88
PKIESTS AND LEVITES
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
Code in this instance stUl adhere more than Ezekiel to the conditions ■niiich really existed in the pre- exilic period. Amoni,'st the priestly cities named in Jos 21 (P), is Anathoth, which we know from Jeremiah as a city where priests lived. Among the Levitical cities are, further, included the si.\ Cities of Refuge. The latter were old sanctuaries to whose altar the manslayer fled. Besides, in the case of four of these Cities of Refuge which are named in Jos 21"*', it may be .shown either from hi-story or from the names themselves that they were places of worship (Hebron, Shechem, Kadesh, Ramoth [probably identical with Mizpah of Hos 5']).
If the system represented by the Priests' Code is prior to Ezekiel, then the sUence of the latter about the tenth and the firstborn as priestly dues, can be explained only by assuming that these particular ordinances had not obtained practical recognition before Ezekiel's time, and that he
Eurposely passes them over, presumably because e nad doubts as to the possibility of carrying them out. He is silent also as to the tithe-meals of Dt, and the sacrificial meals which, according to Dt, are to be held with the firstborn of cattle and sheep. He must have been acquainted with both these regulations, and has thus not sought to inter- fere with the treatment of the tenth and the firstborn. The old view, as represented in the Jeho- vistie book (Gn 28--), is that the tenth is to be given to the Deity. The same demand is expressly made by the Book of the Covenant (Ex 22-") in the case of the firstborn of cattle and sheep. The arrange- ment in the Priests' Code, in so far as it assigns tithes and firstborn to the servants of the Deity, comes nearer to this view than the common meals of Dt (see Dillmann on Lv 27^). The term ' tenth ' can originally have been applied only to an impost, and not to the material for a sacrificial meal (so also Van Hoonacker, Saccrdore, etc. p. 393). Only in this particular is something secondary to be recognized in the Priests' Code, namely that it assigns the tenth — difl'erently with the firstborn — not, or at least only indirectly, to the pr()])er ser- vants of the Deit}', namely the priests, but in the first instance to the servants of the sanctuary, the Levites.
That the priestly legislation of the Priests' Code (P^) is to be placed prior to Ezekiel, appears to the present writer to result also from the circumstance that it shows no regard to the special conditions of the personnel of the sanctuary at the Return from the Exile. In the early days of the Jewish colony, at all events at the time of Ezra, if not earlier, we find, alongside of the priests, these classes — Levites, singers, and doorkeepers (both these originally distinct from the Levites), and Nethi- nim ; the Priests' Code, on the other hand, knows only the two clas.ses— priests and Levites. The Levites, called in the Priests' Code netki'inim, are evidently intended to replace the foreign Nethinim who are no less disapproved of in the Priests' Code indirectly than they are in the direct polemic of Ezekiel. It may "be seen from the narrative portions of the I5k. of Joshua which belong to the Priestly Writing, that the Latter does not, indeed, mean to set aside the Netliinim entire!}'; for in Jos 9°', which evidently belongs to this source, it is said that the inhabitants of Gibeon and the neighbouring cities were set aside by the princes of Israel to be hewers of wood and drawers of water ' for the congregation.' These serfs are thus looked upon here, not as servants of the temple or the priests, but as servants of the congregation, i.e. the laity. As far as the temple service is con- cerned, their place ir, to be taken by the Levites. But the latter have in this matter, as it would appear, to discharge the functions, not so much of
the Netliinim as of the post-exilic doorkeepers, for tliey are called ' keepers.' — It is difficult to suppose that a legislator, wlio was face to face with the comi)licated relations of the temple personnel in ]>ost-exilic times, should have imagined that he could come to an adjustment with them by simply throwing all non-jiriestly temple-servants, without an)' further argument or justification, ictc a single class.
In particular, upon any theory which makes the Priests' Code exilic or post-exilic, we miss in it that regard we should expect to the former priests of the high places, who, since the centralization of the cultus under Josiah, gave rise to difficulties. Josiah sought to exclude tliem from the Jerusalem cultus, but evidently was unable to set aside their pre- tensions to a share in the priestly service in the temple ; for Ezekiel considered it necessary to announce to them in unambiguous terms that it was God's decree that they should be removed from the priesthood. In Ezra s time only a few of the descendants of the old priests of the high places, those who, in Ezekiel's terminology, are called ' Levites,' had accommodated themselves to the position assigned to them. It is true that the Priests' Code contains a clear trace of a conflict between the Levites and the priests, in the narrative of the rebellion of the Levite Korah against Moses and Aaron. But that the conflict here spoken of has regard to the claims of the deposed priests of the high places is not to be gathered. On the contrary, Korah cannot be the representative of these whilom bdmuth priests, for in the post-exilic period the Korahites belong to the singers or to the door- keepers (1 Ch 6-- O"* al.), and hence ijc/t to the LeWtes in the sense of that term as used by Ezekiel, and in the Memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiali, whose use of the term is fashioned upon Ezekiel's model. Instead of a conflict between former priests of the high places and the old Jerusalem priests, one might see in the narrative about Korah the de- scription of a conflict in the time after Ezra, when the singers were reckoned to the Le\'ites. This is the view of Vogelstein (p. 45 ff. ), who, upon the ground of very precarious combinations, places an attempt of these later Levites to seize the right of ofi'ering incense, in the time of the high priest Johanan I. (the son of Joiada) and the Persian satrap Bagoses, who probably belong to the reign of Artaxerxes II. (B.C. 404-359). But the narrative of Korah's rebellion, i.e. the later account of the Priests' Code abon t this rebel 1 ion ( see above, § 8 d enrf, and cf., further, below), can scarcely be separated from the Priests' Code of Ezra ( P-) and assigned to a later innovation ( P^) ; for then the law of Ezra would merely have contained a narrative giving expression to the priestly prerogatives of the whole tribe of Levi as against the rest of the congrega- tion. But this is not to be supposed, .seeing that the Priests' Code (P-) everywhere insists most dis- tinctly on the priestly rights of the Aaronites alone. This it does, in the opinion of the present writer, not in opposition to claims of non-Jem- salemite priests, which do not come into view with 1*- at all, but rather — and -so also in the story of Korah — in opposition to pretensions put forward by the personnel at the Jerusalem temple who were not counted as belonging to the (Zadokite) priestly family.