Why would God expect the Israelites to dedicate their firstborn sons to Him? To answer that question, we have to go back to the Exodus, to the time when the people were redeemed from slavery in Egypt. The last plague God sent on the Egyptians was the death of their firstborn – “from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock” (Exodus 12:29).

But God spared the Israelites from this plague, if they would sacrifice a year-old sheep or goat and put its blood on the outside of their houses, on the doorposts. God said that when all the firstborn of the Egyptians were struck down, if He saw that blood He would pass over those houses and keep their firstborn sons from destruction.

So, because all the Israelites’ firstborn sons and all the firstborn of their livestock would have been killed apart from the grace of God, God said the firstborn were to be set apart for Him (Exodus 13:11-13). And then, in Numbers 3:41, God said He would take the tribe of Levi instead of all the firstborn of the Israelites. The Levites would be specially devoted to God’s service, as explained in chapters 3 and 4 – taking care of the Tabernacle and all its furniture, and carrying it wherever the people of Israel went.

So, why should all this matter to us? Well, as the Levites represented the firstborn of the people who also made it possible for the sacrifices in the Tabernacle to take place, they pointed toward the Person and Work of Christ in a comprehensive way. For like the Levites, Christ was the firstborn Son of God, who was completely devoted to the service of God. And He fulfilled the meaning of all those Old Testament sacrifices, offering up His own lifeblood so that all God’s people might be freed from the power of sin and death.

So, here’s the question for us today: If the Levites were wholly dedicated to God because the firstborn of the Israelites would have been dead without God’s grace, shouldn’t all who trust in Christ devote ourselves just as completely to Him? For apart from His death and resurrection, could any of us have any hope of eternal life?

Numbers 3:40-43 (NASB)

40 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Number every first-born male of the sons of Israel from a month old and upward, and make a list of their names.
41 “And you shall take the Levites for Me, I am the LORD, instead of all the first-born among the sons of Israel, and the cattle of the Levites instead of all the first-born among the cattle of the sons of Israel.”
42 So Moses numbered all the first-born among the sons of Israel, just as the LORD had commanded him;
43 and all the first-born males by the number of names from a month old and upward, for their numbered men were 22,273.