Chapter 23
The Levitical Classes.[a] 1 When David was old and his years were complete, he made Solomon, his son, king over Israel. 2 He gathered together all of the leaders of Israel along with the priests and the Levites.
3 The Levites who were thirty years and older were counted, and the total number of them was thirty-eight thousand. 4 David appointed twenty-four thousand of them to supervise the work on the temple of the Lord, and another six thousand of them were to be officials and judges. 5 Four thousand of them were to be gatekeepers, and four thousand were to praise the Lord upon musical instruments about which David said, “I made them to praise the Lord.”
6 David divided the Levites of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari into groups.
7 From the Gershonites there were Ladan and Shimei. 8 The sons of Ladan were Jehiel, the firstborn, Zetham, and Joel. There were three in all. 9 [b]The sons of Shimei were Shelomoth, Haziel, and Haran. There were three of them in all. These were the leaders of the ancestral clans of Ladan. 10 The sons of Shimei were Jahath, Zizah, Jeush, and Beriah. Shimei had four sons in all. 11 Jahath was the leader, and Zizah was the second in charge. Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons, so they were reckoned as a single ancestral clan.
12 The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. There were four of them in all.
13 The sons of Amram were Aaron and Moses. Aaron was set apart to consecrate the most holy things. He and his sons were to burn incense before the Lord forever, and to minister, and to proclaim blessings in his name forever.
14 The sons of Moses, the man of God, were included with the tribe of Levi. 15 The sons of Moses were Gershom and Eliezer.
16 Shubael was the son of Gershom, his first. 17 Rehabiah was the son of Eliezer, his first. Eliezer had no other sons, but Rehabiah had a large number of sons.
18 Shelomith was the son of Izhar, his firstborn.
19 The sons of Hebron were Jeriah, his firstborn, Amariah, his second, Jahaziel, his third, and Jekameam, his fourth.
20 The sons of Uzziel were Micah, his firstborn, and Isshiah, his second.
21 The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi. The sons of Mahli were Eleazar and Kish.
22 Eleazar died without having any sons, he had only had daughters. The sons of Kish, their relatives, married them.
23 The sons of Mushi were Mahli, Eder, and Jeremoth. There were three of them in all.
24 These were the descendants of Levi by their ancestral clans, with the leaders of the ancestral clans as they were registered by name and counted. These are the ones who could perform the work in the temple of the Lord, twenty years old and older.[c]
25 David did this because he said, “The Lord, the God of Israel, had given his people rest so that they might dwell in Jerusalem forever. 26 The Levites therefore no longer have to carry the tabernacle or any of the articles used in its service.”
27 Thus, according to the last instructions of David, the Levites who were twenty years or older were counted. 28 Their responsibility was to assist the sons of Aaron in the service of the temple of the Lord, to be in charge of the courtyard and the inner chambers, to purify all of the holy things, and to fulfill other tasks in the temple of the Lord. 29 They were responsible for the shewbread, for the flour for the cereal offerings, for the unleavened loaves, for the baking and the mixing, and for all the standards of measurement and size. 30 They were to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord. They were to do the same every evening. 31 They were also to do this whenever burnt offerings were made to the Lord on the Sabbath, on the new moons, and on the appointed feasts, as they had been commanded to do regularly before the Lord, 32 that they were to serve the tent of meeting and be responsible for the sanctuary under the direction of the descendants of Aaron, their brethren, for the service of the temple of the Lord.
Footnotes
- 1 Chronicles 23:1 In the setting of a great assembly of all the leaders of Israel, whom David has brought together for the solemn proclamation of his successor, the author gives a description of the organization of worship (chs. 23–26), which is followed, due to an association of ideas, by a description of the civil organization (ch. 27).
- 1 Chronicles 23:9 The text is to some extent corrupt at this point.
- 1 Chronicles 23:24 Twenty years old and older: earlier in this chapter (v. 3) the minimum age of those who entered Levitical service was thirty. The lower age might have been David’s way of attracting more candidates.