Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Berean's
Corner, the podcast where we go
through books of the Biblechapter by chapter and verse by
verse, wherever you are in theworld.
Thank you for joining.
Grab a glass of water, a cup ofcoffee or tea and let's to
Numbers, chapter 8.
The title of today's lesson isthe Seven Lamps.
(00:39):
We will also talk about thecleansing of the Levites and we
also talk about retirement inthis chapter.
But, as always, we will bringthe reader out.
First we will read the chapterand then we will get into the
lesson.
Numbers chapter eight, andlet's read.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Numbers eight.
The Lord said to Moses speak toAaron and say to him when you
set up the seven laps, they areto light the area in front of
the lampstand.
Aaron did so.
He set up the lamps so thatthey faced forward on the
lampstand, just as the Lordcommanded Moses.
This is how the lampstand wasmade.
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It was made of hammered goldfrom its base to its blossoms.
The lampstand was made exactlylike the pattern the Lord had
shown Moses.
The Lord said to Moses Take theLevites from among the other
Israelites and make themceremonially clean, to purify
them.
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Do this.
Sprinkle the water of cleansingon them.
Then have them shave theirwhole bodies and wash their
clothes and so purify themselves.
Have them take a young bullwith its grain offering of fine
flour mixed with oil.
Then you are to take a secondyoung bull for a sin offering.
Bring the Levites to the frontof the tent of meeting and
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assemble the whole Israelitecommunity.
You are to bring the Levitesbefore the Lord and the
Israelites are to lay theirhands on them.
Aaron is to present the Levitesbefore the Lord as a wave
offering from the Israelites sothat they may be ready to do the
work of the Lord After theLevites lay their hands on the
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heads of the bulls, use the onefor a sin offering to the Lord
and the other for a burntoffering to the Lord and the
other for a burnt offering tomake atonement for the Levites.
Have the Levites stand in frontof Aaron and his sons and then
present them as a wave offeringto the Lord.
In this way, you are to set theLevites apart from the other
Israelites and the Levites willbe mine.
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After you have purified theLevites and presented them as a
wave offering, they are to cometo do their work at the tent of
meeting.
They are the Israelites who areto be given wholly to me.
I have taken them as my own inplace of the firstborn, the
first male offspring from everyIsraelite woman.
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Every firstborn male in Israel,whether man or animal, is mine.
When I struck down all thefirstborn in Egypt, I set them
apart for myself and I havetaken the Levites in place of
all the firstborn sons in Israel, of all the Israelites.
I have given the Levites asgifts to Aaron and his sons to
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do the work at the tent ofmeeting on behalf of the
Israelites.
I have given the Levites asgifts to Aaron and his sons to
do the work at the tent ofmeeting on behalf of the
Israelites and to make atonementfor them so that no plague will
strike the Israelites when theygo near the sanctuary.
Moses, aaron and the wholeIsraelite community did with the
Levites just as the Lordcommanded Moses.
The Levites purified themselvesand washed their clothes.
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Then Aaron presented them as awave offering before the Lord
and made atonement for them topurify them.
After that, the Levites came todo their work at the tent of
meeting under the supervision ofAaron and his sons.
They did with the Levites justas the Lord commanded Moses.
The Lord said to Moses thisapplies to the Levites Men
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twenty-five years old or moreshall come to take part in the
work at the tent of meeting, butat the age of fifty they must
retire from their regularservice and work no longer.
They may assist their brothersin performing their duties at
the tent of meeting, but theythemselves must not do the work.
This, then, is how you are toassign the responsibilities of
(04:35):
the Levites.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
All right Now.
The last time we were togetherwe looked at the offerings of
the leaders in Numbers, chapter7.
Today we are looking at thelampstands.
The beautiful thing aboutchapter 7 is we got to see all
of those, all the sacrifices thepeople made, that the leaders
made, everything that theybrought in for the tabernacle,
and today we are going to focuson the lampstands.
(05:02):
Now we will break this chapterdown into five parts.
Part one we see who the lord isspeaking.
To notice verse one then thelord spoke to moses.
I like to always point out whothe lord is speaking to so we
can know the people that werehere at this time and who
exactly the lord was speaking to.
(05:23):
Verse one says then the lordspoke to moses.
Moses was the lord's chosenvessel at that time.
Let's move on to part two.
The lampstand.
Instruction and the locationand function are given by god.
We notice this in verses two tothree.
Speak to aaron and say to himwhen you bought the lamps, the
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seven lamps will give light inthe front of the lampstand.
Aaron therefore did so.
He bought it its lamps at thefront of the lampstand, just as
the Lord had commanded.
Moses, as we always talk aboutand we always speak on.
Things had to be done exactlyas the Lord said, exactly as he
saw fit for them to happen.
There is no, just go out thereand do your own thing, but you
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had to do it.
Thus saith the Lord.
Now we also see thisinstruction was given back in
Exodus.
So keep your finger right herein numbers 8 and then go left in
your Bible to Exodus 25, and wecan see where this instruction
was given before Exodus 25.
Notice verse 37.
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Then you shall make its lampsseven in number, and they shall
mount its lamps so as to shedlight on the space in front of
it.
Turn to chapter 27, sinceyou're in exodus, chapter 27,
and uh, verse 21.
In the tent of meeting outsidethe veil, which is before the
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testimony, and his sons shallkeep it in order from evening to
morning before the lord.
It shall be a perpetual statutethroughout their generations,
for the sons of israel.
So that's just some examples ofthis instruction being given
before back to numbers eight.
Part three the design of thelampstand.
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Notice verse 4.
Now this was the workmanship ofthe lampstand hammered work of
gold, from his base to hisflowers.
It was hammered work accordingto the pattern which the lord
had showed moses, so he made thelampstand once again.
