Age Fifty Mentoring Role
The following bible translations all say that the senior Levites are to “retire” from the ministry of the temple.
Numbers 8:25–26 (NASB95)
25 “But at the age of fifty years they shall retire from service in the work and not work any more.
26 “They may, however, assist their brothers in the tent of meeting, to keep an obligation, but they themselves shall do no work. Thus you shall deal with the Levites concerning their obligations.”
Numbers 8:25–26 (AMP)
25 And at the age of fifty years, they shall retire from the warfare of the service and serve no more,
26 But shall help their brethren in the Tent of Meeting [attend to protecting the sacred things from being profaned], but shall do no regular or heavy service. Thus shall you direct the Levites in regard to their duties.
Numbers 8:25–26 (NIV)
25 but at the age of fifty, they must retire from their regular service and work no longer.
26 They may assist their brothers in performing their duties at the tent of meeting, but they themselves must not do the work. This, then, is how you are to assign the responsibilities of the Levites.”
Numbers 8:25–26 (NIV84)
25 but at the age of fifty, they must retire from their regular service and work no longer.
26 They may assist their brothers in performing their duties at the Tent of Meeting, but they themselves must not do the work. This, then, is how you are to assign the responsibilities of the Levites.”
Numbers 8:25–26 (HCSB)
25 But at 50 years old he is to retire from his service in the work and no longer serve.
26 He may assist his brothers to fulfill responsibilities at the tent of meeting, but he must not do the work. This is how you are to deal with the Levites regarding their duties.”
Numbers 8:25–26 (NLT)
25 and they must retire at the age of fifty.
26 After retirement they may assist their fellow Levites by serving as guards at the Tabernacle, but they may not officiate in the service. This is how you must assign duties to the Levites.”
All of these translations incorporate the faulty word “retire” including NASB, AMP,NIV, NIV84, HCSB, and NLT. However, the word “retire” is not a good word to use here because the word “retire” means these mature men leave their job completely. This gives the idea that they go home at age fifty and sit in a rocking chair on the front porch and do nothing except to wait to die of old age. But at age fifty this is when a man is fully mature and possesses decades of work experience. A man over age fifty has learned by experience how to do things the proper way. It would be a shame to remove such men from service at age fifty by retiring them and sending them home to die. At age fifty they are actually in their prime of life as far as experience is concerned!
No, the fact of the matter is that these scriptures should not have been translated using the word “retire” but instead it should be made clear that when a man is fully mature and experienced at age fifty, this is the time that he should move into a supervisory role and such a man should stop doing the work himself and instead begin to mentor the young men who will take his place.
It would be a great piece of insanity to cast out a man at age fifty just when he has so much experience to share with the young men. Why on earth would they just abandon the young men to repeat all of the same mistakes that were made by the senior mentors in the past. These mature men must share their experience with the young men to keep them from repeating all of the past mistakes again. This would be a terrible lost of knowledge by removing such men from the job and retiring them to do nothing.
Scriptures that do not Utilize the Word Retire
The scripture translations below do not use the incorrect word “retire” but simply say [cease from doing the word themselves}. Instead of the word “retire” they utilize phrases like [they shall cease from waiting upon the service] and [they shall cease from preforming the work] and [they are to stop preforming this work] and [they shall withdraw from this duty]. Any of these phrases are better than the word “retire” which means to leave the job entirely and quit working in any capacity whatsoever.
Numbers 8:25–26 (KJV 1900)
25 And from the age of fifty years they shall cease waiting upon the service thereof, and shall serve no more:
26 But shall minister with their brethren in the tabernacle of the congregation, to keep the charge, and shall do no service. Thus shalt thou do unto the Levites touching their charge.
Numbers 8:25–26 (NKJV)
25 and at the age of fifty years they must cease performing this work, and shall work no more.
26 They may minister with their brethren in the tabernacle of meeting, to attend to needs, but they themselves shall do no work. Thus you shall do to the Levites regarding their duties.”
Numbers 8:25–26 (CJB)
25 and when they reach the age of fifty, they are to stop performing this work and not serve any longer.
26 They will assist their brothers who are performing their duties in the tent of meeting, but they themselves will not do any of the work. This is what you are to do with the L’vi’im in regard to their duties.”
Numbers 8:25–26 (ESV)
25 And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more.
26 They minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites in assigning their duties.”
So the scripture translations KJV, NKJV, CJB, and ESV all do not use the incorrect word “retire” which means to quit the job completely and stop working entirely.
But in the context of these scriptures translations given above, it is obvious that these senior men were not sent home to retire because the following scripture in verse 26 speaks of them still being present to assist their brothers. The true meaning of these scriptures is that at age fifty the senior Levites were stop doing the work themselves and at this time they were to move into a supervisory role to mentor they young men to do the work. Why waste the great experience of these senior men by having them continue to do mundane and repetitive work (which they have been doing for decades). At age fifty, it was the time that these fully mature and fully experienced men were to move from doing the work themselves and then begin to operate as a mentor for the young men (by assisting the young men to preform the work in correct manner).
