PRIESTS AND LEVITES

Thummim were both originally in the text of 14«- «, as a comparison with the LXX and Vulgate shows,

6. The priesls' means of support. — According to 1 S 2 — from a relatively old document — the priests had no fixed dues; but the passage seems to suggest that then, or at least in the writer's day, what had been voluntary gifts were passing into customary claims which were liable to abuse. The chief ground of com-plaint was the wrong committed not so much against the sacriflcer as against God, to whom was due the fat of the inwards, which should first be burnt (.2").

6. A colony of priests. — In addition to the priests of the local sanctuaries, we find in 1 S 21. 22 an account of a settlement of priests at Nob under Ahimelech, all of whom except Abiathar his son were put to death by Doeg at Saul's command. This settlement may have originated in the troubles brought about by the Philistines.

7. Priests not regarded as Levitical. — There is nothing in the Books of Samuel which affords a sufficient reason for connecting the priesthood of this period directly with a tribe of Levi, the mention of the 'Levites' in 1 S 6" and 2 S IS^* being clearly a very late interpolation which assumes the liturgical arrangements of P. Had these been in vogue at the time, we should certainly have found some reference to them in 2 S 6 such as we find abundantly in the parallel in 1 Ch 15, where v.^ suggests that the death of Uzzah was a punishment for other than Levites having carried the ark.

C. Jg 17-21 (a document which, though revised by a priestly writer, belongs to rather the earlier part of the monarchy and speaks of a still earlier condition of things) confirms in many ways the Books of Samuel. It speaks of different sanctuaries— Mizpah, (20') and Bethel (20"- ^), besides Shiloh, which is a place of comparatively small importance, yet marked, as in 1 Sam., by a yearly religious festival of a somewhat secular character (cf. 2119-21 with 1 S !'• "-16- 21). The 'Levite' who is priest to Micah is actually of the tribe of Judah (17'). There is mention of an ephod and a suit of apparel for the priest ; but it is uncertain whether the ephod refers to the priest's dress or, as apparently in 8", to some kind of image.

D. 1 and 2 Kings (original documents) up to Josiah's Teform. — There were two circumstances which tended to diminish the prestige of the local priests. — 1. The es-tdblishment of the monarchy ^ by which many, if not all, of the secular functions of the priests had passed into the hands of the king or his deputies. Of these one of the most important was the practice of jurisdiction (see esp. 2 S 12. 14' -z" 15", 1 K S"- m-zs; cf. also Dt 16i«). It is also true that, sooner or later, the idea of the king as God's earthly representative was substituted for that of the priest.

2. Of even greater importance was the building of the great Temple at Jerusalem by Solomon. From the very first it made for the centralization of worship, though not of course intended originally to be the one single lawful sanctuary which it afterwards became. The local sanctuaries ('high places') were still tolerated (IK 15" 22" etc.), but would tend more and more to sink into insignificance beside this splendid building. This was especially the case in the Southern Kingdom. In the North the local sanctuary worship had more vitality, but it was largely maintained and also debased for political reasons (1 K 122S-29). The calves of Jeroboam were probably Canaanitish, though he probably meant them as symbols, not rivals, of Jahweh. The cult of the ' high places ' seems gradually to have relapsed into familiar and popular types of Semitic worship; and in the books of the early prophets Amos and Hosea it is not always easy to distinguish between heathenism and a heathenish worship of Jahweh.

With the decline of the local sanctuary the status of the priest gradually declined, till it reached the low level implied in Jg 17-19, and in Deuteronomy.

E. Deuteronomy.— 1. Levites.— In Dt. (first published

PRIESTS AND LEVITES

In all probability in Josiah's reign) we find the terms 'priests' and 'Levites' rather curiously used. The latter occurs frequently, but when used alone it is always as of a class deserving of pity. The Levite is frequently ranged with the slave, the widow, and the fatherless (Dt 1212- " 16"- »). The descriptive phrase 'that is within thy gates' means in the towns generally as distinct from Jerusalem, as we see from 12i' IBs, where the local sanctuaries are contrasted with the one per-missible sanctuary. The Levites were certainly the priests of these local sanctuaries. The poverty of the Levites is also testified by Jg 17-19, In which we find more than one case of Levites wandering about in search of a living.

2. Effect of abolishing local sanctuaries. — Dt 18'-* sug-gests that Levites might desire to go up to Jerusalem and perform priestly functions and receive support, and orders that they should be allowed to do both, and be treated in these respects on an equality with the priests at Jerusalem. When we realize that the ideal of Dt. was the one only sanctuary, it becomes evident that the case contemplated was one which would naturally arise when the local sanctuaries were abolished, as in fact they were by Josiah.

3. ' The priests the Levites.' — On the other hand, the priests of Jerusalem are generally called distinctively, it would seem, 'the priests the Levites'; occasionally 'priests* only, when the context makes it clear that the priests of Jerusalem are meant, as in 18' 19".

4. The dues of these priests, including the Levites who joined them, were the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the maw, and the first-fruits of field and garden produce. They did not include, as in P, the thigh or the firstlings. The tithes were not given by right to the priests or Levites, but the latter shared in the family feast at the one sanctuary, at which they were solemnly eaten as a sacrificial act. The same was the case with the firstlings, vows, and freewill offerings (18'-' 12"-"). One sees in these arrangements very clearly the system which was elaborated in P, and a development from what is implied In 1 S 2.

6. Lemtical theory varimisly explained. — Not only are the priests of the local sanctuaries and those of Jerusalem both called 'Levites' in Dt.; but the name is distinctly understood as that of a tribe to which both belonged (18'- '). The traditional explanation accepted by Dt. of the exceptional position of the tribe, was that it was a reward for having slain a large number of rebellious apostates, probably on the occasion of the golden calf (cf. Dt lOs- 3 with Ex 322»- m. [There are some critical difhculties in both passages concerning the connexion of the incident with the context]). This does not very well accord with P, which, as said above, connects the separa-tion of the tribe with the dedication of the firstborn and the last of the plagues, and that of the priests, or the high priest especially, with the action of Phinehas at Baal-peor (Nu 3"-" 25"). What is, however, probably an older tradition than either, while recognizing the Levites as a tribe, explains their being scattered in Israel as a punishment for an act of cruelty in conjunction with the Simeonites towards the Shechemites (Gn 49*-' 34). It is quite impossible to say what elements of truth may underlie these traditions. But if the word ' Levite' was originally merely official, such a united act on the part of a body of priests seems improbable; and the stories may have arisen as different ways of accounting for their dispersion. But the belief that the priests all belonged to one tribe proves at any rate that at the time when Dt. was written, and probably long before, the priesthood had become a hereditary and isolated guild. That is to say, every priest was the son of a priest, and his sons became priests. The cursing of Levi in Jacob's blessing, so conspicuously contrasted with the glorifica-tion of Joseph (i.e. Ephraim and Manasseh), perhaps shows that the writer, evidently of the Northern Kingdom, despised the priestly ofiSce.

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