Chapter 24

that time have succeeded in making their way into the temple nobility. The bulk of the priests of the high places who had been superseded had to content themselves (since they could not now get rid of their spiritual character) with being degraded among their brethren at Jerusalem, and with admission to a subordinate share in the service of the sanctuary (comp. 1Samuel ii. 36). It was thus, at the close of the pre-exilic history, that the distinction between priests and Levites arose to which Ezekiel is at pains to give the sanction of law.

IV.III.

IV.III.1. On the whole it is easy here to bring the successive strata of the Pentateuch into co-ordination with the recognisable steps of the historical development. In the Jehovistic legislation there is no word of priests (Exodus xx.-xxiii., xxxiv.), and even such precepts as "Thou shalt not go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon " (Exodus xx. 26) are directed to the general "thou," that is, to the people. With this corresponds the fact that in the solemn ratification of the covenant of Sinai (Exodus xxiv. 3-8), it is young men of the children of Israel who officiate as sacrificers. Elsewhere in the Jehovist Aaron (Exodus iv. 14, xxxii. 1 seq.) and Moses (xxxiii. 7-lI; Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8) figure as the founders of the clerical order. Twice (in Exodus xix. 22 and xxxii 29) mention is made of other priests besides; but Exodus xxxii. 29 rests upon Deuteronomy, and even Exodus xix. 22 can hardly have been an original constituent of one of the Jehovistic sources.

IV.III.2. In Deuteronomy the priests, as compared with the judges and the prophets, take a very prominent position (xvi. 18-xviii. 22) and constitute a clerical order, hereditary in numerous families, whose privilege is uncontested and therefore also does not require protection. Here now for the first time begins the regular use of the name of Levites for the priests,--a name of which the consideration has been postponed until now.

In the pre-exilic literature apart from the Pentateuch it occurs very seldom. First in the prophets, once in the Book of Jeremiah (xxxiii. 17-22), in a passage which in any case is later than the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans, and certainly was not written by Jeremiah. /1/ The use of the name is an

-- Footnote 1. In the LXX, chap. xxxiii. 14-26 is wanting. The parallelism between vers. 17-22 and 23-26 is striking. It looks as if David and Levi arose out of a misunderstanding of the families mentioned in ver. 24, namely, Judah and Ephraim. In any case wdwd in ver. 26 is an interpolation. -- Footnote

established thing in Ezekiel (573 B.C.), and henceforward occurs without interruption in the writings of the later prophets, a sign that its earlier absence is not to be explained as accidental, not even in Jeremiah, who speaks so frequently of the priests. /2/

-- Footnote 1. Ezekiel xl. 46, xliii. 19, xliv. 10, 15, xlv. 5, xlviii. 11-13, 22, 31; Isaiah lxvi. 21; Zechariah xii. 13; Malachi ii. 4, 8, iii. 3. -- Footnote

In the historical books the Levites (leaving out of account 1Samuel vi. 15, 2Samuel xv. 24, and 1Kings viii. 4, xii. 31) /1/

-- Footnote 1. Upon 1Samuel vi. 15 all that is necessary has been said at IV.II.1; on 1Kings viii. 4 see. I.III.1. That 1Kings xii. 31 proceeds from the Deuteronomic redactor, the date of whose writing is not earlier than the second half of the exile, needs no proof. The hopeless corruptness of 2Samuel xv. 24 I have shown in Text. d. BB. Sam. (Goettingen, 1871). -- Footnote

occur only in the two appendices to the Book of Judges (chaps. xvii., xviii., and xix., xx.), of which, however, the second is unhistorical and late, and only the first is certainly pre-exilic. But in this case it is not the Levites who are spoken of, as elsewhere, but A LEVITE, who passes for a great rarity, and who is forcibly carried off by the tribe of Dan, which has none.

Now this Jonathan, the ancestor of the priests of Dan, notwithstanding that he belongs to the tribe of Judah, is represented as a descendant of Gershom the son of Moses (Judges xviii. 30). The other ancient priestly family that goes back to the period of the Judges, the Ephraimitic, of Shiloh, appears also to be brought into connection with Moses; at least in 1Samuel