Numbers 3:37-39

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

³⁷And the pillars of the surrounding court and their sockets or bases, with their pegs and their cords.

³⁸But those to encamp before the tabernacle toward the east, before the Tent of Meeting, toward the sunrise, were to be Moses and Aaron and his sons, keeping the full charge of the rites of the sanctuary in whatever was required for the Israelites; and the ^[a]excluded [one not a descendant of Aaron and called of God] who came near [the sanctuary] was to be put to death.

³⁹All the Levites whom Moses and Aaron numbered at the command of the Lord, by their families, all the males from a month old and upward, were 22,000.

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Footnotes

Numbers 3:38 This ban against “the excluded” from coming near the sanctuary (the sacred tent, the tabernacle proper) is not to be construed as discrimination against people who were not Israelites. It included everyone except the ordained descendants of Levi of the house of Aaron. The tabernacle proper was made up of two small rooms which no one except the priest or priests who had the assignment was ever to enter. The congregation entered the outside enclosure only. This was true also of the later temples. Neither Jesus nor any of his disciples or Paul ever entered the sanctuary. When Jesus “taught in the temple” or “entered into the temple,” the Greek word invariably indicates that He was in the temple enclosure (hieron) and not in the sanctuary (naos). (For more information, see Richard Trench, Synonyms of The New Testament). For a violation of this ban see II Chron. 26:16-21, which tells of King Uzziah, who attempted to enter the sanctuary to burn incense and while being forcibly put out by eighty priests became a leper—for the rest of his life.