“Every male descendant of Aharon may eat from it; it is his share of the offerings for Adonai made by fire forever through all your generations. Whatever touches those offerings will become holy.”-Leviticus 6:11
Verse 11 which tells us that only the males of Aaron’s descendants can eat of the sacrificial portion has important implications.
What we need to understand is while all of Aaron descendants are Levites, the reverse is NOT true.
All Levites are NOT Aaron’s descendants.
It’s important to get this point firmly embedded in our craniums because one of the non-negotiable qualifications to being a priest is that one ABSOLUTELY HAS TO BE A BLOOD DESCENDANT OF AARON.
The tribe of Levi consisted of many families of which Aaron’s family was just one.
So never think that the terms Levite and Priest are synonymous.
Although the Levites are commonly called the Priestly Tribe, it is ONLY the descendants of Aaron who have that God-ordained right.
The other non-Aaron Levite families and their descendants were assigned many other duties that revolved around the Tabernacle, but the one thing they were not were “priests”.
Hence, they were NOT permitted to perform the various priestly rituals we are currently studying.
I’m done.
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