page_title: Bemidbar (parsha)
section_title: Numbers chapter 3
hierarchical_section_title: Bemidbar (parsha) / In classical rabbinic interpretation / Numbers chapter 3
caption_attribution_description: English: Priests in the Holy Temple, replacing the show bread (lechem ha-panim) for the week
context_page_description: Bemidbar, BeMidbar, B'midbar, Bamidbar, or Bamidbor, is the 34th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the first in the Book of Numbers. The parashah tells of the census and the priests' duties.
  It constitutes Numbers 1:1–4:20. The parashah is made up of 7,393 Hebrew letters, 1,823 Hebrew words, 159 verses, and 263 lines in a Torah Scroll. Jews generally read it in May or early June.
context_section_description: Rabbi Samuel bar Naḥmani taught in Rabbi Jonathan's name that Numbers 3:1–2 referred to Aaron's sons as descendants of Aaron and Moses because Moses taught them, showing that Scripture ascribes merit to one who teaches Torah to a neighbor's child as if the teacher had begotten the child.
  A Midrash noted that Scripture records the death of Nadab and Abihu in numerous places, including Numbers 3:4. This teaches that God grieved for Nadab and Abihu, for they were dear to God. And thus Leviticus 10:3 quotes God to say: "Through them who are near to Me I will be sanctified."
  The Mishnah taught that before the Tabernacle was constructed, the firstborns performed services. After the Tabernacle was constructed, the priests performed the services.
  The Mishnah taught that as the Levites exempted the Israelites' firstborn in the wilderness, it followed a fortiori that they should exempt their own animals from the requirement to offer the firstborn. The Gemara questioned whether Numbers 3:45 taught that the Levites' animals exempted the Israelites' animals. Abaye read the Mishnah to mean that if the Levites' animals released the Israelites' animals, it followed a fortiori that the Levites' animals should release their own firstborn. But Rava countered that the Mishnah meant that the Levites themselves exempted the Israelites' firstborn.
  Tractate Bekhorot in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Babylonian Talmud interpreted the laws of the firstborn in Numbers 3:11–13.
  The Rabbis taught that Numbers 3:15 directed counting the Levites "from a month old and upward" and not earlier because they considered a newborn infant not to be definitely viable, but a child who had lived a month was definitely known to be viable.
  A Midrash taught that the Levites camped on the four sides of the Tabernacle in accordance with their duties. The Midrash explained that from the west came snow, hail, cold, and heat, and thus God placed the Gershonites on the west, as Numbers 3:25 indicates that their service was "the tent, the covering thereof, and the screen for the door of the tent of meeting," which could shield against snow, hail, cold, and heat. The Midrash explained that from the south came the dew and rain that bring blessing to the world, and there God placed the Kohathites, who bore the ark that carried the Torah, for as Leviticus 26:3–4 and 15–19 teach, the rains depend on the observance of the Torah. The Midrash explained that from the north came darkness, and thus the Merarites camped there, as Numbers 4:31 indicates that their service was the carrying of wood ("the boards of the tabernacle, and the bars thereof, and the pillars thereof, and the sockets thereof") which Jeremiah 10:8 teaches counteract idolatrous influences when it says, "The chastisement of vanities is wood." And the Midrash explained that from the east comes light, and thus Moses, Aaron, and his sons camped there, because they were scholars and men of pious deeds, bringing atonement by their prayer and sacrifices.
  A Midrash taught that Korah took issue with Moses in Numbers 16:1 because Moses had (as Numbers 3:30 reports) appointed Elizaphan the son of Uzziel as prince of the Kohathites, and Korah was (as Exodus 6:21 reports) son of Uzziel's older brother Izhar, and thus had a claim to leadership prior to Elizaphan.
  Abaye reported a tradition that a singing Levite who did his colleague's work at the gate incurred the death penalty, as Numbers 3:38 says, “And those who were to pitch before the Tabernacle eastward before the Tent of Meeting toward the sun-rising, were Moses and Aaron, . . . and the stranger who drew near was to be put to death.” Abaye argued that the “stranger” in Numbers 3:38 could not mean a non-priest, for Numbers 3:10 had mentioned that rule already (and Abaye believed that the Torah would not state anything twice). Rather, reasoned Abaye, Numbers 3:38 must mean a “stranger” to a particular job. It was told, however, that Rabbi Joshua ben Hananyia once tried to assist Rabbi Joḥanan ben Gudgeda (both of whom were Levites) in the fastening of the Temple doors, even tho
caption: Priests replacing the showbread, the table for which was the responsibility of the Kohathites (19th-century illustration)
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