9. The Priesthood fuom Ezra to the Chronicler.— After the Pentateuch had, under Ezra, obtained recognition as the lawbook, we find, as could not but have been expected, that the relations of the sanctuary servants were moulded according to the finished system set forth in the Priests' Code. The Deuteronomic views of these relations, not being rounded off into one well - compacted whole, must give place to this system.
Thus, \vith the author of the chronicle written between B.C. 300 and 200, i.e. in the Books of Chronicles and in the redaction by his hand of the Books of Ezra and Neheniiah, we lind the relations of the personnel of the sanctuary, as these had existed in the time of Ezra and Isehcmiah, modi- fied in various points, in order to bring them more into harmony with the requirements of the Priests' Code. The Chronicler tran-^fers the relations ex- isting in his own time without distinction to earlier times, as if everything had been in force in the same way from the time of David down- wards. It is possible, indeed, that his descrip- tions do not in every single point correspond to the actual conditions of his own daj'. It cannot, however, be inferred from this, with Van Hoon- acker, that the Chronicler portraj's the i)re-exilic conditions as these really existed, for this con- clusion is opposed by all that we know from earlier writings. The Chronicler may be assumed to have used for the pre-exilic historj-, at least indirectly if not directly, ancient sources that have not come down to us, but for his account of the condition of the priesthood prior to the Exile ho certainly had no such sources at his disposal. Wherever this account exhibits a deviation from the conditions after the Exile, the Chronicler evidently puts forward, as a rule, not something corresponding to any actual state of things, but only what appeared to him desirable. His de- scriptions tend to glorify the Levites, to whom he everywhere shows regard even more than to the priests. Piobaldy he was himself a Levite, and, in view of his special interest in the tcniiilc singers, ho may have belonged to this group of tlie Levites.
The Chronicler is accjuaintcd with 24 divisions or families of priests, which, after his manner, he carries back to the time of David (1 Ch 24™). Since in the list of these divisions, as it lies before us, the first place is occupied by the family of Joiarib, from which the Hasmono^ans sprang, it may perhaps be inferred that this list was first drawn up in the Hasmomcan period (Schiirer, p. 237, note 44). These 24 juiestly families are referred to, in some instances clearly, in others at least to all appearance, by the
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PEIESTS AND LEVITES
terms mahUMth, • divisions' (1 Ch 24' 28i>- ", 2 Ch 8" [-238?] 31""'); blth 'abSth, 'fathers' houses' (1 Ch 24''- ' al.) ; and mishmarutk, ' watches ' (2 Ch 31'"), tliis last occurring already in Nehemiah (13*' M). According to the Rabbinic tradition, the 24 classes, with which Josephus {Ant. VII. xiv. 7 ; Vita, 1) is acquainted as still existing in his time, are lield to have been in existence from the time of the Exile (Schurer, p. 232 f.). Tliis cannot be quite correct. The list in Neh V"' names only four priestly families (cf. Ezr 10'*"--), and two returned with Ezra (Ezr 8' M). But Neh 12'-'' mentions, for the time of Zerubbabel and Joshua, 22 divisions of priests, and the same, with one omission, are given in Neh 12'^'^' for the time of Joiakim the son of Joshua. Neh lO'-*, on the other hand, names 21 divi- sions, in which, indeed, the names show changes (cf. Ed. Meyer, p. 168 tf.). Those four families in Neh 7 should therefore probably be thought of as falling into subdivisions. The two groups that returned with Ezra do not necessarily represent other two families besides those four ; tney are representatives of the two great branches into which, according to the Priests' Code, the whole body of priests falls, namely Phinehas (or Eleazar) and Ithamar, i.e. Zadokites and non-Zadokites. The heads of the 21 to 24 divisions are spoken of as ra'shim of fathers' houses (Neh 12>2, 1 Ch 24^«), with whom we should probably identify the priest- princes [sdrim) of Ezr 8=<- ^ M, 10», 2 Ch 36'*.
The Chronicler divides the singers likewise into 24 classes (1 Ch 25), and appears to have designed to give in like manner, for the Levites in general, a list of 24 classes, which has certainly not reached us in a correct form in the present text of 1 Ch 23'-^. Since the division of the Levites into 24 classes is witnessed to in the period posterior to the OT (Jos. Ant. VII. xiv. 7 ; cf. Schiirer, p. 242, and, on the other side, Van Hoon- acker, Sacerdoce, etc. p. 41 tt'.), these statements of the Chronicler are probably due to the circum- stance that with him the classes of singers and Levites are practically identical (see below, § 10). Di\-isions of the Levites, without specification of the number of these, are presupposed by the Chronicler in various ways (mahUkuth, 1 Ch 28"- ^' al. ; mifhmdrOth of the Levites [singers] and mammh of the doorkeepers, 2 Ch 8" ; [bUh'i 'abOth of the Levites, 1 Cli 9** al.), and even Nehemiah (IS*' M) speaks of mishmdrith of the Levites. The heads of the divisions of the Levites, like those of the priests, are called by the Chronicler sdrtm (Ezr 10», 1 Ch IS"'- al.) or ra'shim (Neh 12*"-, 1 Ch 9^'- [of the singers and doorkeepers, yy 14-32] (j; ) Xn the Priests' Code nasi' is the designation of the heads of the Levitical fathers' houses (Nu 3°^"-), along with wliicli we find ra'shim used of the heads of the whole tribe of Levi (Ex 6").