Parsha discussion

Question:  Why are the roles of the בני לוי repeated in פרק ד, after having been mentioned in פרק ג? Approach: it would seem that the main placing of this information is in פרק ד with the count of the serving לווים. However, the respective roles also have a bearing on where each family is located around the משכן and their neighboring tribes. So משה and the כהנים were linked with מחנה יהודה due to their having to take the most important parts of the משכן and take charge of the move. בני קהת, who took the vessels, were then placed next to מחנה ראובן who travelled second. בני גרשון, who took the inner skeleton were linked with מחנה אפרים who were third in line and finally בני מררי, who took the outer skeleton and did the heavy lifting, brought up the rear together with מחנה דן.

Question:  Why is the commandment not to include לוי in the census made after the census? Wouldn’t it make more sense to come before? Approach: It is possible to suggest that the commands, including שבט לוי, were given in one go. However, for sylistic purposes - and since the לויים are counted in a vastly differnet way, and for a different purpose - the command regarding them is presented after the actual census results fot the rest of the people.

Question:  Why is the prohibition against זמירה mentioned only with שמיטה and not with יובל? Approach: It would seem that the act of pruning trees (זמירה) is not something that needs to be done on an annual basis, unlike the acts of plowing & harvesting. Therefore, since the year of יובל follows immediately after a year of שמיטה, where the act of pruning was forbidden - and therefore was presumably done just prior to שמיטה, there was no need to specifically forbid the act for the year of יובל.

Question:  Why are the laws regarding פסולי המוקדשים listed after the laws of כהונה, rather than with קרבנות earlier in the ספר? Approach : It would seem that the rules in the earlier part of the ספר deal with the ideal situations, and how things should be done. Once things go awry with the deaths of נדב and אביהוא, tangents are taken to discuss other matters, before circling back to laws relating to the כהנים, the group who serve and process the קרבנות, then moving to the issues that disqualify כהן from serving, and only then moving onto what would disqualify an animal from being a valid קרבן.