frading of the idolatrous Levites is spoken of — a istinction is made between ' the priests, the keepers of the charge of the house, and ' the priests, the keepers of the charge of the altar, which are the sons of Zadok, who from among the sons of Levi draw near to Jahweh to minister to him ' (Gesrh. p. 106). Smend (ad loc.) and Kuenen ',ThT, 1890, p. 23) would refer the words 'these are the sons of Zadok' to both the preceding definitions of the kohdntm, go that by ' keepers of the charge of the house ' we should not have to understand Levitts as distinguished from Zadok-
ites. This docs not appear to the present writei to be permissible, seeing that in 44" it is expressly said of the Levites that they are to be ' ministers 01 the house,' and in 44''' that it is they that are to be ' keepers of the charge of the house ' (cf. 46-^), whereas 44'^ says of the eons of Zadok that thev are to draw near to the table of Jahweh, whiiK corresponds to the definition ' to keep the char_''e of the altar.' Kuenen appears to be decidedly wrong when, in answer to the present writer's distinguishing of two classes of priests in 40"'-, he objects that the south hall and the north hall in 40''^'-, of which the first is for the keepers of the charge of the house, and the second for the keepers of the charge of the altar, are, according to 42", both intended for the priests proper, ' who draw near to Jahweh,' i.e. the Zadokites. The south hall and the north hall of 40"'- are quite difl'erent from the north halls and south halls of 42" (ob- serve hall* to the north and lialls to the south,' both times in the plural). The two single halls of 40''"- lie outside the inner gate, i.e. the south gate and the north gate leading to the inner fore-court, by the side of the gate (v."). The north halls and south halls of 42" are situated opposite the inner fore-court, i.e. outside the latter, on its north and south sides (see Smend, ad loc). From 42" it cannot then be inferred that the kohuntm men- tioned in 40^"- are all to be regarded as Zadokites But even if in this passage a distinction is already made between priests of first and second rank, it is possible that there is in this a proleptic reference to the later statements about the degrading of the priests of the high places. If so, it is certainly surprising that only in 40'" are even the lower class spoken of as kohanim. The two classes are elsewhere distinguished by Ezekiel in the same fashion, but the designation kohanim for the lower class occurs no more after the rule has been laid down in ch. 44 that the Levites who went astray are no longer to discharge priestly services. Un the contrary, 45"- speaks of ' the priests, the ministers of the sanctuarj', who draw near to minister to Jahweh,' and, along with these, of ' the Levites, the ministers of the house.' There- fore it seems to follow from the peculiar form of designation, kohdnim, apjilied only in 40'"- to the lower class, that the distinction of kohilntm of two grades was familiar to Ezekiel from already exist- ing relations (so Van Hoonacker, Sacerdoce, etc. p. 195), but that in his later utterances he pur- posely avoided giving to the lower class the name of ' priests,' after he had denied the priestly char- acter to the apostate Levites who were a-ssigned to this class. That there should have been a second class of priests even prior to the Exile is not astonishing in view of the various priestly dig- nities recognized in the Bks. of Kin^s (see above, § 3). If this were really the case, the priests of secondary rank will, of course, have been dillercnt from the foreigners, the temple-slaves. The latter are required by Ezekiel to be in future wholly dis- carded. His Levites, i.e. the former priests of the high places, are, on this presupposition, to dis- charge in the future cultus the duties which hitherto have been discharged by the priests of the second rank and the foreigners.
A chief i)riest is not known to the future theo- cracy of Ezekiel any more than a king, but only a ' prince' (nasi'), to whom certain priestly prerofra- tives belong, as they had done to the pre-exilic king. The prince may upon certain occasions enter the east gate of the inner fore-court, but not this court it.self ; he is to defray the cost of the daily offering and the material for the offer- ings at the great festivals, and for the people (Oesck. p. 129f.). 'The priest' who officiates at the atonement for the sanctuary on the first day
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
PKIESTS AND LEVITES
of the first and seventh months (45'"') can hardly be the chief priest (Smend, ad loc), but may rather be regarded as tlie particular Zadokite who happens to officiate. It has frequently been assumed that these ordinances of Lzekiel imply the nonexistence of a ' high priest ' up to iiis time. It may be, indeed, that prior to Ezekiel no priest bore the exact title ' high priest ' ; but there can be no doubt, from the account of things in the Bks. of Kings, that prior even to the E.xile there was a fhi:/ priest at Jerusalem. In Ezekiel's theocracy Jaliweh is directly present, hence it has no room for a huni;ui king, and is just as little in want of a single priestly mediator (this also against Van Hoonacker, Saccrdoce, etc. p. 308, ^vllo holds that Ezekiel intends, by the emphasis he lays on Zadok as the father of the Jeruaalemite priesthood, to recognize in his State of *ie future a ' higli priest ' such as Zadok was). Kzekiel's temple has no sacred ark, to which sucn a priest had to draw near, but God Himself dwells in the tenijile. It may be that in the words, ' Away with the tiara {miznejiheth, elsewhere only as the desig- nation of the high priest's turban in the Priests' Code, cf. ziinipk in Zee 3°), hence with the crown' (Ezk 21" [Eng.-*]), there is a distinct rejection both of the kingship and of the high priesthood expressed [Gesrh. p. 118 f. ). At all events, in view of the droi)])ing ot the title of ' king' in Ezekiel's theocracy, it would not be surprising if he meant a hitherto existing high priesthood to be also dis- carded.