3. the Levites were numbered from thirty years] Two accounts are here given of the organisation of the Levites. According to the first the Levites were admitted to service at thirty years of age; verse 3; compare Numbers iv. 3, 23, 30, where the period from thirty to fifty is fixed as the period for service. According to the second account (verses 24–27) the Levites were taken from twenty years old and upwards; this was apparently the later custom; compare 2 Chronicles xxxi. 17; Ezra iii. 8. The discrepancy probably arises from an actual variation in practice. The original age of admission for Levites was probably thirty, but owing to the scarcity of their numbers it seems to have been necessary to reduce the limit of age to twenty. But see also the note on pp. 51 f.
by their polls] Literally by their skulls. “Poll” is an almost obsolete word for “head,” retained in the compound word, “poll-tax.”
thirty and eight thousand] Numbers iii. 39 gives 22,000, and Numbers xxvi. 62, 23,000, as the number of male Levites from a month old and upwards in the time of Moses.
⁴Of these, twenty and four thousand were to oversee the work of the house of the Lord; and six thousand were officers and judges:
4. twenty and four thousand] These were divided into courses (verse 6), serving by turn, apparently twenty-four in number, consisting each of a thousand men. See, however, the note on verses 6–23 below.
to oversee the work] It is true that there were some Temple servants subordinate to the Levites—see note on the Nethinim, ix. 2. But the duty of the Levites was to perform the work of the Temple (as is said e.g. in verses 24, 28), not to act as overseers of the work of others. It is therefore to be inferred that the “work” spoken of here and in verse 5 is not the routine duties of the Temple but the work of its construction. Adding the Levites of verse 4 to the officers, doorkeepers, and musicians of verse 5, we have a total of 38,000 overseers: that the number is incredibly large is no objection in Chronicles.
officers and judges] Compare 2 Chronicles xix. 8, 11. According to Deuteronomy xvii. 9 (compare Deuteronomy xvi. 18) the harder causes were reserved for “the priests the Levites,” ordinary causes being decided by judges who were not Levites.
⁵and four thousand were doorkeepers; and four thousand praised the Lord with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith.
5. doorkeepers] The courses and duties of these are given in xxvi. 1–19.
four thousand praised the Lord] Compare xxv. 1–31, which tells of a picked choir consisting of 288 persons, divided into twenty-four courses, whose special duty was psalmody.