Numbers 18:8, commentary and pictures

The verse belongs to the account of how God assigned the priesthood to Aaron's tribe, entrusting Aaron and his sons with the sacred offerings of Israel as a lasting provision connected with Aaron's anointing. It stands within Numbers 16-19 as part of an awful and sad record of sin, in which God's object-lessons teach the true way.

God gave Aaron and his sons the charge of the heave offerings of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel by reason of the anointing, establishing their priestly charge by a lasting ordinance, by an ordinance for ever. Priestly service with its duties and authority was an office given by God, not a position people could claim through ambition or by rejecting the established order. Only descendants of Aaron were to hold the office of priest, while the rest of the tribe were to do the service of the sanctuary under the priests' direction. The Levites were to serve and minister to the priests, whereas the priests were to minister for the people before the Lord, and the Levites were not allowed to officiate as priests at the altar of burnt offering nor to do any of the priest's work within the veil.

The provision included the parts of sacrifices not consumed by fire, along with the best of the oil, wine, and wheat and the firstfruits, which could be eaten by the priest's whole family when its members were eligible. When the Levitical priesthood was instituted God set apart the tribe of Levi from the other tribes for the service of the tabernacle and made provision for the support of His ministers. The Levites were to have no land inheritance among Israel, but God gave them the tithes of the children of Israel to inherit, with each member of the other tribes paying a tenth into the treasury for this purpose, for the tithe is the Lord's and holy unto Him. The tithe is a heave offering belonging to the service of the altar, sacred because God reserved it for Himself, to be handled only by the priests, and so holy that others touching it were to be put to death.

The charge is grouped with the tithe, which was assigned to the Aaronic priesthood for sanctuary service rather than left to each person's choice of recipient or use. It was to be handled by appointed, faithful priests and Levites, and disobedience to its prescribed disposition carried the penalty of death. The word forever describes the duration appropriate to the ordinance and its circumstances, not necessarily endless time, since ceremonial ordinances could last for a limited period and were abolished at Christ's death. The heave offerings and hallowed things given to Aaron and his sons are called most holy, but that superlative applies among offerings and sacrifices and does not compare them with the seventh-day Sabbath. The Sabbath is called holy because God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it and commanded it to be kept holy, and since God has only one Sabbath it is not spoken of in degrees of comparison, so lack of the word most does not make the Sabbath less holy, and the Lord regards the Sabbath as much more holy than the various things called most holy. The passage's reference to the covenant of salt means that covenant was properly ratified by the use of salt according to God's direction.