Numbers 18 Summary and Study Guide

Israel had just asked Moses a question nobody answered: everyone who comes near the tabernacle dies, so are we all going to die? Numbers 18 is God’s reply. This Numbers 18 summary and study guide covers the Bible chapter where He tells Aaron and the Levites what they must carry, what the people’s tithes are for, and what they will never own.

Setting the Stage

A man named Korah gathered two hundred and fifty leaders of Israel and told Moses and Aaron they had taken too much on themselves, because the whole community was holy (Numbers 16:3). What Korah wanted was Aaron’s job. God settled it three times over: fire killed the men who brought incense, a plague swept through the camp the next day, and a dead almond staff with Aaron’s name on it sprouted buds, blossoms and ripe almonds overnight inside God’s tent.

What Israel concluded from all of it was that nobody was safe at all. “Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh any thing near unto the tabernacle of the LORD shall die: shall we be consumed with dying?” (Numbers 17:12-13). Numbers 18 is the answer.

Comprehensive Numbers 18 Summary

The LORD speaks straight to Aaron. Aaron, his sons and his father’s household will carry the responsibility for anything that goes wrong at the sanctuary, and Aaron and his sons alone will carry it for anything that goes wrong in the priesthood.

The rest of the tribe of Levi is brought in to serve them, doing everything the tent needs but staying away from the altar and the holy vessels, because touching them would kill the Levite and the priest together. God calls the Levites a gift to the priests, and He calls the priesthood itself a gift.

Then He tells Aaron what the priests will live on. The most holy offerings, the parts not burned on the altar, are eaten inside the sanctuary by the men of his family. The wave offerings, the best of the oil and wine and grain, the first ripe fruit of the land, everything Israel sets apart for God, and every firstborn all go to the priest, and anyone in his household who is clean may eat them.

A firstborn son is bought back for five silver shekels at a month old. The first young of a cow, a sheep or a goat is not bought back at all, because it belongs on the altar. God then seals the whole arrangement as a covenant of salt.

Last comes the exchange. Aaron will own no land in Israel, because God tells him, I am your portion. The Levites will own none either, and their inheritance is the nation’s tithe, paid for the work they do at the tent. Out of it they must lift the best tenth back to God and hand it to Aaron, and the rest is then theirs to eat anywhere they like.

One Word Summary

• Given: the word God keeps using of everything in this chapter
• Charge: what the priests and Levites must keep, and what they get to keep
• Portion: what God becomes for men who will never own land

In One Sentence

With Israel afraid to come near God’s tent, God tells Aaron that his family will carry the danger of the sanctuary, feeds the priests and the Levites out of Israel’s offerings and tithes, and tells both that they will never own land in Canaan.

Theme of Numbers 18

Numbers 18 is about ordered nearness to God. Holiness does not become safer by pushing everybody further off; it becomes survivable when somebody is appointed to stand at the boundary and answer for what happens there. Two further ideas belong to that one: nothing in the arrangement is earned, which is why God calls even the work itself a gift. And the men set closest to His presence are handed no share of the country everyone else is walking toward: Aaron is given God Himself, and the Levites are given the nation’s tithe.

Numbers 18 Outline

• Numbers 18:1-4: God tells Aaron that his family carries the responsibility for the sanctuary, and brings the rest of the tribe of Levi to serve them without touching the holy things.
• Numbers 18:5-7: The priests keep the sanctuary and the altar so that God’s anger does not fall on Israel again, and God calls their office a gift.
• Numbers 18:8-10: God gives Aaron the most holy offerings, to be eaten in a holy place by the men of his family.
• Numbers 18:11-13: The wave offerings and the best of the oil, wine and grain go to Aaron’s whole household, to anyone in it who is clean.
• Numbers 18:14-18: Everything set apart for God and every firstborn belongs to the priest, with the price and the rule for buying a firstborn back.
• Numbers 18:19: God seals the priests’ portion as a covenant of salt for ever.
• Numbers 18:20: God tells Aaron he will own no land in Israel, and names Himself as Aaron’s portion instead.
• Numbers 18:21-24: God gives the Levites all the tithe of Israel as their inheritance in place of land, and warns the rest of Israel away from the tent.
• Numbers 18:25-28: God tells Moses that the Levites must take a tenth of the tithe they receive and give it to Aaron.
• Numbers 18:29-32: The Levites must offer the best of what they receive, and then they may eat the rest anywhere without guilt.

The Covenant of Salt

Verse 19 seals the priests’ portion with a phrase that appears three times in the whole Bible.

