John Calvin on Deuteronomy 18:6-8

6. And if a Levite come. This third head more clearly explains what is elsewhere more obscurely declared; for God seemed to curtail from the Levites whatever He gave to the priests. But He now more distinctly places the priests in the first rank, yet so that they should admit the Levites on the score of their labor’s to a share of the oblations. This is the sum of the law, that the Levites who remained at home, should be content with the tithes, and touch nothing of the other offerings; but that from whithersoever they should come to the sanctuary, they were to be accounted as ministers and take their proper place. By this law then, it was provided that none should be excluded on the ground of the intermission of their duties; and that the condition of those that dwelt elsewhere should not be worse than of those who lived at Jerusalem. For although they might reside in other cities, they did not altogether cease from their ministry, since they had other duties to perform besides that of sacrificing the victims. Yet those who entirely devoted themselves to the work of the sanctuary, were endowed by God with double honor; since it was by no means just that they should be defrauded of their maintenance, who bade adieu to domestic cares and labors, and occupied themselves totally in holy offices. That this distribution was not superfluous, will best appear from the narrative of Josephus, who relates that the About this time King Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ismael, who was the son of Fabi. And such was the impudence and boldness that had seized on the high priests, that they had the hardiness to send their servants into the threshing-floors, to take away those tithes that were due to the priests; insomuch that it so fell out that the poorer sort of the priests died for want.” — Whiston’s Josephus. Antiq. 20 ch. 8, sec. 8. See also ch. 9, sec. 2. priests seized on the tithes by violence, and deprived the Levites of their subsistence by hostile measures.

The Sacred Oblations

Leviticus 24

Leviticus 24:5-9

5. And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth-deals shall be in one cake.

5. Accipies similam, et coques ex ea duodecim placentas: duarum decimarum sit unaquseque placenta.

6. And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the LORD.

6. Et pones eas in duobus ordinibus: seni ordines super mensam mundam coram Jehova.

7. And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

7. Pones quoque super ordinem utrunque thus purum, eritque pani in memoriale et incensum Jehovae.

8. Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.

8. Per singula sabbatha ordinabit illos coram Jehova semper, a filiis Israel foedere sempiterno.

9. And it shall be Aaron’s and his sons’; and they shall eat it in the holy place: for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the LORD made by fire by a perpetual statute.

9. Et erit Aharonis et filiorum ejus, qui comedent eum in loco sancto: quia sanctitatis sanctitatum est ei ex oblationibus ignitis Jehovae statuto perpetuo.