introduction because once again tonight, we're shifting gears, right? One of the reasons we left off where we left off is that we're moving from one type of content to another type of content again. So we, last time, talked about Korra's Rebellion and the fallout from that, the plague, the censors, all that good stuff. And the stuff we're going to talk about tonight is not unrelated, but it's a different type of text. So that was narrative. We were reading a series of stories, and those stories were about, due to Korra's rebellion, and I made my usual Korra is the first Protestant joke, because he says, you know, are we not all holy? Why are you trying to make yourself a priest over us? But I got the same reaction last time, too. People just don't think that joke's funny, I guess. It won't stop me. So, and then through several means, of course, one of those means being the ground swallowing Korra whole, some other things. And then ultimately through the budding of Aaron's rod, we're talking about the end of last time. It is sort of firmly established that, no, this is authority as high priest that's been given to Aaron, but it's been given to him by God. This is not a responsibility he took for himself. This is not him trying to lord it over people. He did not seize it. No one can seize it. The only way to legitimately have this authority is for God to give it to you. And so that has now been firmly displayed. That said, what we're now going to talk about is we're going to review some of the duties of the priests and the Levites. So we're going to be talking about some of the responsibilities that come with that authority. So what we're going to talk about tonight is not unrelated to what we just talked about. And it's connected, but it's also a different, we're not reading narrative anymore, right? We're not progressing the story. And it's important to keep in mind that we're not getting any kind of real-time narration here, remember? Just a few chapters ago, we had God telling the people that they were going to spend the next 40 years wandering in the wilderness until the generation that came out of Egypt dies off. and in a few chapters when we get to the end of numbers it's going to be 40 years later right so when we have these shifts and we shift back to narrative it's not picking up where it left off we get a series of windows here in in numbers to specific important events that take place

over the course of that 40 years but there's whole years where we're not given any inkling as to all the things that happened right but that also means we have to keep it by that there's this whole life of the people and the community and all of these things going on all the time right all through these 40 years and those are punctuated by these sort of major significant major events so uh that said by way of review, quick review, unless we have any leftover questions or comments or musings about fairies as they appear in the works of various people. We'll go ahead and pick up in Numbers chapter 18 verse 1. Now the Lord spoke to Aaron saying, you and your sons and your father's house with you shall bear the sins of the holy things, and you and your sons with you shall bear the sins of your priesthood. okay pause this means they're going to be punished for it right so the reason i keep making this point is there are other passages and other texts in the old testament that some of our friends read and just assume that the language means a certain thing because that's what it sounds like in english okay so they're going to go to like isaiah 53 where it talks about the servant pointing to Christ bearing our sins and they're going to assume that that means certain things right they're going to assume that that means certain things but There are plenty of other places in the Old Testament where this language is used, like here in the Torah, where that same language is used, where what they read into that other passage doesn't make a lick of sense, right? So when they talk about Isaiah 53, they're going to say, oh, well, that means that God punished Jesus for our sins. That's what bearing our sins means, right? well okay so does this mean that Aaron and his family are going to be punished for the sins of the objects in the tabernacle does that make any sense and they're going to be they're going to bear those sins and they're going to bear their own sins right so they're going to get like double punished but some of the sins they're going to be punished for are the sins of inanimate objects right obviously that doesn't make sense but now remember what we talked about back in leviticus chapter 16 with many moons ago we have a very different understanding of sin than the understanding of sin that the torah puts forward and let's say saint paul uses right when we hear sin we think of the idea that's usually more connoted by the idea of a trespass when we hear sin we think oh breaking a rule there was a rule you're not supposed to do this or you are supposed to do this

and you either did it or didn't do it depending on which one you weren't supposed to do. You did the wrong thing and so now you're guilty of it and since you broke the rule and you're guilty of breaking the rule, you're now liable to punishment, some kind of punishment for having broken the rule. That's how we think about it. That's not the Bible, to be blunt. That's not what sin is. That's not how it works in the Bible. sin is talked about in the bible as a force that's active in the world remember all the way back in genesis chapter 4 with cain and abel right god comes to cain and says sin is crouching at your door it wants to master you you must master it he doesn't be breaking a rule is is crouching at your door right that doesn't make any sense it's this force it's his power that's at work of the world. Now, this is sins plural. And so sins plural, that's the effects. If sin is the disease, then sins are the symptoms, right, of that disease. And so if you think about sin as like a spore, right, as like germs, even though they didn't have the germ theory of disease, it was more like spore, right? You understand, right, objects can be contaminated. Certain diseases spread a person has this disease you have to take their blanket and burn it because right you have to take their possessions and burn them you have to clear things out of that right and that's the two examples that are used are always plague disease and then on the other side mildew or mold which again gets into things and spreads and so it's not that the candle stand in the tabernacle or the altar broke a rule somehow but it can get tainted by the sinful people like the priests themselves right their own sins their people the priests themselves are not are infected with sin and commit sins and manifest these symptoms and they're coming in to the tabernacle and using these things and handling these things right over the course of their their ministry we talked about this was the reason I pointed back to Leviticus 16 we talked about the day of atonement really being directed towards that once a year we go and we purify the holy space of all that right all that residue all that all that taint all that spore left behind right by the sinful people the sinful use of it that's what this is talking about that's what this is talking about and it's saying this is your responsibility so we've now established the authority of Aaron and his

