Tribe of Levi

The people walked in procession before one of the calves all the way to Dan.

Jeroboam also made shrines on the high places and made priests from the ranks of the people who were not Levites.

Jeroboam made a festival in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the festival in Judah.

He offered sacrifices on the altar.

And God's like, hold on, just to remove confusion.

This isn't for the whole Levites.

This is going to be Aaron.

For the sake of the Levites, so that when my favor comes, I don't want any other Levites going,

oh, yeah, we're the chosen.

No, this is Aaron's household because only those who come from Aaron's house are going to be the priests.

100%.

And so like after we're going to go from 17 to 20 now, right? Numbers chapter 17.

And as a priest, remember, both Jeremiah and Ezekiel were from the tribe of Aaron.

They, well, they're not just Levites, they are Aaronic priesthood holders.

If Ezekiel would have been living there, Now that he's describing his beautiful vision with the wheels and everything, I forgot to talk about that in chapter one.

I love that vision.

And Ezekiel was it was a Zadokite, meaning he was the descendant of Zadok.

And he in in this book, he praises the Zadokite line over the Levites.

And this is apparently this is.

Oh, so it's saying that the Levites are the ones who are the were the responsible responsible for the the idol worship, essentially.

Yeah, that's probably why he got banned from Sirius XM building.

Yeah, possibly.

of the history,

but for a lot of—hundreds of years, I should say, they had been two kingdoms, Israel and Judah.

We find in the scriptures that Israel did that.

They hired sometimes the basest of men and women and put an anointing upon them to be their priests and Levites to serve them, but it was always because of lawlessness and rebellion in their own heart.

We need to recognize the anointing.

We need to be careful that we do not do anything to violate that.

And ultimately, they call it numbers because they're numbering a lot of things.

They're numbering the Levites.

They're numbering the children of Israel.

They're numbering the families of Israel.

And they, of course, since they knew the circumstances in which they were in, they would end up leading the people.

what a blessing that is so it was Issachar who provided those wise men who knew what they were dealing with and how to navigate it verse 30 it says from the children of Zebulun their genealogies by their families by their father's house according to the number of names from 20 years old and above all who were able to go to war those who were numbered of the tribe of Zebulun were 57,400 From the sons of Joseph, the children of Ephraim, their genealogies by their families, by their father's house, according to the number of names from the 20 years old and above, all who were able to go to war, those who were numbered of the tribe of Ephraim, were 40,500.

From the children of Manasseh, another son of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, remember, were sons of Joseph, They were given tribes each in place of Joseph, and they would take the place of Joseph, and they would also take the place of the Levites, because the Levites were not given any land as well.

So it's interesting.

And so the lineage down from Abraham through Isaac and Jacob down mattered to the Jews.

Proving Jewish ancestry was huge, and it became a big issue after the exile of the Babylon when they came back, and especially the priests had to prove that they were part of that family of Levites that enabled them to be priests and to offer sacrifice, etc.

So the genealogies mattered a great deal.

What matters much more in the New Testament is that we are sons and daughters of God through faith in Christ, as it makes it plain in John chapter one, as many as received him, to those who believed in his name, meaning Christ, he gave the right to become children of God.

And then meanwhile, you've got the southern kingdom.

So that was Judah plus its little brother tribe of Benjamin and the smattering of Levites who dwelt within those kingdoms.

Yeah, and potentially the faithful temple worshippers from the other ten tribes who had moved into the space to participate in temple worship because the northern kingdom realized we can't go down to the temple anymore.

So they set up their own version.