I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Numbers 3-4.

Having completed a census of the men of fighting age from the rest of the tribes of Israel, Moses counted the number of Levites.  However, for this count he counted every male one month old and older by their clans.  He also counted all of the firstborn sons of Israel.  The Levites were to be dedicated to God to redeem the rest of the firstborn sons of Israel.  What strikes me here is that the number of firstborn sons of Israel exceeded the number of Levites by 273.  What strikes me about that number is its arbitrariness.  If this was a made up story I would expect these numbers to have some significance, or for it to have worked out that there were exactly the same number of Levites as there were firstborn sons.