Numbers 26:52-65

GOD spoke to Moses: “Divide up the inheritance of the land based on population. A larger group gets a larger inheritance; a smaller group gets a smaller inheritance—each gets its inheritance based on the population count. “Make sure that the land is assigned by lot. “Each group’s inheritance is based on population, the number of names listed in its ancestral tribe, divided among the many and the few by lot.” * * * These are the numberings of the Levites by clan: Gershon and the Gershonite clan, Kohath and the Kohathite clan, Merari and the Merarite clan. The Levite clans also included: the Libnite clan, the Hebronite clan, the Mahlite clan, the Mushite clan, the Korahite clan. Kohath was the father of Amram. Amram’s wife was Jochebed, a descendant of Levi, born into the Levite family during the Egyptian years. Jochebed bore Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam to Amram. Aaron was the father of Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar; however, Nadab and Abihu died when they offered unauthorized sacrifice in the presence of GOD. The numbering of Levite males one month and older came to 23,000. They hadn’t been counted in with the rest of the People of Israel because they didn’t inherit any land. These are the ones numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest, the People of Israel counted in the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho. Not one of them had been among those counted by Moses and Aaron the priest in the census of the People of Israel taken in the Wilderness of Sinai. For GOD had said of them, “They’ll die, die in the wilderness—not one of them will be left except for Caleb son of Jephunneh, and Joshua son of Nun.”