“Only the tribe of Levi you shall not number, nor shall you take their census among the sons of Israel [since they are unavailable to go to war].
For the Lord had said to Moses,
But the Levites were not numbered with the [other] Israelites, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
Those numbered of the Levites were 23,000, every male from a month old and upward; for they were not numbered among the sons of Israel, since no inheritance [of land] was given to them among the Israelites.