namely ha-kOhin Itfigadul, which is once apjilied to Jehoiada (2 K 12") and thrice to Hilkiah (22'- » ^'i*), is due to antedating of this title on the part of the redactor of Kings wiio wrote during the Exile, or it niiiy even be a later insertion. The Deutero- nomic law uses the simple title ' the kOhcn ' to designate the chief juiest.
The dignity and inlluence of the chief priest of Jerusalem must even in early times have been great. This comes out especially in the command- ing rOle which, about the miildle of the 9tli cent. n.C, was played by the chief ]iricst Jehoi.nda in connexion with the overthrow of ([ucen Athaliali and the proclamation of her grandson Joasli as king, in whose name Jehoiada at lirst directed the government (2 K ll'"- 12^).t The authority
• It may, indeed, be doubted wlu-tlier in Jeremiah tiie refer- ence is tt> tlie banie Jclioiada, who wiu, cliief priest under Joa«h. Uenaii (//w(. ii. [ISSU] 323, note)ii"d Van llooimclter {.Sacenloct, ete. n. lf)S f.) conteBt it ; but nee llilzit; and Orut on Jer 'J1»'A
t Tradition furnishes no warrant for rcconstruflitiL' the history with Rcnan (//t#f. ii. 323, 409, note 1), who ititriMluces, alon^'hido of Jelioiadu tlie priest, in 2 K ll-*, an oMIcit uf the (fuanl of the sjinie naiiii'. No priest, it in true, had the rinlit to euninion the army, but the priest Jelioiada could act iu accord with the chiefs of the army. That the latter allowed them- selves lo be led by him is ftu indiculioa of Uw respect paid tio his position.
T4
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
of the chief priest, however, scarcely extended, as a rule, beyond the sphere of the temple at Jerusalem, besides which there continued to exist even in Judah other places of worship with their own priests, down to the time of Josiah's reformation. Yet the prediction above referred to regarding the downfall of Eli's house represents the sur\'ivor3 of this house as begging of tlie royal priest to put them into one of the priests' offices that they might obtain a morsel of bread (1 S 2**). This may indicate that the chief priest of Jerusalem, so long as the existence of the smaller sanctuaries of Judah was not opposed in the interest of the temple at Jerusalem, exer- cised a certain supremacy over these, and made appointments to their staff of priests. It can scarcely be that we are to think of reception of the Elidae into priestly offices at Jerusalem, where the Zadokites would be very slow to suffer the in- trusion of strangers.
Alongside of the head-priest Seraiah there is mention in 2 K 25" (Jer 52**) of Zephaniah as kohen mishneh (kohen ha-mishneh), lit. ' priest of the repetition,' i.e. probably representative of the bead-priest. The same title occurs in 2 K 23^, where, instead of the plural kohanS lui-mishneh, the singular is to be read with the Targum, since a plurality of 'priests of the second rank,' beside the high priest, who is here named, and the keepers of the threshold, would come in strangely ^N-hen there has been no mention of priests of the first rank (it is therefore not permissible, with Van Hoonacker, Sacerdoce, etc. p. 162, to find in the kohani ha-mishneh the Levites of the Priestly Writing). The Zephaniah in question appears in Jer 29^'- as principal overseer of the police arrange- ments in the temple. The keepers of the thresh- old {shomrS ha-saph) are also named in 2 K 25" (Jer 52*") along with the head-priest and the ' second ' priest ; according to this passage the keepers or the threshold were three in number. Plainly we must think here of a fairly exalted priestly office, different from the humbler station uf tlie post-exilian doorkeepers (sho dnm), of whom there were a great many (2 Ch 34° confuses these ^\ith the keepers of the tlireshold who are reckoned among the Levites). The keepers of the thresh- old already appear in the time of Joash (2 K 12"') as having to guard the entrance to the inner fore-court with the altar of burnt-offering. Ac- cording to this same passage as well as 2 K 22*, one of the duties of the keepers of the threshold was to collect the people's contributions to the temple. We must suppose that other priests or temple attendants were at their command in the discharge of their duties, which could scarcely have been overtaken by only three persons. Beyond all doubt we have in the keepers of the threshold to do with an actual pre-exihan priestly office, for it is an office which is unkno«-n in later times.
According to 2 K 19' (Is 37"), the priestly body was arranged in groups as early as the time of Hezelciah, for here we read of ' elders of the priests,' who can be nothing else than chiefs of groups.
In only a few passages, apart from Chronicles, where post-exilian relations are everywhere trans- ferred to earlier times, are LeWtes named during the monarchical period. In 1 S 6'° and 2 S 15^ they appear as bearers of the ark of Jaliweh, just as m the Priestly Writing and in Deuteronomy. The first of these passages, where tlie Levites make their appearance quite abruptly, is mani- festly interpolated. On the other hand, in tlie second passage the Levites, who are found here in the retinue of the priest Zadok, are not out of place ; but it must be confessed that the text of the whole passage is corrupt, and on this account doubt is here again cast upon the presence of the