Israelites were also submitting the Levites as their atonement offering. refers to duties of the Levites. Maimonides and the siddur report that the Levites would recite the Psalm for the Day in the Temple. Numbers chapter 9 Baḥya ibn Paquda noted that , "by the word of God," and , "in the ears of God" imply that God has physical form and body parts. And , "and God heard," implies that God moves and takes bodily actions like human beings. Baḥya explained that necessity brought people to anthropomorphize God and describe God in terms of human attributes so that human listeners could grasp God in their minds. After doing so, people can learn that such description was only metaphorical, and that the truth is too fine, too sublime, too exalted, and too remote from the ability and powers of human minds to grasp. Baḥya advised wise thinkers to endeavor to remove the husk of the terms and their corporeality and ascend in their minds step by step to reach the true intended meaning according to the power and ability of their minds to grasp. Numbers chapter 11 Reading the report of that "the mixed multitude (, hasafsuf) that was among them fell a lusting," Ibn Gabirol confessed poetically that one's poor mortal life, unclean thoughts, craving trinkets and baubles, was like a body with a corrupted heart plagued by a "mixed multitude." In modern interpretation The parashah is discussed in these modern sources: Numbers chapter 9 The 20th century Reform Rabbi Bernard Bamberger noted that is one of four episodes in the Torah (along with and and ) in which Moses had to make a special inquiry of God before he could give a legal decision. Bamberger reported that the inability of Moses to handle these cases on his own troubled the Rabbis because they relied upon a worldview in which the entire Torah was revealed at Sinai with no need for subsequent revelations. Numbers chapter 11 Reading the account of Eldad and Medad in , the 20th century Reform Rabbi Gunther Plaut wrote that Moses pointedly rejected a narrow interpretation of prophetic privilege and shared his authority as leader. Professor Jacob Milgrom, formerly of the University of California, Berkeley, wrote that God did not restrict God's gifts to particular individuals or classes, and the lesson inspired the prophet Joel to predict in , "After that, I will pour out