A CHARGE — a duty kept, a post guarded, from shamar, 'to watch, keep, guard.' Chapter 3 repeats it more than any other word: the Levites keep Aaron's mishmeret and the whole congregation's (3:7-8), each clan keeps its own assigned mishmeret of specific tabernacle furnishings (3:25, 31, 36), and the priests themselves keep 'the charge of the sanctuary' (3:38) on pain of death for any outsider who tries to take it up instead. The word covers both the DUTY and the THING guarded — a mishmeret is at once an assignment and an object placed in someone's trust. KJV 'charge'; NWT mostly agrees. → first discussed at Num 3:7