Matthew Henry on Numbers 4:1-20
We have here a second muster of the tribe of Levi. As that tribe was taken out of all Israel to be God's peculiar, so the middle-aged men of that tribe were taken from among the rest to be actually employed in the service of the tabernacle. Now observe,
I. Who were to be taken into this number. All the males from thirty years old to fifty. Of the other tribes, those that were numbered to go forth to war were from twenty years old and upward, but of the Levites only from thirty to fifty; for the service of God requires the best of our strength, and the prime of our time, which cannot be better spent than to the honour of him who is the first and best. And a man may make a good soldier much so…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Numbers 4:10
a bar--or bier, formed of two poles fastened by two cross pieces and borne by two men, after the fashion of a sedan chair.
John Gill on Numbers 4:10
And they shall put it, and all the vessels thereof, within a covering of badgers' skins,.... Which here also was the outermost covering; the ark and the shewbread table had three coverings, but the candlestick only two, they being more sacred than that, especially the ark:
and shall put it upon a bar; the word "mot" perhaps signifies a kind of mat or mattress, on which the candlestick and its vessels, bundled together in the covering of the badgers' skins, were laid and carried between men on staves; and so the Septuagint render the word "staves"; as does the Targum of Onkelos.
John Calvin on Numbers 4:4–end
Numbers 4:4-20, 24-28, 31-33
4. This shall be the service of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of the congregation, about the most holy things:
4. Istud erit opus filiorum Cehath in tabernaculo conventionis Sancti sanctorum.
5. And when the camp setteth forward, Aaron shall come, and his sons, and they shall take down the covering vail, and cover the ark of testimony with it:
5. Veniet autem Aharon et filii ejus quando transferenda erunt castra, et deponent velum tentorii, et operient illo arcata testimonii.
6. And shall put thereon the covering of badgers' skins, and shall spread over it a cloth wholly of blue, and shall put in the staves thereof.
6. Potentque super illam operimen…
