2 Chronicles 31

These poles may have been trees or poles meant to represent trees, as symbols of a Canaanite fertility goddess known as Asherah, goddess of motherhood. She was the love interest of Baal. He was chief god of the people who lived in Canaan, now known as Israel and Palestinian Territories. People worshiped this goddess with sacred poles described as repulsive and obscene. But we’re left to guess how the people used those poles in worship.

These included annual events such as Passover, harvest festivals, autumn festival of trumpets, Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Festival of Shelters. See the list in Numbers 28-29. This was a substantial contribution Hezekiah provided. Some scholars say the writer seems to be trying to portray Hezekiah as a king much like Solomon, who built the Temple and donated a massive number of livestock for sacrifices: 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep (2 Chronicles 7:4-6).

“The LORD also told the Levites: … ‘After your tithe, the rest of the food you received from Israelites is yours to eat and share with your households. It’s your salary for your service at the Meeting Tent’” (Numbers 18:30-31).

Moses reportedly said God picked the tribe of Levi—families descended from Jacob’s son, Levi—to serve as Israel’s ministers of priests and their Levite associates and musicians (Numbers 18:2-6). When Joshua divided the land among the 12 tribes, the only land for Levi’s people were cities scattered throughout the other tribes (Joshua 13, 21). This made the priests more accessible to people.

More literally, the “first fruits.” The anonymous writer of Numbers, a book traditionally attributed to Moses, said God reserved the best of Israel’s livestock and harvested crops for the tribe of Levi. The brother of Moses, Aaron, quoted God, “Israelites bring me all the best of their harvest: the purest olive oil, new wine, the first of their grain, along with fresh fruit. I’m giving this back to you priests. When the people bring these offerings to me, I’ll give them to you for your families to eat” (Numbers 18:12-13). Moses and Aaron were both members of that tribe.

The original Hebrew text says the offerings ran from the third month on the Jewish lunar calendar to the seventh. That’s from May-June to September-October on the calendar today.

High Priest Aaron said God told him, “When someone brings me a gratitude offering, you get the breast meat and the right thigh. Sacred gifts the Israelites bring to me will become my gifts to you and your families, including your sons and daughters. I’m making this permanent. This is your share from now on, throughout the generations” (Numbers 18:18-19).

Joshua assigned the tribe of Levi 13 cities scattered east and west of the Jordan River (Joshua 21).

Is the age three, as it literally says. Or is it 30, as some scholars guess? Three doesn’t seem to fit the context, which is about priests and Levites working for the LORD. Kids are too young to work. Boys under age three, presumably, were still nursing. (Sorry about the girls. It was a patriarchal era.) If the intended age was 30, then the writer might have been talking about those men who are finally old enough to work at the Temple (1 Chronicles 23:3). But 30 wasn’t a solid number. Men also went into the service at the Temple at ages 20 (31:17) and 25 (Numbers 8:24). Thirty might produce a Bible verse that makes more sense, but the actual number is three.

The Hebrew words is qada, and it can mean: holy, sacred, reserved for God’s use. “Holiness” in Old Testament times didn’t mean “perfectly behaved.” It usually seemed to mean “devoted to God,” and “sacred” instead of secular. A holy person might mean someone so devoted to God that it was an all-day, everyday way of life. They kept the laws and remained as ritually clean as possible. So they ate only kosher food, and they bathed and washed their clothes when they came into contact with something ritually unclean, like a corpse or honey hanging from the bones of a dead lion (Judges 14:9, Samson’s snack).