sons in his house that authority comes with responsibility that's how they're related so the fact that you have this authority the fact that you have this privilege of being the ones who go in there and serve as we've now established just you and nobody else means you have this responsibility now for the purity, the holiness, right, of this space and yourselves when you're going and entering it. Verse 2, you shall also bring your brethren, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father to yourself, and they shall be joined and added to you and minister liturgically with you and your sons with you before the tabernacle of testimony. We talked about, we saw The tribe of the Levites, the different clans, had their own. assigned responsibilities, right, to assist them. They shall perform your guard duties and the duties of the tabernacle, but they shall not come near the holy vessels and the altar lest they die, they and you also. They shall be joined to you and perform the guard duties of the tabernacle of testimony and all the liturgical services of the tabernacle, but an outsider shall not come near you. So we talked about back then when we were talking about the Levites, how they're connected to the idea of deacons right in our current church arrangement so they're in this space where they're not lay people but they're also not priests right so they have their own ministry their own assigned ministry and they're not to try to intrude on and take for themselves right the ministry of the priests that isn't theirs but also lay people aren't to encroach on what belongs to them so as we saw not just each group priests high priest priests Levites but even the individual families and clans that have their assigned jobs that they're to do they're not to try to grasp for other ones that aren't theirs right and nobody's supposed to try to take theirs away from them we just had this Korah episode right so we're reiterating all of this thus you shall perform the guard duties of the holy things in the altar so there may be no more wrath on the children of israel and we just saw these episodes of god's wrath of the fire coming out right the ground opening up all these that was sort of nadab and abihu but on a much bigger scale and notice how it's described they keep using this guard duties yeah because one of their responsibilities is to protect the holiness of holy places to keep things that are holy and sacred holy and sacred and set apart right make sure they don't get common use make sure that people don't come in further than they should right if they're not supposed to and this is not protecting god from those people god's not worried about that it's protecting these people

from God, kind of, right? In the sense of protecting them from bringing judgment upon themselves. This is something that we see St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, right? When he's talking about the Eucharist, right? He talks about people who receive unworthily and some of you have gotten sick and some of you have died because you've drawn close to God in an unworthy way. As I always reiterate about that, worthy and unworthy, it's not an adjective. It's not that there's worthy people and unworthy people. It's an adverb. They approach unworthily. It's about how you approach God. Right? Not some kind of state you're in, but how you are approaching God. And part of approaching God worthily is approaching in repentance and faithfulness. So that the person who comes to receive communion and tells me, Father, I am worthy to receive communion today is the last person I'm going to give communion to. Right? The person who comes and says, I am unworthy. In fact, you don't get to see behind the altar, but when the priest takes communion himself, he literally pronounces himself unworthy as he does it. Like you do it after saying that you are unworthy of it. So it's a question of part of approaching where the Lee is acknowledging that you're not worthy to receive what God is going to give you. But this is something that a lot of friends who aren't orthodox don't understand. Right? They don't understand why they can't just wander into this church and receive the Eucharist. They don't understand why they can't just wander in here and come back behind the altar. They don't, right? Like, they don't have an understanding of that anymore. But this is deeply ingrained in what is in Scripture. Right? Is that there are places that are holy because god is presence there and it is a dangerous thing right to approach god in an unworthy way and people need to be protected from right doing the wrong thing and the when you are ordained as a priest in the orthodox church the lamb for communion that liturgy is put in your hands and you're charged with protecting it guarding it right the same kind of language not administering it faithfully not protecting it protecting the body of christ that's at multiple levels protecting the body of christ is in your flock but also protecting the eucharist in this sense that you you don't sort of aid in a

