The ordinance for the Levites. According to the so-called priest-code, the Levites were Levi's descendants, who were chosen by Jehovah for service in the tabernacle (Numbers 3:6-13; Numbers 16:9), to minister to the priests when these sacrificed in the tabernacle (Numbers 8:19; Numbers 18:6), and in particular to keep the charge of the tabernacle, i.e. of the house and all its vessels (Numbers 1:53), as distinguished from the charge of the sanctuary and of the altar, which pertained to Aaron and his sons alone as priests (Numbers 18:2-6, Numbers 18:23). The Deuteronomic code, says Wellhausen, was unacquainted with any such distinction between Levites and priests, who, it is alleged, composed one homogeneous body, the tribe of Levi, whose members were equally empowered to officiate at the altar (Deuteronomy 10:8), the lower duties of the tabernacle having been performed by the aforesaid strangers, and the subordination of Levites to priests having first been suggested by Ezekiel, and first formally carried out alter the exile. This theory, however, cannot be admitted as made out in face of
The ordinance for the priests. That Ezekiel derived the phrase, the priests the Levites, from Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 17:9; Deuteronomy 18:1; Deuteronomy 24:8; Deuteronomy 27:9) may be granted without admitting that the Levites were all priests, or that the phrase had other import than that the priests were, as the Deuteronomist says, "sons of Levi" (Deuteronomy 21:5; Deuteronomy 31:9). The priesthood, at its institution, having been entrusted to Aaron and his sons (Exodus 27:20, Exodus 27:21; Exodus 28:1-4; Exodus 29:9, Exodus 29:44; Numbers 3:10; Numbers 16:40; Numbers 18:7; Numbers 25:13), on Aaron's death the high priesthood passed into the hands of Eleazar, his eldest (living) son (Numbers 20:26-28), and after Eleazar's death into those of Phinehas, his eldest son (Numbers 25:11-13). In the last days of the judges, when the ark and tabernacle stood at Shiloh? The high priesthood belonged to Eli, of the line of Ithamar, in which line it continued till the reign of David, when it was held conjointly by Abiathar (called also Ahimelech) of the line of Ithamar, and Zadok of the line of Eleazar (2 Samuel 8:17; 2 Samuel 20:25; 1 Kings 4:4). This arrangement, however, Solomon eventually overturned, by deposing the former for espousing Adonijah's pretensions to the throne (1 Kings 1:7; 1 Kings 2:26), and from that time forward till the exile the high priesthood remained with Zadok and his sons (1 Kings 2:35; 1 Chronicles 29:22). When, therefore, it is announced to Ezekiel that his vision-sanctuary should have as priests the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of Jehovah's sanctuary, when the children of Israel went astray from him; the first question that arises is—To what does this allude? Kliefoth holds it cannot mean that, while Israel as a whole declined into idolatry, the Zadokite priests remained faithful to the worship of Jehovah, because the vision of Judah's idolatries granted to the prophet, in Ezekiel 8:16, revealed quite clearly that the priesthood was as much caught in the national apostasy as were the princes or the people. Nor is the language of the text perfectly satisfied by the view of Havernick, Keil, Delitzsch, and others, that it goes beck to Zadok's fidelity to the throne of David at the time of Absalom's rebellion (2 Samuel 15:24-29), a fidelity exhibited also by Abiathar, or to his adherence to Solomon in preference to Adonijah (1 Kings 1:8, 1 Kings 1:39), this time without Abiathar's concurrence, rather in the face of his opposition. In neither of these instances was Zadok's fidelity specially directed towards Jehovah's sanctuary, but concerned expressly and exclusively David's throne. Hence the commendation of the Zadokites' fidelity can only signify that, while the priesthood as a body were corrupt like the people, there were among them, as among the people, some who, like Ezekiel, continued steadfast to Jehovah's sanctuary; that these faithful few were Zadokites (see Ezekiel 48:11), and that to these should be entrusted the priesthood in the new sanctuary. But, at this point, a second question starts—Was it intended to declare that the new priesthood should be Zadokites in body, i.e. in respect of lineal descent, or only in soul, i.e. in respect of moral and religious excellence? The former is contended by Kuenen, Wellhausen, Smend, and others, who see in the vision-sanctuary a plan of the second, or post-exilic, temple, and in its ordinances a program for the establishment of the Levitical hierarchy; but this contention shatters itself on the fact that no proof exists either that the second temple was constructed after Ezekiel's as a model, or that those who served in it were exclusively flesh and blood Zadokites. The latter opinion, favored by Kliefoth, appears the more correct, that moral and spiritual resemblance to the sons of Zadok should form the first qualification for the priesthood in this ideal sanctuary of the future (see note at the end of Ezekiel 48:1-35.).