Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

I bet you're happy we're back in some narrative sections. We still have some

bits of law sprinkled throughout the rest of numbers but today marks the place where

we start to round the corner into some of my favorite spots in the book.

God has been dealing with the cleanliness of the people of Israel for the past few days.

We started with the external purity, then he moved to the internal purity, then yesterday felt like a bit of a deviation, but it fits into the

storyline because internal purity and righteousness will result in expressing it externally.

Today in God's conversation with Moses, he gives orders to purify the Levites.

He's already addressed the people in general, and here he addressed the Levites specifically.

As you would imagine, their position of leadership required them to

undergo an even more thorough cleansing process. God reiterates his plan for the

Levites and their position as his firstborn among Israel, who is also his firstborn.

So I guess they're kind of like the firstborn of the firstborn, which is maybe like

winning the Super Bowl and also being named MVP or something.

I don't know.

The people put their hands on them, which is usually what was done to an

animal before it was sacrificed. The people were symbolically offering the Levites up as

something they were giving back to God. This symbol is repeated again but in a different

way when the Levites are given as a Wave offering. Whatever item was waived in a Wave offering

always belonged to God afterward. I think of the Levites every time I see people

doing the wave in a stadium. I don't know if that's what it looked like for them to

be offered as a way of offering, probably not, but that's the only thing I can

...