Salt preserves food, and salt itself does not rot unless something else gets into it. It was also costly, and Bible teachers point out that in that part of the world eating salt with someone was widely taken to bind the two of you together. So a covenant of salt is a covenant that will not spoil.

Leviticus 2:13 required salt on every grain offering and called it “the salt of the covenant of thy God”, so no Israelite offered anything without it. And in 2 Chronicles 13:5 King Abijah says God gave the kingdom to David and his sons “by a covenant of salt”, using the same phrase for a promise nobody could break.

Observations from Numbers 18

God Speaks Directly to Aaron (18:1, 8, 20)

Three times in this chapter the sentence begins “And the LORD said unto Aaron” or “the LORD spake unto Aaron”, with no mention of Moses. Everywhere else in Numbers, God speaks to Moses, or to Moses and Aaron together, and Moses passes it on. Israel had just spent two chapters disputing whether Aaron had any right to stand where he stood, and God’s next word goes straight to him.

The Chapter’s Own Word Is “Given” (18:6-28)

Forms of the word give run through Numbers 18 from verse 6 to verse 28. The Levites are given to the priests, the priesthood is given to Aaron, the offerings are given, the tithe is given, and the tithe of the tithe is given back. Nothing in the chapter is described as earned. A reader who arrives expecting a list of clergy entitlements finds instead a list of things God hands over.

The Same Word Names the Burden and the Bread (18:3-5, 8)

In verses 3 to 5 the Levites and the priests must “keep the charge” of the tent, the sanctuary and the altar. That is their duty and their danger. Then in verse 8 God gives Aaron “the charge of mine heave offerings”, and the same word now means the portion he keeps for himself. The word that names what they carry also names what they eat.

Three Times God Says They Will Own Nothing (18:20, 23, 24)

God tells Aaron he will have no inheritance in the land (v20), tells the Levites the same in verse 23, and then says it again in verse 24 in almost the same words. Verses 23 and 24 sit side by side, and the second repeats the first rather than adding to it. God does not soften the loss by saying it once.

The Levites Are “Joined” to the Priests (18:2, 4)

Twice God says the Levites are to be “joined” to Aaron, in verse 2 and again in verse 4. The Hebrew verb behind it sounds like the name Levi, and Genesis 29:34 records that Leah named the boy Levi for exactly that reason, saying her husband would now be joined to her. Whether or not the echo is deliberate, the tribe that had just produced Korah is twice told to be joined to Aaron rather than to replace him.

Difficult Verses Explained

What Does It Mean That Aaron Would “Bear the Iniquity of the Sanctuary”?

Numbers 18:1 means the priests answered to God for whatever went wrong at the tent, whether they caused it or somebody else did. If an unauthorised person got near the holy things, the priest who let it happen was accountable for it. The Hebrew word behind “bear” carries two senses in the Old Testament, to endure a penalty and to carry something away, and both are at work here. Aaron endured the liability, and through the offerings God appointed he also carried Israel’s guilt away from the sanctuary (Exodus 28:38).

Did Priests Eat Inside the Most Holy Place?

No. Numbers 18:10 is not about the holy of holies, which only the high priest entered, once a year. The phrase in verse 10 is read two ways. Some take it as the court of the tabernacle, which Leviticus 6:16 and 6:26 name as the place these offerings had to be eaten, called “most holy” because everything outside it was common ground.

Others read the Hebrew as “among the most holy things”, meaning eat it as a most holy thing, which is how Numbers 4:4 uses the same expression. Either way the point is the same: this food never left the sanctuary and only the men of Aaron’s family touched it.

Who Ate the Firstborn Animal, the Priest or the Owner?

Numbers 18:18 says the priest eats the animal itself, a firstborn calf, lamb or goat, while Deuteronomy 15:19-20 tells the owner to eat it before the LORD year by year at the place God chose. Bible teachers explain the difference in two ways. Some hold that the law was adjusted when Israel moved from a camp around one tent to a settled country with a central sanctuary.

Others read the second half of Numbers 18:18 as limiting the priest’s share to the breast and the shoulder, the portions named in the first half of the verse, with the rest going to the worshipper. Scripture does not tell us which is right, and the chapter itself is only concerned to say that the animal was holy and was not to be bought back.

Common Misunderstandings

• That the priests and the Levites received the same thing. They did not. God is Aaron’s portion (v20); the tithe is the Levites’ inheritance (v21, v24). The chapter states each one separately.
• That “a stranger” means a foreigner. In verses 4 and 7 it means anyone outside the appointed family, including an Israelite of any other tribe. The same word is used the same way in Numbers 1:51 and 3:10.
• That a clean firstborn animal was exempt from being bought back. Verse 17 says the opposite in effect. It could not be bought back precisely because it was holy, which meant it went to the altar rather than home with its owner.
• That the priesthood was designed to make Aaron’s family wealthy. The land ban in verse 20 was there to stop exactly that. The chapter hands them food and says three times over that they will hold no ground of their own.