This thing had to be doneexactly as the lord saw fit.
(07:32):
Part four cleansing of thelevite, of the levites.
We see this in verses, excuseme, we see this in verses 5
through 22 cleansing the levites.
Again the lord spoke to mosessaying take the levites from
among the sons of israel andcleanse them.
Remember 12 tribes, and this isone of the tribes, and thus you
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shall do to them for theircleansing.
Sprinkle purifying water onthem and let them use a razor
over their whole body and washtheir clothes, and they shall be
clean.
So they had to shave theirwhole body and moses was to
sprinkle water over them.
Verse Then let them take a bullwith its grain offering, fine
flour mixed with oil, and asecond bull you shall take for a
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sin offering.
So you shall present theLevites before the tent of
meeting.
You shall also assemble thewhole congregation of the sons
of Israel and present theLevites before the Lord, and the
sons of Israel shall lay theirhands on the Levites.
Aaron, then, shall present theLevites before the Lord as a
wave offering from the sons ofIsrael that they may qualify to
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perform the service of the Lord.
Now the Levites shall lay theirhands on the heads of the bulls
, then offer the one for a sinoffering and the other for a
burnt offering to the Lord.
To make atonement for theLevites, I'm going gonna freeze
right there for a minute.
Sacrifices had to be made.
This is just how things had tobe made clean back in that time.
Don't you think, the good Lord,that we are in a time of grace
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right now?
Back to verse 13.
You shall have the Levitesstand before Aaron and before
his son's soul as to presentthem as a way offering to the
Lord.
Thus you shall separate thelevites from among the sons of
israel and the levites shall bemine.
Then, after the levites may goin to serve the tent of meeting,
but you shall cleanse them andpresent them as a way of
(09:24):
offering, for they are whollygiven to me from among the sons
of israel.
I have taken them for myselfinstead of every first issue of
the womb, the firstborn of allthe sons of Israel.
So the Lord took the Levites,he made them his verse 17, for
every firstborn among the sonsof Israel is mine, among the men
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and among the animals.
On the day that I struck downall the firstborn in the land of
Egypt.
I sanctified them for myself.
So the Lord is down all thefirstborn in the land of egypt.
I sanctified them for myself.
So the lord is saying that thefirst is his.
Not only the first of men andwomen, but the also the first of
animals verse 18.
But I have taken the levitesinstead of every firstborn among
the sons of israel and, excuseme and I have given the levites
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as a a gift to Aaron and to hissons from among the sons of
Israel, to perform the serviceof the sons of Israel at the
tent of meeting that's what hegave them the Levites for and to
make atonement on behalf of thesons of Israel that there may
be no plague among the sons ofIsrael by their coming near to
the sanctuary, the sanctuary.
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Thus did Moses and Aaron andall the congregation of the sons
of Israel to the Levites.
According to all that the Lordhad commanded Moses concerning
the Levites, so the sons ofIsrael did to them.
The Levites too purifiedthemselves from sin and washed
their clothes, and Aaronpresented them as a wave
offering before the Lord.
Aaron also made atonement forthem to cleanse them.
Then, after that the Leviteswent in to perform their service
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in the tent of meeting beforeAaron and before his sons, just
as the Lord had commanded Mosesconcerning the Levites, so they
did to them.
Once again, we see that all ofthis was done, just as the Lord
commanded.
The Levites were to be servants, if you will, to Aaron and his
sons and they were to work inthe tabernacle.
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That brings us to part five,retirement of the Levites.
We see this in verses 23through 26.
Now the Lord spoke to Mosessaying this is what applies to
the Levites from 25 years oldand upward, they shall enter to
perform service in the work ofthe tent of meeting, but at the
age of 50 years they shallretire from service in the work
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and not work anymore.
So this was a 25 year, a 25year job, if you will, 25 years
of service.
Now, most of us, we work on ajob anywhere from 30, 35 to 40
years and then we retire.
But the Levites were called tocome into service when they were
25 and they were to retire at50 years old.
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Verse 26 says they may, however, assist their brothers in the
tent of meeting to keep anobligation, but they themselves
shall do no work.
Thus you shall deal with theLevites concerning their
obligation.
So the beautiful thing about itis is that the Levites didn't
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have to necessarily, when theyturned 50 years old, be gone
completely.
The Lord said they can assist.
So whatever they needed toassist with they could do, but
he said they cannot do any work.
So in other words, this wouldpass on to the other Levites
excuse me who were between 25and 50.
And they would do all of thework that we have covered in the
scripture so far and the thingsthat are coming up.
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But the retired Levites can onlyassist.
So I'll give you an example.
Maybe that means that when theywere in service, they were the
ones who stood guard for theirshift and you know, so the lamps
did not go out.
Know, for example, they had tokeep oil in there and the lamps
had to burn continuously.
But now that they're retiredthey don't have to wash the
lamps continuously.
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Maybe they will do somethingfor an example.
Maybe they will bring the oilso the levite who was there
watching it doesn't have toleave his post and a retired
levite can maybe bring himexcuse me, or you to put in it,
or maybe he could bring himsomething to to eat or maybe
something to drink to assist himso he doesn't have to leave his
post.
You know they basically had toassist, which would be a nice
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thing to do in retirement.
You know, some of us have jobsthat we're in and when we retire
it would be nice to be able towork part-time in that job and
assist, assist the youngerpeople coming up, but not
necessarily have theresponsibility that we had when
we once worked.
All right, that brings us to theend of Numbers, chapter eight.
I hope that you got somethingout of the lesson.
I hope that you enjoyed thislesson.
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(15:24):
Yeah, yeah, thank you.
(17:05):
Thank you ¶¶, thank you.