Numbers 8:14-19

Let me explain what happened here. Everyone knows that the Levitical priesthood was established to offer sacrifices, but how many of you know that they were living sacrifices, separated to the work of God, and as such they became forerunners of you and me. The wave offering given in this ceremony was of themselves. Symbolically and figuratively, they were sacrificing themselves, and when hands were laid on the sacrificed animals, the animals then represented them.

In other words, the Levites, who were offering themselves here to the direction of Aaron, laid their hands on the animals that were actually sacrificed, and when they laid their hands on the animals, those animals figuratively became them, and then those animals were actually sacrificed, but the priest remained alive. The emphasis in the Old Testament sacrifices was not on the death of the animal, but the giving of a life—a life lived. Now where do you think Paul got the expression telling us to be living sacrifices? That is where he got it. Right there.

Numbers 8:15-19

The Levites were separated out of Israel by means of being used as a living sacrifice. They were not actually sacrificed, but symbolically they were, and they were to give their lives, their body, in service to God. They were to replace the firstborn of all the tribes in a family responsibility that the firstborn formerly held. Verse 19 then becomes important. "And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron." Aaron was the high priest, and the Levites' full time job then was to assist Aaron in the operation of the Tabernacle. Now this foreshadows something far more important that occurs much later.

Numbers 8:14-22

I think you are seeing that God was pretty insistent about these people being attached to the high priest and to Him. This was no minor responsibility.