Levites. In Kings there is only a single mention of Levites, namely in 1 K S^'-. Here they are clearly thrust into the text by means cf a later interpolation (the close of v.* is found in the LXX only in A), for it is said first of all that priests took up the ark, the tent of meeting and its vessels, and only afterwards is the supplementary remark made that priests and Levites did this. AU the same, however, the term ' sons of Levi ' for those who were entitled to exercise the priestly office was knowTi to the author of ICings, Avho blames Jeroboam for making priests ' from among ail the people, which were not of the sons of Levi ' (1 K 1231).
The existence of a class of sanctuaiy attendants, ditl'erent from the priests or subordinate to them, and who were called 'Levites,' cannot be proved for the monarchical period. But there are clear enough allusions, during this period, to temple attendants or slaves. According to Jos 9^, the Gibeonites, on account of the fraud they per- petrated upon the Israelites, were pronounced by Joshua accursed and degraded to be serfs, namely hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of his God. This passage, from the mention of ' the house of God (not ' tabernacle,' as in the Priestly Writing), is seen to be from the Jehovistio book (differently P in v.=', cf. v." [JE and P, with a Deuteronomic addition]). In this account of the institution of temple-slaves the writer of the Jehovistic book is thinking unquestionably of those that belonged to the Jerusalem temple as /tar' i^oxn" the house of God, and thus anticipates the temple and its set of attendants. Saul had not quite succeeded in exterminating the Gibeon- ites (2 S 2]}"); what survived of them belonged no doubt to the remnants of the Canaanites in the midst of Israel, of whom it is related that Solomon put them to forced service (1 K Q''"'-). Even in the post-exilic period there were still 'servants of Solomon,' along ^^^th other temple- slaves, the Nethinim, i.e. 'those given' (Ezr 2'''^- aZ.). After the Exile we hear also of Nethinim, who are said to have been given by David and the princes 'for the service of the Levites,' i.e. for the temple (Ezr S^).
Even the pre-exilic period would appear to have been acquainted with other grades, in addition to this lowest grade, of sanctuary attendants, who were also distinct from the priests proper. In the time of Nehemiah there was in the new com- munity a large body of temple-singers and door- keepers, ^^ho were then, or at a later period, considered to have returned from the Exile with Zerubbabel (Neh 7*"= Ezr 2"'-). It is difficult to suppose that these groups of sanctuary servants took their rise in the cultus-lacking period of the Exile, and equally so to believe that they were a new creation during the miserable beginnings of the restored religious service in the period be- tween the First Return and the advent of Nehe- miah. The post-exilic temple-singers and door- keepers are therefore, in all probability, descend- ants of those who had discharged tlie same offices in the pre-exilic temple (so also A. Kuenen, Hist.' krit. onderzoek naar het ontstaan en de verzame- linfr van de boektn des Ouden Verhunds, vol. iii. Leiden, 1865, p. 288 f.; and especially Koberle, whose assumptions, however, regarding the pre- exilic period go much farther).
4. The Pkiesthood according to Deutero- nomy.—The relations of the cultus personnel at the close of the monarchical period are unquestion- ably portrayed in the Deuteronomic law, not lut that the atteiiii)t is made by the legislator to modify these relations upon the ground of the centralization of the cultus for which he contends. The Deuteronomic law in its primitive form, which
PRIKSTS AND LEVITKS
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
78
has to be recovered from the present Bk. of Dt, is that book of the law which was found in tlie temple in the reign of Josi:ili, and which was the occasion of his reform of the cultus. The law- book proper is in any case contained in chs. 12-20. As a whole it cannot be raucli older than the date of its discovery, since its standpoint and its lan- jrnage both point to the time of Jeremiah. A ritual code proper it is not, rather are regulations about the cultus treated of only in so far as they touch the one demand of the legislator directly allecting the cultus, namely that for a sini'le sanctuary, or have a bearing upon the social rela- tions about which he is concerned. Even the demand for a single place of worship is not really made in the interest of the cultus, but rather in that of the form of the belief in God. In the rourse of his legislation, which is not directed specially from the point of view of 1,1 e Divine service, the author of the Deuteronomic ay is far from ^ving a complete picture of the jxisting
fr.estiy relations, or of those to be established. n what he SJiys about them there are gaps which musi be tilled up from what we know from other sources. This cannot be done with complete certainty on all points.
The priests are constantly referred to in Dt as 'the Levite priests' (ha-ku/ulnim ha-Uwiyyhn, 179. 18 jgi „; ) The legislator evidently has in view, in this expression, a special descent, for in 21', in an older enactment, as it seems, borrowed by the author, there occurs the other expression, ' the priests, tlie sons of Le\'i ' (so also 31"). The fl-anie inference follows from 18' ' the Levite priests, the whole tribe of Levi,' where the second desig- nation is probably in apposition with the first, in which case the author of the Deuteronomic law would not distinguish between ' Levite priests ' and 'Levites.' Since he recognizes only the one place chosen by Juliweh, namely Jerusalem, as a place of worship, it is only there tliat in his estimation real priests are to be found. Rut he knows of Levites who live scattered up and down in the land, and appears to be willing to concede to the whole of these, if they come to reside at Jerusalem, the same rights at its temple as the Levite priests who are settled there. Such at least is the simjdest way of understanding Dt IS""-: 'And if a Levite come from any of thy gates out of all Israel, where he sojourncth, and come witli all tlic desire of his soul unto the place which Jaliweh shall choose, to minister there in the name of Jahweh his God like all his brethren, the Levites, who stand there before Jahweh, he shall eat the same portion [as they].' This last expression appears to refer to the {)ricst's right to the sacrilicial portions mentioned in v."- and to the re'shiik. Every Levite thus appears to ac(iuire priestly rights as soon as he takes up his abode at Jerusalem. It is true that 18' does not say that [the Levite] serves there ' like all his brethren the Levite priests,' but ' like all his brethren the Levites.' Hence the interpretation is not abso- lutely excluded that the jiassage means to say that everj' memljer of the tribe of Levi who comes to Jerusalem may discharge functions there, ac- cording to his special station, whether as priestly or as serving Levite, and that he is entitled to the payment corresponding to the particular ser- vice rendered (so van Hoonacker, Sncerdocc, etc. p. 174). This explanation, however, is not a prob- able one, because even in this passage there is not the slightest hint of any distinction amongst the Levites ; and the expressiim here use<l of the Levites at Jerusalem, ' stand before Jahweh,' ap- pears also outside Dt a.s the designation of tlie Bpecifically priestly service (Ezk 44'').