Now these were the Levites numbered by their clans: The Gershonite clan from Gershon, the Kohathite clan from Kohath, and the Merarite clan from Merari.
Moses names his mother against Scripture's usual custom, yet not from family pride, he shows himself deprived of the priesthood. More likely he confesses a family dishonor: his father Amram married his aunt, which natural modesty forbade, yet prevailed among eastern nations until God set His people apart by forbidding such unions.
AI summary
Levi was God's tribe, exempt from the land-lot and the war-muster, so the Levites escaped the curse that barred all others numbered at Sinai from entering Canaan. Yet their increase was paltry, only 1000 more, making them still one of the smallest tribes. Their losses to divine judgment were a lesson to all Israel.
AI summary
Commenting on Numbers 26:57-62
The enumeration breaks off after naming five Levitical families to trace Moses and Aaron's descent, the heads not of this tribe alone but of the whole nation. The text leaves the subject of Jochebed's birth indefinite by design: she was not Levi's daughter strictly, but a descendant of Levi living some 300 years later, as her husband was a later Amram, not the original.
AI summary
Commenting on Numbers 26:57-59