Komentaryo sa Mga Bilang 8:24: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi, Rashbam & Tur HaArokh

“From twenty-five years of age up” [8:24]. Bahya asks a question here. In the portion of Naso the verse says that the Levites should be counted from the age of thirty years. The explanation is that at the age of twenty-five the Levites were accepted so that they should learn the service in the Tabernacle. At thirty years he began to do the service in the Tabernacle. Our sages learn from here that a student who does not learn Torah from his teacher in five years. That is to say, he has not improved in five years; it is not a good sign for that student.¹⁷Bahya, Numbers, 8:24.

זאת אשר ללוים THIS IS THAT WHICH BELONGETH TO THE LEVITES [FROM TWENTY FIVE YEARS etc.] — This suggests: years (the question of age) can disqualify them for the service (i.e. if they are younger than 25 and older than 50 years), but bodily blemishes cannot disqualify them, [as in the case of priests] (Sifrei Bamidbar 62; Chullin 24a).

זאת אשר ללוים, this is a new commandment which had not been mentioned elsewhere. Both in Bamidbar and in Nasso G’d had instructed to appoint the Levites to their respective tasks of carrying, etc. from the age of thirty. The number 25 had not been mentioned at all. Here we are told that even though Levites below the age of 30 were not considered as mature enough physically for “active duty,” they were enlisted for “passive duty,” i.e. guard duty which did not require physical exertion, already from the age of twenty-five. This will be spelled out a little later.

מבן חמש ועשרים FROM TWENTY AND FIVE [YEARS] AND UPWARD [THEY SHALL GO IN TO WAIT UPON THE SERVICE] — But in another passage, it states, (Numbers 4:3) “from thirty years old [and upwards … all that enter into the host to do the work in the tabernacle]”! How are these apparently contradictory passages to be reconciled? In the following way: From twenty five years on he (the Levite) comes to learn the laws regulating the service, and he studies for five years, and at the age of thirty he may actually do the service. — From here we may derive the principle that a pupil who does not see an auspicious omen (i. e. success) in his study during five years will never see it. (Sifrei Bamidbar 62; Chullin 24a.)