Treasury of Scripture
and Aaron, The word weaharon, and Aaron, has a point over each of its letters, probably designed as a mark of spuriousness. The word is wanting in the Samaritan, Syriac, and Coptic, and also in eight of Dr. Kennicott's and in four of De Rossi's MSS. Moses alone, as Houbigant observes, was commanded to number the Levites, for as the money with which the first-born were redeemed was to be paid to Aaron and his sons, it was decent that he, whose advantage it was that the number of the first-born should exceed, should not be authorized to take that number himself. Twenty and two thousand, this total does not agree with the particulars; for the Gershonites were
7500, the Kohathites
8600, and the Merarites
6200, which make a total of
22,300. Several methods of solving this difficulty have been proposed by learned men. Houbigant supposes there is an error in the enumeration of the Kohathites in ver.
Numbers 3:28 In the number of all the males, from a month old and upward, were eight thousand and six hundred, keeping the charge of the sanctuary.
; the numeral shesh, 'six,' being written instead of shalosh, 'three', before 'hundred.' Dr. Kennicott's mode of reconciling the discrepancy, however, is the most simple. He supposes that an error has crept into the number of the Gershonites in ver.
Numbers 3:22 Those that were numbered of them, according to the number of all the males, from a month old and upward...
, where instead of
7500 we should read
7200, as caph final, which stands for
500, might have been easily mistaken for resh,
200. (Dr. Kennicott on the Hebrew Text, vol.
Numbers 3:11 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
, p.212.) Either of these modes will equally reconcile the difference.
Numbers 4:47,48 From thirty years old and upward even to fifty years old, every one that came to do the service of the ministry...
Numbers 26:62 And those that were numbered of them were twenty and three thousand, all males from a month old and upward...
Matthew 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads to life, and few there be that find it.