Thank you very much.

people receiving it in an unworthy way that could harm them. And so this is a big part of their job. And this is part of what it means that they're held responsible for the people. Like I talked about last time, part of what comes with authority of the church is also having to give an account to christ for what you did with that authority and so uh part of that is who i give the eucharist to and who i don't who i tell the they need to repent and who i don't

yes you know i recently had a conversation like this with some presbyterian friends and they were saying why don't why can't we take communion in your church i gave them this argument and they looked at me like i'd lost my mind too bad about arthur's mind how the orthodox corrupted it just absolutely they could not wrap their heads around it

yeah yeah and it's i try with with folks i try to go to the bible with them and i have found that there people who hold that view among people who have that view no one takes what paul says in first corinthians seriously because i'll say to them like i don't give it to you because you might die and they either laugh or they think that's ridiculous but i point out well that's what saint paul says they say and they say something flippant like well that's on me then you know and i'm like well that shows me you don't believe it because you would say something flippant like that if you actually believed it was true that you could die right so i don't know how to get around the fact that they just don't believe St. Paul. They just don't believe that part of the scriptures. The people who hold that view. And that's not all Presbyterians. That's not all Calvinists. There are Calvinists. The Calvinists I grew up among had practiced closed communion, right? Lutherans, it's not all. It tends to be sort of low church evangelicals. I think it's a denial of the real Presbyterians. More often. Well, yeah, because they don't think it actually is anything. they don't understand why or why or how it could kill you even though saint paul says that right and there's not a way around that's what saint paul says and so they just they don't take that seriously i don't know what to do about that some somewhere when this episode comes out when this is released as a podcast there'll be some angry typing presbyterian who will be like you know that's not true father steven is usually right about these things but now this time he's way off base right uh and explaining why some out of no we do believe what paul says but it won't affect me ever because i'm elect or something who knows right yeah but so this is just deeply ingrained in the scriptures there's sort there's sort of not a way around it without denying something in the scriptures verse six behold i took your brethren the levites from the midst of the children of Israel as a gift given to the Lord, to minister liturgically in the tabernacle of testimony. Therefore, you and your sons with you shall take care of your priesthood according to all the manner of the altar and within the veil, and you shall minister liturgically as the gift of your priesthood, but the outsider who comes near shall be put to death. So notice, again, he's reiterating, this is a gift you've been given, right? This is a privilege you've been given to do this, that these other people don't receive. And so, right before the last chapter, the whole thing with Korah, Aaron's rod, he's talking to the rest of Israel. No, these are the priests. These are the people I've chosen. Now he's talking to those people and saying, look, this is a gift you've been given.

And you need to perform it accordingly. Right. This is this incredible privilege you have. to come before God and offer these sacrifices, to do these things, and therefore must be taken seriously. Again, the Lord spoke to Aaron, I give you charge over the firstfruits from all the things sanctified to me by the children of Israel. And I give these things to you and your sons with you as your share. This shall be an eternal ordinance. So let this be yours from the sanctified holy things of the offerings, from all their gifts, from all their sacrifices, from all their trespass offerings and from all their sin offerings and from whatever they return to me. Let all these holy things belong to you and your sons. So we've already read about this is reiterating, right? This is part of what they've been given. They're not going to be out there working the fields day in, day out, like everyone else in Israel, right? But they're going to be receiving food, right, in this way, from the tithes and offerings.

the people. In a most holy place, you shall eat these things. Every male shall eat these things. It shall be holy to you. This also shall be a first fruit for you from their gifts, from all the deposit offerings of the children of Israel. I give these things to you and to your sons and daughters with you. This shall be an eternal ordinance. Everyone who is clean in your house shall eat these things. The first fruits of oil, wine, and grain, all their first fruits, whatever they may offer to the Lord, I give these things to you. Whatever first ripe fruit is in their land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours. Everyone who is clean in your house shall eat these things. Every devoted thing in Israel shall be yours. Okay, so this is another part of, right, the privilege they have, is that you're not going to be out there toiling the same way other people are. You're going to be supported, but you're going to be supported so that you can focus on doing this ministry, right? And so this is the paradigm that St. Paul in particular brings forward the New Testament in terms of leadership within Christian communities, the idea that the community should support those leaders so that they can devote themselves to the ministry God has given them. I tell people, and this is how the church has always seen it, that I do not have a job. Being a priest is not a job. It's like a normal job. It is neither contract labor nor wage labor. It is not a job. I am supported by the community so that I don't have to get a job, so that I could devote myself to doing the things of the priesthood. And this is where that comes from. This is how God set it up originally. There are these special tasks related to the priesthood that have to be done. In order for people to be able to focus on that and do that and do that in any kind of worthy way, they can't also be trying to manage a farm, a household, and a business, and all these other things on the side. well we don't know we don't know what his sort of end game was daughters of the Levites did they have any particular role or well so I think I think we all yeah we saw back when they're talking about the Levites that there were I mean for the most part they're the wives and right daughters of the Levites of course wives they're doing all the things wives did in terms of a household right um in terms of managing the house yes yeah no they those things were kept within the yeah yeah yeah but also uh

