Numbers 1:51
When you are to go forward, the Levites shall take down the tabernacle: when you are to camp, they shall set it up. What stranger soever cometh to it, shall be slain.
Open Numbers 1:51 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Cum proficiscendum fuerit, deponent Levitæ tabernaculum ; cum castrametandum, erigent. Quisquis externorum accesserit, occidetur.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐν τῷ ἐξαίρειν τὴν σκηνὴν καθελοῦσιν αὐτὴν οἱ Λευεῖται, καὶ ἐν τῷ παρεμβάλλειν τὴν σκηνὴν ἀναστήσουσιν· καὶ ὁ ἀλλογενὴς ὁ προσπορευόμενος ἀποθανέτω.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וּבִנְסֹ֣עַ הַמִּשְׁכָּ֗ן יוֹרִ֤ידוּ אֹתוֹ֙ הַלְוִיִּ֔ם וּבַחֲנֹת֙ הַמִּשְׁכָּ֔ן יָקִ֥ימוּ אֹת֖וֹ הַלְוִיִּ֑ם וְהַזָּ֥ר הַקָּרֵ֖ב יוּמָֽת
Haydock's commentary
Stranger, even of any other tribe. (St. Augustine, q. 3.) (Worthington)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Ambrose On the Duties of the Clergy, Chapter L. The Levites ought to be utterly free from all earthly desires. What their virtues should be on the Apostle's own showing, and how great their purity must be. Also what their dignity and duty is, for the carrying out of which the chief virtues are necessary. He states that these were not unknown to the philosophers, but that they erred in their order. Some are by their nature in accordance with duty, which yet on account of what accompanies them become contrary to duty. From whence he gathers what gifts the office of the Levites demands. To conclude, he adds an exposition of Moses' words when blessing the tribe of Levi
259. The duty of the Levites is no light one, for the Lord says of them: “Behold I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel, instead of every first-born that openeth the matrix among the children of Israel. These shall be their redemption, and the Levites shall be Mine. For I hallowed unto Me all the first-born in the land of Egypt.” We know that the Levites are not reckoned among the rest, but are preferred before all, for they are chosen out of all, and are sanctified like the firstfruits and the firstlings which belong to the Lord, since the payment of vows and redemption for sin are offered by them. “Thou shalt not receive them,” He says, “among the children of Israel, but thou shalt appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of testimony, and over all the vessels thereof, and over all things that belong to it. …