Kommentar zu Bamidbar 4:37

על פי ה' ביד משה, “at the command of G–d, through Moses.” The counting of the sons of Kehot and the sons of Merari are described as having been done by Moses, whereas when it came to the counting of the sons of Gershon, the Torah only wrote: “at the command of the Lord,” without adding the words: “through Moses.” What is the reason for this? During the previous paragraph in verse 18, the Torah had written: וידבר ה' אל משה ואל אהרן, “the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, whereas in this paragraph G–d had only spoken to Moses; when the sons of Merari were counted, (verse 29) no mention was made of this having been at the command of G–d; it was necessary therefore to inform us that that count had also been commanded by the Lord. In order to make up for the omission of mentioning that the sons of Merari had also been counted at the command of the Lord, the Torah had to add that also the last section of Levites to be counted the sons of Gershon, had been counted at the express command by G–d to Moses.