Scripture Daily

Context No. 1880 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 18:20-24: in context

20The LORD said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel. 21“To the children of Levi, behold, I have given all the tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service which they serve, even the service of the Tent of Meeting. 22Henceforth the children of Israel shall not come near the Tent of Meeting, lest they bear sin, and die. 23But the Levites shall do the service of the Tent of Meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. Among the children of Israel, they shall have no inheritance. 24For the tithe of the children of Israel, which they offer as a wave offering to the LORD, I have given to the Levites for an inheritance. Therefore I have said to them, ‘Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance.’”

God tells Aaron that the priests and Levites will receive no inheritance of land like the other tribes: you shall have no portion among them. Instead, God says, I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel. In place of fields and territory, the Levites are given the tithe for their service, and, more than that, they are given God himself as their inheritance. What the other tribes had in land, the Levites had in the LORD.

The words God speaks to Aaron are among the richest in Scripture: I am your portion and your inheritance. The Levites were denied what every other tribe received, a share of the land, a place of their own, the ordinary security of property and territory. And in its place they were given something the others were not given in the same way: God himself as their portion. Their inheritance was not land but the LORD. This is a striking and searching truth, for it holds out to all of us the possibility of finding our deepest treasure and satisfaction not in what we possess but in God himself. We are prone to locate our security and our sense of worth in our possessions, our property, our accumulated goods, the things we own; and the Levites were shown another and better portion, God himself, who is more than any inheritance of land. To have God as one's portion is to have the one thing that finally satisfies, the treasure that does not fade or fail as possessions do. The psalmist learned to say it: whom have I in heaven but you? and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you; God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. And another psalm: the LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup. To be able to say this, that God himself is our portion, our treasure, our satisfaction, is to have found what possessions can never give and cannot take away. The Levites, denied land, were given the LORD; and in that they had a richer inheritance than all the tribes with their territories. The invitation implicit in God's word to Aaron reaches to us: to find our deepest treasure and satisfaction not in what we own but in God himself, to say with the psalmist, the LORD is my portion, and to discover that he is enough, more than all the inheritances the world prizes.

Do I locate my treasure and security in my possessions, in what I own, or can I learn from the Levites, to whom God said I am your portion, to find my deepest satisfaction in God himself, saying with the psalmist, the LORD is my portion, and discovering that he is enough, more than any inheritance the world prizes?

Sources