Moses' sons Gershom and Eliezer were Levites. Gershom's sons were Shebuel and Jonathan; Eliezer's son was named Rechabiah. Centuries later, King David made a descendant and namesake of Shebuel the head of the treasurers, while Selomith, a descendant of Eliezer, supervised the treasures that David and his army commanders had dedicated to YHWH (1 Chronicles 23:12-17, 24:20-21, and 26:24-26). Descendants of Gershom's son Jonathan remained priests in Dan for centuries.

Aaron's sons Eleazar and Ithamar were priests (1 Chronicles 24:3-4). Phinehas buried his father Eleazar on the hill in the hill country of Ephraim that had been assigned to him (Joshua 24:33). He served as a priest in the sanctuary at Bethel (Judges 20:27-28). After Phinehas, his son Abishua became high priest (1 Chronicles 6:35-38).

The descendants of Korah, Moses' rebellious cousin who wanted to become a priest and died at the altar, remained temple guards (1 Chronicles 9:17-27 and 26:1-19). The great prophet and judge Samuel was also a descendant of Korah (1 Chronicles 6:28). One of them, Jeduthun, was appointed by King David, along with his descendants, as temple singers and psalmists (I Chronicles 25:1,3). We know them as the Korahites of Psalms 42-49 and 84-88:

Psalm 84 ⁴ Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest

in which she may lay her young,

at your altars, O Lord of heavenly hosts,

my King and my God.

Joshua died in the hill country of Ephraim. He was buried in Timnath-Serah, the settlement assigned to him by lot (Joshua 24:29-30, Judges 2:8-9).

The Midianites, in turn, took revenge on Israel for seven years. When the crops were in the fields, the Midianites and Amalekites invaded Israel. They came like a swarm of locusts: an endless mass of people and camels that invaded the land and destroyed everything. Because of Midian, Israel fell into bitter poverty until Gideon defeated them (Judges 6-8). A prophecy from Isaiah recalls that day:

Isaiah 9 ³ For you have broken the yoke of their burden, the staff on their shoulders, and the rod of their oppressor, as on the day of Midian.

The Kenites lived mainly in the south around the city of Arad (Judges 1:16) in their beloved Negev. Saul warned them before attacking the Amalekites around them (I Samuel 15:16). The battle between Israel and Amalek raged around them for years. David sent gifts to the elders of the Kenites after he took revenge on a group of Amalekites who had destroyed his home town of Ziklag (I Samuel 27:10, 30:29).

Another Kenite, Cheber, left them and pitched his tents under a monumental oak tree in the north, in the tribal territory of Naphtali. A general of the Canaanites who oppressed the Israelites had to flee from the warriors of Israel and sought refuge there ( ). But Jael, Cheber's wife, hammered a tent peg through his head (Judges 4 and 5).

Some Kenites were from the house of Rechab and held fast to their traditions. In the city of Jabesh, they devoted themselves to the art of writing (1 Chronicles 2:55) and to metalworking in their "copper city" (Ir-Nachas in 1 Chronicles 4:12). In the time of Jehu, king of Israel, a man named Jonadab was their family head (2 Kings 10:15-27). He laid down the ancestral rules that the Rechabites would follow for centuries to come:

Jeremiah 35 (^{8)  (}…) We ourselves and our wives, sons, and daughters never drink wine, (⁹⁾ we do not build houses to live in, we do not own vineyards or fields that we sow. (¹⁰⁾ We have always lived in tents. Thus we have obeyed our forefather Jonadab in everything he commanded us.

¹⁸ Then Jeremiah said to the Rechabites, "This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: You have obeyed all the commands of your ancestor Jonadab and have been faithful to him in everything. (¹⁹⁾Therefore, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: There will always be descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, who serve me."

The bronze serpent that Moses had made remained in the tabernacle and later in the temple. An image of a cobra on a stand was found on royal tableware. For centuries, the Israelites continued the custom of burning incense before the serpent. This lasted until the time of King Hezekiah: in his zeal for Yahweh and his temple, he forbade the sacrificial sites, crushed the sacred stones, and tore down the Asherah poles. In Jerusalem, he smashed the bronze serpent to pieces (II Kings 18:4). The bronze serpent reappears once more in the New Testament:

John 3 ¹⁴ Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

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