Numbers 18:1-19 .. The Priesthood

18:1 And the Lord said unto Aaron, Thou and thy sons and thy father’s house with thee shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary: and thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood.

• Hebrews 5:1-4 “Every high priest is taken from the people and put in charge of things that relate to God for their sake, in order to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. The high priest is able to deal gently with the ignorant and those who are misled since he himself is prone to weakness. Because of his weakness, he must offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the people. No one takes this honor for themselves but takes it only when they are called by God, just like Aaron.”

² And thy brethren also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of thy father, bring thou with thee, that they may be joined unto thee, and minister unto thee: but thou and thy sons with thee shall minister before the tabernacle of witness.

³ And they shall keep thy charge, and the charge of all the tabernacle: only they shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary and the altar, that neither they, nor ye also, die.

⁴ And they shall be joined unto thee, and keep the charge of the tabernacle of the congregation, for all the service of the tabernacle: and a stranger shall not come nigh unto you.

⁵ And ye shall keep the charge of the sanctuary, and the charge of the altar: that there be no wrath any more upon the children of Israel.

• Ezekiel 46:20 And he said to me, “This is the place where the priests shall boil the guilt offering and the sin offering, and where they shall bake the grain offering, in order that they may not bring them out into the outer court to transmit holiness to the people.”
• Romans 11:16 “And if the first piece of dough be holy, the lump is also; and if the root be holy, the branches are too.”

⁶ And I, behold, I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel: to you they are given as a gift for the Lord, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.

⁷ Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest’s office for everything of the altar, and within the vail; and ye shall serve: I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death.

⁸ And the Lord spake unto Aaron, Behold, I also have given thee the charge of mine heave offerings of all the hallowed things of the children of Israel; unto thee have I given them by reason of the anointing, and to thy sons, by an ordinance forever.

⁹ This shall be thine of the most holy things, reserved from the fire: every oblation of their’s, every meat offering of their’s, and every sin offering of their’s, and every trespass offering of their’s which they shall render unto me, shall be most holy for thee and for thy sons.

¹⁰ In the most holy place shalt thou eat it; every male shall eat it: it shall be holy unto thee.

¹¹ And this is thine; the heave offering of their gift, with all the wave offerings of the children of Israel: I have given them unto thee, and to thy sons and to thy daughters with thee, by a statute forever: every one that is clean in thy house shall eat of it.

¹² All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the firstfruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, them have I given thee.

¹³ And whatsoever is first ripe in the land, which they shall bring unto the Lord, shall be thine; every one that is clean in thine house shall eat of it.

¹⁴ Everything devoted in Israel shall be thine.

• Hebrews 7:26 “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”
• Hebrews 8:1 “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.”

THIS EXPLAINS IN FULL – Matthew 5:17 “Think not that I am come to destroy the law (Torah), or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” 

¹⁵ Everything that openeth the matrix in all flesh, which they bring unto the Lord, whether it be of men or beasts, shall be thine: nevertheless the firstborn of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem.

¹⁶ And those that are to be redeemed from a month old shalt thou redeem, according to thine estimation, for the money of five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.

¹⁷ But the firstling of a cow, or the firstling of a sheep, or the firstling of a goat, thou shalt not redeem; they are holy: thou shalt sprinkle their blood upon the altar, and shalt burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savour unto the Lord.

¹⁸ And the flesh of them shall be thine, as the wave breast and as the right shoulder are thine.

¹⁹ All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the Lord, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute forever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the Lord unto thee and to thy seed with thee.

SALT COVENANT:

Blood was integral in covenant making, because covenants were deemed to be a life-fellowship….and because life was in the blood. Understand what that means: the covenant was life-long, and the participants considered themselves to have been joined together, almost as one flesh, under whatever terms that covenant demanded.

Salt, together with bread, was usually eaten as the final event of the covenant ceremony. The participants eating a meal together upon completion of the covenant was a way of signifying that a new family-type relationship had been formed.

Salt became so important to the transaction, that the making of a covenant was sometimes called the Covenant of Salt. In fact, in some cultures the act of simply exchanging salt was at times enough to conclude a covenant over an everyday matter, without blood or all the other ritual. We find this idea of the Covenant of Salt mentioned in both the OT and the NT.