The Bk. of Jeremiah calls the prophet's rela- tives at Anathoth kuhdnim (!') ; they would have been called in Dt Levites. IJesides this, in a passage which it is difficult to assign to Jeremiah himself, the Deuteronomic expression ' Levite priests ' is emplo3'ed (33'*), and in the same place there is mention of ' the Levites, the priests, my (nc. Jahweh's) ministers' (v.-'), or, more brielly. 'the Levites that minister to me ' (v.--). The lik. of Jeremiah bears no witness to the existence of a class of Levites distinct from the priests. But it certainly witnesses to an organization of the priestly body. There is mention of elders of the priests (19'), the office of chief su]ierinteiident in the temiilc (20' 29-»'-), as well as that of keeper of the threshold ('A5*). The priests, even the higher grades of them, appear to be still regarded as court officials ; at least the chief superintendent Zephaniali (20'-^'- '-'") makes his ajjpearance as a messenger of king Zedekiah /21' 37^).
6. Till': Prie.sthooi) in Ezekikl's State of THK Future. — During the Exile, the prophet Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, of priestly descent (Ezk P), drew up a set of statutes for the future tlieo- cracy. These statutes are thoroughly imbued with a priestly spirit, and in view of the com- manding position which is assij,'ned in them to the sons of Zadok, the Jeiusalemite priestly family, there can be no doubt that Ezekiel himself belonged to this family.
In the State of the futuje, in what shall then be the sole existing temple, that at Jerusalem, he permits (44""-) none but the Levite priests (cf. 43'"), the sons of Zadok, to enjoy priestly rij^'hts, to oiler to Jahweh fat and Mood, to enter His sanctuary and to approach His table; this prerogative is to belong to them because they kept the charge of the sanctuary of Jahweh when the children of Israel went astray. The prophet's meaning clearly is, that the Zadolcites kept the service of Jahweli pure wlien the people deviated into idolatry — a statement which, of course, has only a measure of truth, fur the intrusion of idolatry into the temiilo I at Jerusalem in the reign of Slana-sseh cannot
78
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
liave tukcn jilace without some coin]ilicity on the part 01 till.' Jeinsalciiiite priests. The Zadokites are eontrasted liy lOzekiel with the Levites wlio went astray from Jahvvoh when Israel apostatizeil, who left the service of Jahweli for that of idols. They are to bear their iniquity, they shall not ajiproaeh Jahweh to exercise the office of priest to Him, nor a])proach His holy things ; on the con- trar_y, they are to take the place of the foreigners who have hitherto been allowed to enter the sanctuary as keejers of it, and in their room they are to keep watch at the doors of the temple, to be ministers of the house, to slay the bumt- ofifering and the sacrilice of the people, and to stand before them (the Israelites) to minister to them (44°'^). Besides slaughtering the victims, the ' ministers of the house,' i.e. the non-Zadokite Levites, have, further, to cook the sacrLtices of the people (4G-'').
It is plain that by the non-Zadokite Levites, Ezekiel means the former priests of the high places, who had abetted the people's practice of idolatry on the high places. For this they are to be deprived of their former priestly rank and degraded to the position of temple - servants. From this it may be seen that Josiah's reform had not been able to destroy the former bdmuth priests' claim to priestlj' rights. They could, in face of that reform, appeal to the enactment of Dt, whereby an equal share in the priestly service at Jerusalem was open to all Levites who might come to attach themselves to the cultus there.
The explanation of Ezekiel's ' Levites ' as the former priests of the high places has been rightly mainta,ined, especially by Graf, Kuenen, and SVell- hausen. On the other hand, one cannot infer, as has been done by the writers just named, from Ezekiel's presentation of the case, that up till then there were in the temple at Jerusalem no other servants of the priests or of the temple beyond the foreigners spoken of. Ezekiel demands merely that the foreigners who had preriously given ser- vice in the sanctuary, and who are known from the Jehovistic passages in the Bk. of Joshua (see above, § 3) as temple-slaves, should have their place taken in future by the former priests of the high places. But besides such servants, there may, even prior to the time of Ezekiel, have been Israelites, possibly even Levites in particular, who held in tlie temple a position subordinate to the priests and intermediate between them and the laity. Ezekiel speaks of a degradation not of the Levites as a body, but only of those of them who had been priests of the idol-worship. Only in a later passage (48") does he say of the 'Levites' generally, in distinction from the sons of Zadok, that they ' went astray,' but, after the previous description of the manner of this going astray, it may be so put for the sake of shortness. "That besides those who went astray and the Zadokites there is yet another group of Levites recognized by Ezekiel, namely those who had even at an earlier period occupiea the position now assi^ed to the former baniCth priests, of this there is certainly nowhere a clear expression. One might think to deduce it from 40''"-, where — before the de-