"Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'I hereby accept the Levites from among the Israelites as substitutes for all the firstborn that open the womb among the Israelites. The Levites shall be mine'" (vs. 12).
One of the benefits of reading the Bible chronologically is following the trajectory of interdependent events and themes. There are self-referential threads running throughout scripture.
So it is with the idea of "substitution." It is a deeply embedded scriptural principle. From the time when God accepted a ram for Abraham's sacrifice instead of Isaac through the atoning death of Jesus Christ upon the cross in our place, we see that God provides substitute offerings.
So it is here with the tribe of Levi. Previously, in the Exodus account, God proclaimed that every firstborn child among the Israelites was His possession (Exodus 13:2). This was to represent the Lord's share of the firstborn corresponding to the death of the Egyptians' firstborn killed in the tenth and final plague.
But here, in Numbers 3, God substitutes Moses' and Aaron's tribe of Levi for the firstborn. A switch is made, so that there is now a special tribe reserved for the Lord. The substitute is legally binding and equivalent. In fact, to rectify the difference in numbers between the total of the tribe of Levi (22,0000 and the census of the firstborn (22,273), a tax is assessed on the people, with the total given to Aaron and his sons (vs. 40-51). The substitute is mathematically precise.
What kind of substitutes do you come across in your daily life?
No comments:
Post a Comment