In the position of the high priest no essential change can be traced since the time of Ezra. The very first of the post-exilic high priests assumed the place claimea for liim in the Priests' Code. Nehemiah (3'- *• M, 13^ M) and the Clironicler give to the high priest the title of ha-kohen ha- gadul (2 Ch 34"), the Chronicler has also the older title [ha-'\ kohcn hn-ro'sh (Ezr 7», 2 Ch 19" a/.). In addition, the Clironicler employs the designa- tion, not found in the Pentateuch, ' prince [nagitl] of the house of God' (1 Ch 9" al.; cf. 'prince of Aaron,' 1 Ch 27'°'), which marks the later time when the high priest was at the same time the head of the political community. Usually, how- ever, the Chronicler (1 Ch 16*'), as well as Nehe- miah (Neh 13* M), calls the high priest simply ' the priest,' as is likewise done frequently in the Priests' Code.
By the Chronicler, as in the Priests' Code, the priests recognized are tlie Aaronites, including; both the Eleazarites and the Ithamarites (1 Ch 24™- al.). The equalizing of the latter with the Zadokites {i.e. Eleazarites), which as a necessary concession to the system of the Priests' Code appears to have been first recognized under Ezra (Ezr 8^ il), has thus become permanent.
A ditlerence, as compared with the conditions in the time of Ezra, reveals itself with the Clironicler only in regard to the inferior personnel of the temple, and in some points concerning the relatioE of tliis to the priests. A distinction between Levites on the one hand and singers and door- keepers on the other, such as we noted (see above, § 7) in the time of Ezra, is no longer made. The written source in which the Chronicler would appear to have found at the same time the Memoirs of Ezra and those of Nehemiah, appears to have still made this distinction, seeing that even outside the Memoir passages in the Bks. of Ezr and Neh the singers are only very occasionallj', and the doorkeepers not at all, reckoned to one comprehensive class, the Levites {Gesch. p. 143 f.). On the other hand, for the Chronicler singers and doorkeepers are subdivisions of the one class, the Levites (1 Ch G'S"- [note v.^-] 9=" al., see Gesch. p. 151 fl.). C. C. Ton-ey (The Cotnposiiion and Historical Value of Ezya-Nehcmiah, Giessen, 1896, p. 22 f.) is decidedly wrong when he denies the existence of a dilierence in this respect between the Chronicler and the older portions of the Bks. of Ezi-a and Nehemiah (see above, § 7). Still less, in view of the material evidence tliat exists, can it be held, with Koberle and Van Hoonacker {Sater- dace, etc. p. 49, cf. 70), that the reckoning of the singers and doorkeepers to the Levites, as we find done by the Chronic-ler in the Bks. of Chronicles themselves and in his working over of the sources of Ezr and Neh, is presupposed by Ezra and Nehe- miah as existin", and rests even upon a pre-exilic application of the name ' Levites ' to those classes of sanctuary servants. On the contrary, the application of the name 'Levite' even to the smgers and doorkeepers is plainly introduced through the influence of the Priests Code, which knows of only the one class besides the priests, namely the Levites. The Nethinim, who under Ezra were received into tlie community (Neh 10-'), appear to have disappeared at the time of the Clironicler, who mentions them only once, namely at the time of the founding of the first post-exilic community (1 Ch 9-). \\'hetlier they were re- moved from the service of the sanctuary or by a genealogical device were absorbed among the Levites can scarcely be determined, but even here the influence of the Priests' Coile is unmistakable.
For the priests tlie Chronicler sometimes uses the expression, which is somewhat strange for him, ha-kohdnim ha-lcwiyyim. It is not, indeed, quite certain that he actually uses it, for the copulative waw may easily have dropped out between the two appellations just quoted, and the readings of the M.SS vacillate (Gesch. p. 15411'.). But there is an a priori probability in favour of the reading with- out VMW, for this form of expression is just what does not correspond with the ordinary usage of later times, and in any case in 2 Ch 3^, where it is said of the ' Levite priests ' that they blessed the people, this reading is undoubtedly correct, since blessing is the function of the priests ex- clusively. In this instance, by way of exception, the terminology of Dt has again forced itself to the front, aa in like manner the desijjnation ' Levites ' is also occasionally still used Iby the Chronicler in a -nnder sense so as to include tlia priests (Gesch. p. 136). In the employment of the title ' Levite priests ' we may find an approxima-
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tion of the position of the Levites to tliut of the priests, whicli would liave to be viewed iis a con- cession to tlie pretensions of those whom Ezekiel and Ezra called Levites, namely the descendants of the deposed priests of the high places.
Snch a raisin" of the dignity of the Levites Would not be witliout analo^es in Chronicles. In point of fact they have in these books a more iiriest-like standing. This is shown, in particular, 1)V the -services they have to render at the ollering ol the burnt-oU'ering on the Sabbaths, and at the new moons and gieat festivals (1 Ch 23^'), and by their (in an exceptional way) helping the priests to Hay the victims on the occasion of extraordinary oMerings for the whole people (2 Ch 29**). From the latter passage it may be inferred that the service of the Levites at the ottering of the burntotlering also on holy days consisted in the Haying, and, it may be, in accordance with Ezekiel's enactment, the slaying of the victims. At all events, in Chronicles it is the Levites who undertake the killing and flayin" of tlie Paschal lambs, h.and to tlie priests the blood for sprinklinj; (2 Ch Su'""- 35«. lui.)^ ,^[,j attend to the roasting of the Paschal ottering (2 Ch .S5'^') ; whereas in the Priests' Code it is the head of the house who kills and roasts the Paschal lamb (E.x I2«f- ; Gesch. p. 163). On the other hand, in 2 Ch 29=2- « it is the priests who slay the sacriUces, probably because we nave here to do with e.xtraordinary sacrilices for the whole people. By tlie ' Kohathite Levites' who prepare the shew- bread (1 Ch 9^-), the Chronicler appears to mean not the Aaronites (who, to be sure, belonged to the Kohathites), to whom alone that duty falls in the Priests' Code (but cf. Gesch. p. 161 f.). While, further, in the Priests' Code the duty of teadiing belongs only to the priests, this duty, particularly that of instructing in the tordh, is assigned in Neh 8'-» (cf. v."), 2 Ch 17»'- 35' also to the Levites {Gesch. p. 163f.). The more priest-like jjosition of • he Levites ttnds quite peculiar expression in the tact that in Chronicles not only the priests, as in the Priests' Code, but also the Levites are called holy (2 Ch 23" 35'; cf., further, Ezr 8-» M, where already the Levites seem to be included [with the priests] in the ' Ye are holy to Jahweh ').