Christ Connection

The first thing God says about Aaron in this chapter is that he will bear iniquity, and the last warning He gives the Levites is that they must not pollute the holy things “lest ye die” (v32). Between those two sentences stands a whole system for keeping a holy God and a sinful people alive in the same camp. Every part of it was temporary, and the New Testament takes up the chapter’s own words to say what replaced it.

• Bear. Aaron carried Israel’s guilt at the sanctuary year after year and never finished the work. Isaiah wrote of a servant who “shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11), and Hebrews 9:28 says “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.”
• Gift. God tells Aaron, “I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift” (v7). Hebrews 5:4-5 quotes that principle and applies it to Christ, who “glorified not himself to be made an high priest.”
• Coming close. Numbers 18 posts a death sentence at the boundary, on anyone who “cometh nigh”, which means anyone who comes close to the sanctuary without the right to (v7). Paul writes to people who were outside that line, “ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).
• Stranger. The word that shut Israel out of the tent is the word Paul overturns: “now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints” (Ephesians 2:19).
• Redeem. Five silver shekels bought back every firstborn son in Israel (v15-16). Peter writes that believers were “not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold”, but “with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19).
• Salt. The priests’ portion was sealed with a covenant that would not spoil (v19). Hebrews 13:20 names “the blood of the everlasting covenant.”

One more line of the chapter reaches further than the priests who first heard it. God tells Aaron that he will hold no field in Israel because “I am thy part and thine inheritance” (v20). That was said to one family who had been shut out of the property register.

Paul says it of every believer, that God has “made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12). What Aaron received instead of ground is what the gospel offers to people who never had any claim on the land at all.

When, Where, and Why

• When: During the wilderness years, immediately after Korah’s rebellion and the budding of Aaron’s staff. The tabernacle is still being carried from camp to camp, which may be why the chapter is so careful about who may touch its furniture.
• Where: In the camp of Israel, around the tent of meeting. Nothing here happens in Canaan yet, and the land is the one thing the chapter promises the priests and Levites they will not get. Egypt did it the other way round: when Joseph bought every field for Pharaoh, the priests were the one class who kept their land (Genesis 47:22).
• Why: Moses records this because the danger the people were afraid of was real and had already been counted. Numbers 16:49 puts the plague’s toll at fourteen thousand seven hundred dead, and verse 5 of this chapter says the priests’ work exists so that there be “no wrath any more upon the children of Israel”. The chapter is God’s arrangement for keeping that number from growing.

Key Verses

“Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest’s office for every thing of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.”

Numbers 18:7

God hands Aaron the priesthood, everything at the altar and everything behind the inner curtain, as a gift, and sentences to death the outsider who “cometh nigh”, meaning anyone who comes close without the right to. Korah died trying to seize what this verse says was never for sale.

“All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the LORD, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD unto thee and to thy seed with thee.”

Numbers 18:19

Everything Israel lifts up to God from the holy offerings, God says He has handed to Aaron and to his sons and daughters as a permanent rule, sealed by a covenant that will never spoil, and “thy seed with thee” means Aaron’s descendants after him are included in it. The word covenant appears nowhere else in Numbers 18; every other promise here is called a statute or an ordinance.

“And the LORD spake unto Aaron, Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part among them: I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel.”

Numbers 18:20

God tells Aaron he will receive no share of the country and no piece of ground among the tribes, because God Himself is what Aaron gets instead. The sentence became the confession of people far outside the priesthood, and Psalm 16:5 and Lamentations 3:24 both take it up.

“Thus speak unto the Levites, and say unto them, When ye take of the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then ye shall offer up an heave offering of it for the LORD, even a tenth part of the tithe.”

Numbers 18:26

When the Levites collect the tenth that God has assigned them from the rest of Israel, they are to lift a tenth of it back to God. The men who lived on other people’s giving were not excused from giving, which is the one rule in the chapter that speaks to everybody in it.

Key Lessons from Numbers 18

• God met a nation terrified of dying near Him by naming the men who would answer for whatever went wrong at His tent (18:1-5).
• God gives no authority without accountability (18:1, 7).
• Aaron received helpers he had not asked for and an office he had not applied for, and God called both of them gifts (18:6-7).
• Those who serve God full time are fed by the people they serve, and that arrangement is God’s rather than the minister’s (18:8-13, 21).
• The Levites who lived on the tithe were still required to tithe, so receiving from God’s people never excused anyone from giving (18:26).
• God gave Aaron Himself in place of land, which was the better half of an exchange that looked like a loss (18:20).

