CHAPTER V.

OF THE HIGH-PRIESTS, PRIESTS, LEVITES, AND

NETHINIMS.

WITH respect to the priests, we propose to inquire, 1st. What sort. of officers in the Hebrew commonwealth they were: and,

2dly. To whom it appertained to execute that office.

Our first inquiry is, what sort of officers the priestswere, who are called in the Hebrew on cohanim. The reason of this inquiry is, because we find in Scripture the title cohanim applied to the officers of state, as well as to the ministers of the sanctuary. Thus, in the Second Book of Samuel, David's sons are said to have been cohanim; 2 Sam. viii. 18. That they were not ministers of the sanctuary is certain, because they were of the tribe of Judah, not of Levi, to which tribe the ecclesiastical ministry was by the law expressly limited. Their being called cohanim, therefore, can mean no other than as our translators render the word, chief rulers, or principal officers of state. And so, indeed, this title seems to be explained in the parallel place in Chronicles, where the

-harish הראשנים ליד המלך sons of David_are said to have been

onim lejadh hammelek, primi ad manum regis, “chief about the king;" 1 Chron. xviii. 17. Thus also Ira, the Jairite, is called 77 cohèn lè-David, which our translators render, "chief ruler about David;" 2 Sam. xx. 26. But more commonly the title cohanim is given to the minister of the sanctuary, who offered sacrifices, and other ways officiated in the public worship. Hence arises that uncertainty, whether Potipherah and Jethro, the former the father-in-law of Joseph, the latter of Moses, were ecclesiastical or civil persons; which our translators have expressed by calling them priests in the text, and prince in the margin: Gen. xli. 45; Exod. ii. 16. The true reason of the different application of the word

K

cohanim seems to be, that in the primary sense it imports those that minister to a king. They who were 7 lejadh hammelek, about the king, or his ministers, were called his

cohanim. And therefore, as God is a king, he had his cohanim as well as earthly monarchs, or such as attended on his special presence in the sanctuary, and ministered in the sacred service. Accordingly, having taken upon himself the character of the king of Israel, he commanded Moses to consecrate Aaron and his sons, lecahèn li, Exod. xxx. 30,

to be his cohanim. Accordingly, God's cohanim are said to come near unto the Lord (Exod. xix. 22; Numb. xvi. 5), as the ministers of state come near to a king, and attend in his presence.

It has been made a question, in which sense we are to understand the word cohèn in the following passage of the Psalmist: "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek;" Psalm cx. 4. Many of the later rabbies, who think David is the person there spoken of, understand by cohèn, a king, in the civil and political, since it is certain David was not a cohèn in the ecclesiastical, sense.* But in this they are undoubtedly mistaken; for not only is it certain from several quotations, in the New Testament, of the Psalm, wherein this passage is contained, that it relates to Christ;+ but the word cohèn is no where used to signify a king, but always one that ministers to a king. Melchizedek, it is true, was a king in Salem; nevertheless it was on account of another office which he executed, that he is called a cohèn, Gen. xiv. 18; namely, as he ministered in sacris, or in the solemnities of divine worship. He was a king over men, but at the same time a cohèn to the most high God. Of these sacred or ecclesiastical cohamin, we propose to discourse, and proceed to inquire,

2dly. To whom it appertained to execute the office of an ecclesiastical cohèn, or priest, especially in offering sacrifices.

In order to resolve this question, it will be necessary to distinguish the sacred rites into private, domestic, and public. It is supposed, that in the most ancient times every private

* R. David Kimchi in loc.

And so it is understood by the ancient rabbies. See Owen on the Hebrews, vol. i. exercitat. ix. sect. xxvi.