we saw the the women at the gates of the tabernacle that there were women usually widows minority of women probably who never got married for some reason um who did things for the tabernacle like sewing and repairing vestments and all of those kind of things so there were those women from among the levites had filled that special role and that evolves into the women at the temple so like the theotokos later right that institution of having those women who are dedicated to god's service came from the levite women here in the torah right over time once you eventually you get a temple so you're not at the gate of the tabernacle anymore and the temple has temple courts and other areas right but down the down the chain that's where that ends up everything that first opens the womb of all flesh which they bring to the lord from man to cattle shall be yours nevertheless the firstborn of men you shall redeem and the firstborn of unclean cattle you shall redeem though as for its redemption at the age of one month the rate is five shekels according to the holy shekel that is 20 obols these are weights right and so we have no precise right but it's referred to as the holy shekel because there would be some weight that was kept at the tabernacle because we're talking about balance scales right and so well no there was no universal shekel that's the point so it's here's the tabernacle shekel right and it weighs 20 obols but what's a scientific obol well it's one twentieth of a shekel right and so that would be put in the balance weight right on the one side of the balance scale and then you'd put whatever on the other side to determine oh that's a shekel worth Now, this is giving more detail because we actually already saw this, right? That the offering of the firstborn was described. Remember, because there's the whole issue of the donkey. That's what it means by unclean cattle. The word that's translated cattle here didn't just mean cows. It meant sort of beasts of the field. So it was sort of a wider range. So a donkey would be an example of unclean cattle. A horse would be an example of unclean cattle. anything that didn't have as we saw in leviticus a cloven hoof and and eat cud that's would be unclean but still as a domesticated animal the firstborn male would be dedicated to god and we were told well if it's one that you don't sacrifice or if it's a human you redeem it right and so this is giving the sort of redemption values what that means if you can't and this is

going to become especially important we're getting this later right this detail later because this is going to become especially important once they come into the land because you're not necessarily even with something you could sacrifice like a sheep you're not necessarily going to be able to drag the sheep from where you live up in Bashan or on the other side of the Jordan River over to Jerusalem right so in order to make that effective right and you're not going to be allowed to perform sacrifices back where you were so easy way to do that is you come to jerusalem you give the redemption value to the to the temple and this is talking about how that's calculated but the firstborn of young bulls the firstborn of sheep or the firstborn of goats you shall not redeem they are holy you shall pour out their blood towards the altar and offer their fat as a burnt offering for a sweet aroma to the lord their meat shall also be yours just as the breast of the deposit offering and the right shoulder are yours every choice part of the holy things which the children of israel offer to the lord i give to you and your sons and daughters with you as an eternal ordinance it is an eternal covenant of salt before the lord with you and your seed with you salt has to do with the sacrifices right where they add salt to all the sacrifices so what's being outlined here is you have these privileges you have these responsibilities you have these duties you have these benefits right this is sort of the life that's been given to you right as a priest yeah right um or a covenant yeah right and notice this is not like God's not negotiating. And number two, they've already received it. They've received the priesthood. We read about them receiving the priesthood. It's been, right? And God is now saying, here's what this entails. Right? And also there is applied here, you should be satisfied with this. That's part of what this is about. Right? You're going to have all the food you need and good food. Right? With the number of sacrifices and stuff and the size of Israel, they're going to be eating a lot more meat than any other tribe. Farmers don't eat a lot of meat. They're eating more meat, they're eating better, right? So, I mean, this is, but be satisfied with it in the sense that none of these priests or Levites should be trying to get rich. We're going to see this is going to become a pernicious problem throughout the rest of the Old Testament and into the New Testament. We've talked about the high priest family owning incredible amounts of land and basically swindling it out of the people. There's going to be this temptation to, right, first God said, don't grasp for more responsibilities and duties and privileges that haven't been given to you. Also now here, right, be satisfied with all of this, right,