To see how the rest of the book fits together around this chapter, read our full study: The Book of Numbers Summary by Chapter.

Bible Study Questions

1. Read Numbers 17:12-13 and then Numbers 18:1. What exactly were the Israelites afraid of, and how does God’s first sentence to Aaron address it?
2. Why does God call both the Levites and the priesthood a “gift” in verses 6 and 7, when both of them involve hard and dangerous work?
3. What is the difference between what Aaron receives in verse 20 and what the Levites receive in verse 21?
4. Verse 19 seals the priests’ portion with “a covenant of salt”. What does that phrase add that “for ever” does not already say?
5. What would it have cost a Levite family to be told, in a nation about to divide up a country, that they would never own any of it?
6. Verse 26 requires the Levites to tithe from the tithe they were given. Where does that principle press on what you have received?
7. Verse 7 sentences an outsider to death for approaching the sanctuary, and Ephesians 2:13 says believers have been brought close by the blood of Christ. What changed between those two sentences?

Frequently Asked Questions

Numbers 18, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 And the LORD said unto Aaron, Thou and thy sons and thy father’s house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary: and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood.

2 And thy brethren also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of thy father, bring thou with thee, that they may be joined unto thee, and minister unto thee: but thou and thy sons with thee shall minister before the tabernacle of witness.

3 And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary and the altar, that neither they, nor ye also, die.

4 And they shall be joined unto thee, and keep the charge of the tabernacle of the congregation, for all the service of the tabernacle: and a stranger shall not come nigh unto you.

5 And ye shall keep the charge of the sanctuary, and the charge of the altar: that there be no wrath any more upon the children of Israel.

6 And I, behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel: to you they are given as a gift for the LORD, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

7 Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest’s office for every thing of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.

8 And the LORD spake unto Aaron, Behold, I also have given thee the charge of mine heave offerings of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel; unto thee have I given them by reason of the anointing, and to thy sons, by an ordinance for ever.

9 This shall be thine of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every oblation of theirs, every meat offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs, which they shall render unto me, shall be most holy for thee and for thy sons.

10 In the most holy place shalt thou eat it; every male shall eat it: it shall be holy unto thee.

11 And this is thine; the heave offering of their gift, with all the wave offerings of the children of Israel: I have given them unto thee, and to thy sons and to thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: every one that is clean in thy house shall eat of it.

12 All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the firstfruits of them which they shall offer unto the LORD, them have I given thee.

13 And whatsoever is first ripe in the land, which they shall bring unto the LORD, shall be thine; every one that is clean in thine house shall eat of it.

14 Every thing devoted in Israel shall be thine.

15 Every thing that openeth the matrix in all flesh, which they bring unto the LORD, whether it be of men or beasts, shall be thine: nevertheless the firstborn of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem.

16 And those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thine estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.

17 But the firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem; they are holy: thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savour unto the LORD.

18 And the flesh of them shall be thine, as the wave breast and as the right shoulder are thine.

19 All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the LORD, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD unto thee and to thy seed with thee.

20 And the LORD spake unto Aaron, Thou shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt thou have any part among them: I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel.

21 And, behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

22 Neither must the children of Israel henceforth come nigh the tabernacle of the congregation, lest they bear sin, and die.

23 But the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, and they shall bear their iniquity: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations, that among the children of Israel they have no inheritance.

24 But the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer as an heave offering unto the LORD, I have given to the Levites to inherit: therefore I have said unto them, Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.

25 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

26 Thus speak unto the Levites, and say unto them, When ye take of the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them for your inheritance, then ye shall offer up an heave offering of it for the LORD, even a tenth part of the tithe.

27 And this your heave offering shall be reckoned unto you, as though it were the corn of the threshingfloor, and as the fulness of the winepress.

28 Thus ye also shall offer an heave offering unto the LORD of all your tithes, which ye receive of the children of Israel; and ye shall give thereof the LORD’S heave offering to Aaron the priest.

29 Out of all your gifts ye shall offer every heave offering of the LORD, of all the best thereof, even the hallowed part thereof out of it.

30 Therefore thou shalt say unto them, When ye have heaved the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshingfloor, and as the increase of the winepress.

31 And ye shall eat it in every place, ye and your households: for it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation.

32 And ye shall bear no sin by reason of it, when ye have heaved from it the best of it: neither shall ye pollute the holy things of the children of Israel, lest ye die.