Then the LORD said to Moses, “Number every firstborn male of the Israelites a month old or more, and list their names.
Here is the exchange made of the Levites for the first-born. 1. The first-born were numbered from a month old, Num 3:42, Num 3:43. Those certainly were not reckoned who, though first-born, had become heads of families themselves, but those only that were under age; and the learned bishop Patrick is decidedly of opinion that none were numbered but those only that were born since...
Commenting on Numbers 3:40-51
And thou shall take the Levites for me,.... For his service, to minister to his priests, and serve in his tabernacle: I am the Lord; who has a right to all, and can claim who he pleases for himself in a special manner, and therefore could and did take the Levites to himself: instead of the firstborn among the children of Israel; these he had...
Number all the first-born of the males of the children of Israel, &c.--The principle on which the enumeration of the Levites had been made was now to be applied to the other tribes. The number of their male children, from a month old and upward, was to be reckoned, in order that a comparison might be instituted with that of the Levites, for the formal...