Tafsiran Bilangan 3:41: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Or HaChaim & Rav Hirsch

“And take the Levites for Me, the Lord, in place of every firstborn among the Israelite people” [3:41]. The Holy One said: count the firstborn who are one month old of each Israelite. Moses counted the firstborn of the Israelites. The firstborn of the Israelites were twenty-two thousand and two hundred and seventy three. The Levites were only twenty two thousand. The Holy One said that each Levite should be in place of an Israelite firstborn. The remaining firstborn, who were two hundred and seventy three, should each redeem themselves. Each one should give five shekels weight of silver to Aaron. Moses said: what should I do with the Levites and the firstborn? Each Israelite firstborn will not want to give five shekels each one will say; there is a Levite for me. There were two hundred and seventy three fewer Levites than firstborn. Since there were more firstborn, two hundred and seventy three of them had to give five shekels. None of the firstborn wanted to give. Each one said, there is a Levite who reflects me. Moses did not know which firstborn should give five shekels. Therefore, Moses went and threw lots. He wrote twenty two thousand small notes and on each one he wrote one word, Levite. Then he wrote two hundred and seventy three notes and on each one of them was written, five shekels. He mixed together the twenty two thousand and the other two hundred and seventy three. Moses Our Teacher called each firstborn and he took out a note. If the firstborn pulled out a note on which was written Levite, then he was exempt from the five shekels. If he pulled out a note on which was written, five shekels, then he had to give five shekels. All the firstborn pulled out notes in this way.⁴¹Tanhuma, Bamidbar, 21.

Devek Tov asks. Why did Moses have to write so much? On twenty-two thousand notes it was written Levi, and on two hundred and seventy-three it was written five shekels. He only had to write five shekels on the two hundred and seventy-three and leave the twenty-two thousand notes blank. Whoever received a blank note would be exempt, and Moses would have been spared all that writing. The explanation is that the firstborn who took a note on which was written Levite, he could show after a number of years that he had been redeemed by Moses. Another explanation is that he did not leave any note blank, then the firstborn could have made blank notes by themselves. Each firstborn could have brought a blank note and could have said that he had taken this note out of the lottery. Therefore, they wrote on all the notes and Moses wrote in his own hand. Everyone knew Moses’ signature and handwriting. Devek Tov asks another question. Why did Moses not leave the two hundred and seventythree notes blank and just write Levi on the twenty-two thousand notes? The firstborn could not bring a blank note. If he had taken out a blank note, he would have had to give five shekels. Levi was written on twenty-two thousand notes, as we find what Moses did in the portion of Behalotekha.⁴²A reference to Rashi, Numbers, 11:26. Devek Tov gives no answer.⁴³Devek Tov, Numbers, 3:32, note 2.

ואת בהמת הלוים, and the animals of the Levites, etc. The Torah speaks of those animals which the firstborn owned and which had been subject to redemption such as the firstborn donkeys. The Torah (Exodus 13,13) legislated that the firstborn pure animals had to be offered as a sacrifice whereas the firstborn donkey (being an unclean animal unfit for the altar) had to be redeemed. Firstborn animals of the pure species which for some reason did not qualify for the altar became the property of their owners and lost any status of sanctity they had had prior to becoming disqualified. We could have assumed therefore that the law of redeeming them did not apply when the swap between the Levites and the firstborn Israelites was made. Hence the Torah had to go on record that firstborn donkeys owned by the firstborn being exchanged for a Levite had to be redeemed.