Numbers Chapter 8
The seven lamps are placed on the golden candlestick, to shine towards the loaves of proposition: the ordination of the Levites: and to what age they shall serve in the tabernacle.
8:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
8:2. Speak to Aaron, and thou shalt say to him: When thou shalt place the seven lamps, let the candlestick be set up on the south side. Give orders therefore that the lamps look over against the north, towards the table of the loaves of proposition, over against that part shall they give light, towards which the candlestick looketh.
8:3. And Aaron did so, and he put the lamps upon the candlestick, as the Lord had commanded Moses.
8:4. Now this was the work of the candlestick, it was of beaten gold, both the shaft in the middle, and all that came out of both sides of the branches: according to the pattern which the Lord had shewn to Moses, so he made the candlestick.
8:5. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
8:6. Take the Levites out of the midst of the children of Israel, and thou shalt purify them,
8:7. According to this rite: Let them be sprinkled with the water of purification, and let them shave all the hairs of their flesh. And when they shall have washed their garments, and are cleansed,
Let them be sprinkled with the water of purification.... This was the holy water mixed with the ashes of the red cow, Num. 19., appointed for purifying all that were unclean. It was a figure of the blood of Christ, applied to our souls by his holy sacraments.