and don't try and grasp for more. Ambition is not a virtue. This is hard for Americans to accept, right? We consider people who aren't ambitious, lazy. We consider contentment to be kind of a vice. But that's the opposite of what God says. God says contentment is a virtue. God says ambition is a vice. Constantly wanting more. More power, more money, more authority, more control, more stuff, right? is a is bad is sinful competing with other people for those things is sinful sorry americans contentment being happy with what you have being happy with what god has given you being happy with the life god has given you being satisfied are good things they're good things we talked about this before, back when St. Paul said that That we should be praying to lead a quiet and peaceful life in godliness and sanctity. That should be our goal. Not a lot of people's goal these days. Living a quiet and peaceful life off by themselves. But that's what God says we should aspire to. And that's what he's trying to communicate to the priests. Got a lot of responsibility. That's a heavy thing. You've also got a lot of gifts and privileges. And so you should be happy right with this. and fulfill those duties and responsibilities. Moreover, the Lord said to Aaron, you shall have no inheritance in their land, nor shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance in the midst of the children of Israel. So remember, we already talked about this. They're not going to get the land allotments because they're not going to be there working and farming the land. God is their inheritance. I used to joke, but people didn't get it. I used to joke that being a priest doesn't have a lot of benefits, but it has a great retirement plan and people thought I was talking about an actual retirement plan. I am not, we do not have a great actual retirement plan. We don't have much of any actual retirement plan. I was referring to heaven. I was referring to eternal life, which hopefully as a priest, we're shooting for at least, but that's the idea. That's what God is saying here when he says he is their inheritance, right? Meaning, you shouldn't be trying to accumulate wealth in this world. You have these privileges, you have God. That's better than wealth and a big farm and land and cattle. Behold, I give the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for their liturgical service. Whenever they minister liturgically in the tabernacle of testimony, hereafter the children of Israel shall not come near the tabernacle of testimony,

lest they bear guilt and die but the Levite himself shall minister liturgically in the tabernacle of testimony and they shall bear their sins it shall be an eternal ordinance throughout your generations that in the midst of the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance clearly once again the Levites are not being punished for everyone else's sins this bearing them means they're going in and making the offerings for the sins of the people The people themselves are not going in there, right? But the Levites are going in on their behalf. Makes you think Isaiah 53 might be talking about Christ doing something on our behalf. But we'll get to Isaiah eventually. For the tithes of the children of Israel, whatever they may offer as a choice portion to the Lord, I give to the Levites as an inheritance. Therefore, I say to them, in the midst of the children of Israel, they shall have no inheritance. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak thus to the Levites and say to them, If you receive from the children of Israel the tithe, which I give you from them as your inheritance, then you shall remove from it the Lord's choice portion, a tenth of the tithe. Now your choice portions shall be reckoned to you as the grain from the threshing floor and as the choice portion of the winepress. Thus you shall then remove the Lord's choice portions from all your tithes, whatever you might receive from the children of Israel, and you shall give from them the Lord's choice portion to Aaron the priest from all your gifts you shall remove the choice portion for the Lord or from all the first fruits that which is sanctified from it so this is interesting so God has said right you're going to be receiving the tithes from the other Israelites that doesn't mean that the priests and Levites are like just immune from oh you don't have to offer god anything yourselves they do too right so they're taking a tithe from the tithes and notice it's specifically grain and wine but those that's what they then offer right and aaron is the high priest right the high priest then offers on behalf of the priests and the Levites. So this is talking about the relationship within the Old Testament clergy. This is pretty much paralleled in the Orthodox Church with the relationship between priests and deacons and then the bishop. Therefore you shall say to them, when you remove the first fruit from it, then all the rest shall be accounted to the Levites as the produce of the threshing floor and as the produce of the winepress. you may eat it in any place you and your households for it is your reward for your liturgical service in the tabernacle of testimony now you should bear no guilt because of it for you removed the first root from it you shall not defile the holy things of the children of

israel lest you die meaning he's making a distinction between their tithes those offerings and the sacrificial offerings so they have to eat the Reverend they have to eat the sacrificial offerings. They're part of the sacrifices in a holy place. But just the tithes from Israel, they could eat wherever. That's the idea there. Because, and the reason they can eat them anywhere is they've already removed God's part.

Listen next time as Father Stephen DeYoung continues his study of the scriptures on the whole counsel of God. Father Stephen's email address is wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com. That's wholecouncil at ancientfaith.com.