Or HaChaim on Exodus 32:29/אור החיים על שמות ל״ב:כ״ט

1 מלאו ידכם היום, "consecrate yourselves this day, etc." It is not clear what the word "consecrate" is supposed to mean in this context. If it referred to the matter of killing one's relatives, this had already occurred. It should have been reported prior to the Levites carrying out Moses' orders.

2I believe we can explain this verse as being in its proper place. The Torah felt that inasmuch as these Levites had carried out executions with their own hands, something that certainly is not characteristic of righteous people, their image had to be restored. We have learned in Makkot 7 that any court which carries out a death sentence once in seven years (according to some even once in seventy years) is labelled as "a murderous court." In this instance the Levites killed about 3,000 people in a single day. There was a fear that their souls could have been tarnished by the experience seeing that though what they had done was perfectly legal it might leave a residue of mercilessness or a streak of cruelty in their character. In order to reassure both them and the people, Moses the man of G'd, told them to "consecrate their hands." This was not a commandment but a reassurance that by the very act of carrying out the task allocated to them they had consecrated themselves to the service of the Lord. Not only did their action not hint at a character deficiency in them, but, on the contrary, it reflected that they were spiritually very enlightened. The proof was that they did not protest having to sacrifice their own sons or close relatives which put them in a category similar to that of Abraham at the time he was willing to offer up Isaac. G'd testified that Abraham had reached the pinnacle of perfection after he had demonstrated that he had not withheld Isaac (Genesis 22,12). G'd had given Abraham a double blessing at that time (Genesis 22,17). Moses assured the Levites that they too were recipients of a similar blessing by G'd as a reward for what they had done, i.e. ולתת עליכם היום ברכה.

3Moses was very precise in describing this blessing as עליכם, which implied something additional, instead of saying לכם. He told the Levites that not only was G'd's blessing not required to restore a character defect which had been revealed when they acted as mass executioners, but there had not been a character defect in the first place, and He now added a further positive dimension to their respective characters by granting them this blessing. We may view the whole episode as similar to an orchard in which the trees have to be pruned in order to assure that the remaining branches develop more successfully. The house of Israel has frequently been compared to a vineyard (Psalms, 80,9 et al). When Moses spoke of the blessing that G'd would bestow עליכם, "upon you," the meaning of עליכם is "thanks to you," thanks to what you have done, the entire Jewish people will experience such a blessing. It was not the Levites who had been deficient but the people. By removing the superfluous members of the Jewish people, the Levites had assured the successful development of the remaining branches of the trees in that orchard. When we had previously quoted the Talmud which characterised a court that carried out death-sentences as "murderous," the circumstances described in the Talmud do not match what happened here at all, for two reasons. 1) The Levites (read court) executed their beloved ones. This demonstrated that their love for G'd was greater than their love for their errant family members. 2) Failure to carry out these sentences would have condemned the whole nation to destruction at the hands of G'd. The executioners therefore were the life savers of the people, not "murderous." G'd's anger abated only as a result of their action.