Add parallel Print Page Options

50 You are to give the Levites charge of the tabernacle of the covenant with all its equipment and all that belongs to it. It is they who shall carry the tabernacle with all its equipment and who shall be its ministers;(A) and they shall camp all around the tabernacle. 51 When the tabernacle is to move on, the Levites shall take it down; when the tabernacle is to be pitched, it is the Levites who shall set it up. Any unauthorized person who comes near[a] it shall be put to death.(B) 52 The other Israelites shall camp according to their companies, each in their own divisional camps,(C)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 1:51 Comes near: here and in 3:10, 38; 17:5; 18:4, 7 the Hebrew word rendered “comes near” is very nearly a technical term for someone who intrudes upon or violates a space set apart as holy and for which they have not been qualified by priesthood.

50 Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of the tabernacle(A) of the covenant law(B)—over all its furnishings(C) and everything belonging to it. They are to carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings; they are to take care of it and encamp around it. 51 Whenever the tabernacle(D) is to move,(E) the Levites are to take it down, and whenever the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall do it.(F) Anyone else who approaches it is to be put to death.(G) 52 The Israelites are to set up their tents by divisions, each of them in their own camp under their standard.(H)

Read full chapter