Every job on earth has a correct method of preforming the work. Men develop shortcuts and improved methods as they work and make mistakes and then change their methods based on those past mistakes. This knowledge of experience is more valuable than gold because time is money. Why should inexperienced young men be abandoned to flounder by themselves? Without guidance and instruction and training the young men will repeat all of the same mistakes that were already made in the past. These inexperienced young men will waste a lot of time and mess up expensive materials and do a lot of expensive mistakes if they have no senior mentor to guide them.
Principle of Senior Mentors
The fact of the matter is that the biblical principle found in Numbers 8:25-26 is clearly teaching that senior mentors are required by God to move into a supervisory role to teach and train and counsel the young men on the methods of doing the job properly. It is a great piece of insanity to use the incorrect word “retire” and cancel out the good revelation of this scripture found in Numbers 8:25-26 – which is telling senior men to stop doing the job themselves and instead move into a mentor role and train the young men how to do that job correctly.
This has a wide application to all walks of life and includes any type of job or trade skill or business where the experienced men should focus on imparting their knowledge to the young men who will eventually replace them. This is a key and vital principle but it is altogether cancelled by using the incorrect word “retire” which means they quit and leave the place of employment and do nothing whatsoever. Never should fully mature and experienced men be forced to quit when they have decades of valuable experience that they should pass onto the young men who will follow them.
Senior Men Deemed the Most Valuable
It is a known fact that enemy snipers will target senior officers and leaders in time of war. The reason for this is because without these senior leaders the young soldiers will typically flounder without leadership. So enemy snipers will look for those senior men who are leaders and take them out because they are considered to be “high value” targets. Taking out a leader can render a whole company of young soldiers as largely useless.
In fact during time of war the soldiers are instructed not to salute their officers because this can make the officers targets of snipers. So enemy snipers will typically wait and observe. These enemy snipers will look for men who are wearing glasses and have grey hair (indicating they are age 50 and above). These enemy snipers also observe to see if the young men are constantly looking to the mature men for leadership and direction. If a mature man (with glasses and grey hair) is giving guidance and instructions to the young men, then this is an indication of his leadership role over the young men. Thus he becomes a “high value” target for enemy snipers who can take out one leader and leave all of the young soldiers to largely “flounder” for lack of guidance.
This brings up the question, “If enemy snipers can see the value of senior mentors (men over age fifty) and these enemy snipers even consider these mature men as “high value” targets, then why would the rest of the society despise senior men and force them to retire at age fifty?
There exists a biblical principle found in Numbers 8:25-26 that God places a high value upon senior men of age fifty and above. It is a complete waste to have them continue to preform “repetitive work” after they reach age fifty and are finally fully mature and fully experienced. This is the very time that senior men become the most valuable for mentoring young men to learn the same jobs (which they have become expert in) by reason if their age and past experience.
Words Matter in Bible Translation
So just using the incorrect word “retire” totally changes the meaning of the scriptures. If the scripture is altered with incorrect words, then the valuable principle which God is communicating through his word is then cancelled. These scriptures should therefore be translated in clear manner to emphasize that senior men should move into a supervisory role and begin to mentor the young men as soon as the senior mentor reaches the fully mature and fully experienced age of fifty. Why waste all of his past experience by retiring him (since his vast experience is invaluable for the young men so they will learn the proper way to do things)?
Again, this principle applies to every walk of life and every job and every trade and every business and everything that men can possibly do under the sun! All areas of work must have senior mentors made available to train the young men how to do these various jobs and occupations in proper manner. Experience is more valuable than gold and even enemy snipers recognize this in time of war so that is why they purposely target senior leaders because without leadership the surviving young men will flounder without direction and be in confusion without knowing what they are supposed to do next.
Clarifying the Meaning of the Scriptures
I have taken the best of translations from nine different bible translations and complied them into a modified bible called the 7K-Bible. This new translation was done for “clarification” of biblical principles that were otherwise lost due to poor interpretation and faulty word selection.
See the link “7K-Bible” for more details.
Below I modified the scriptures by adding the words “supervisory role” to illustrate the clear biblical principle that senior men of age fifty should no longer do the work themselves but move into a supervisory role to mentor young men to do the work. I also added the symbol [-M] after the translation that I used to indicate that I modified this scripture to render a more clear meaning.
7KB-Numbers 8:25 (NKJV)-M
25 and at the age of fifty years they must cease performing this work, and shall no more do the work themselves [but instead serve in a supervisory role].
7KB-Numbers 8:26 (NIV)-M
26 They may assist their brothers in performing their duties at the Tent of Meeting, [in a supervisory role] but they must not do the work themselves. This, then, is how you are to assign the responsibilities of the Levites.”
See the link “7K-Numbers” for more details.