person was allowed to offer sacrifices for himself. When Cain and Abel brought each of them an offering to the Lord, there is no mention of any priest officiating for them, though it does not appear that either of them sustained any public character, or had been consecrated to the sacerdotal office; see Gen. iv. The talmudists, indeed, are of opinion, that they brought their sacrifices to Adam, that he might offer them on their behalf; but of this there is not the least hint in the sacred history. When a sacrifice was offered, or rather sacred rites were performed for a family, it seems to have been done by the head of it; thus Noah sacrificed for himself and family, Gen. viii. 20; and likewise Jacob, Gen. xxxv. 3. Job"offered burnt-offerings for his daughters and his sons, according to the number of them all;" chap. i. 5. It has been commonly supposed, rather than proved, that the priest's office was hereditary in every family, descending from the father to the eldest son. When, in process of time, several families were combined into nations and bodies politic, the king, as head of the community, officiated as priest for the whole. Thus Melchizedek was both king and priest in Salem; and Moses, as king in Jeshurun (which is another name for Israel), officiated as priest in the solemn national sacrifice offered on occasion of Israel's entering into covenant with God at Horeb. Moses sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice upon the altar, and upon the people; Exod. xxiv. 6. 8.

Indeed, the sacrifices are said to have been offered by "young men of the children of Israel, whom Moses sent or appointed," ver. 5: that is, says the Targum of Onkelos, by the first-born of the sons of Israel, who were the priests and sacrificers, till the Levites, being appointed instead of them, had the priesthood settled in their tribe. The Arabic and Persic versions favour this opinion. However, it is to be observed, that Dy nangnarim, which we render young men, does not always signify those who are young in years, but those who are fit for service; and accordingly it is applied to ministers, or servants of any kind: Gen. xiv. 24; xxii. 3; 2 Sam. xviii. 15; 1 Kings xx. 14. There is no necessity, therefore, that we should understand by the Dy nangnarim, whom Moses sent to offer burnt-offerings, and to sacrifice * Vid. Heidegger. Histor. Patriarch. tom. i. exercitat. v. p. 177.

peace-offerings, proper priests, consecrated to that office; for they might be only servants, employed to kill and prepare the sacrifices, while he, as priest, sprinkled the blood of them on the altar, and on the people. Moses is, therefore, by the Psalmist, called a priest: "Moses and Aaron among his priests;" Psalm xcix. 6.

But when God made a more perfect settlement of their constitution, and gave them his law at Sinai, he allotted the public sacerdotal office to Aaron and his sons, and entailed it on their posterity; and though the whole tribe of Levi, to which Aaron belonged, was appointed to the service of the sanctuary, namely, to perform the lower offices relating to the public worship, yet it was now made a capital crime for any, besides Aaron, and his sons and descendants, to officiate as priests, in the more solemn acts of offering sacrifices, burning incense, and blessing the people. Insomuch that when Korah and his companions (though Korah was of the tribe of Levi) attempted to invade the priest's office, Numb. xvi. 10, God executed his vengeance upon them in a very remarkable manner, as a warning to all others, ver. 31-33, and confirmed the priesthood anew to Aaron and his family by the miraculous sign of the budding of his rod; chap. xvii. It was now no more lawful for the king, than for the meanest of the people, to officiate in the priest's office. This is evident from the remonstrance which Azariah and his companions made to king Uzziah, when he "went into the temple of the Lord, to burn incense upon the altar of incense" (perhaps out of a vain ambition of imitating the heathen kings, who in many places executed the priesthood, and that he might in all respects appear as great as they); and from the judgment which God inflicted upon him for it; 2 Chron. xxvi. 16. 21.

Here a considerable difficulty arises, in that after the giving of the law (by which the priesthood was limited to Aaron's family), we have an account of several kings, judges, and prophets, taking upon them to officiate as priests, sacrificing and blessing the people, who yet were not of the family of Aaron, nor of the tribe of Levi, without any censure passed upon them; nay, it should seem, with the divine approbation. Samuel, who was of the tribe of Ephraim, was waited for, that, according to his custom, he might bless the sacrifice,

1 Sam. ix. 13. And, on another occasion, he "offered a lamb for a burnt-offering to the Lord;" 1 Sam. vii. 9. Both which acts did properly belong to the priest. King Saul offered a burnt-offering, 1 Sam. xiii. 9; and David offered "burnt-offerings and peace-offerings before the Lord, and blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts ;" 2 Sam. vi. 17, 18. Solomon, likewise, blessed the people, as well as prayed in the public congregations, at the dedication of the temple; 1 Kings vii. 54. And the prophet Elijah sacrificed a bullock; 1 Kings xviii. 30.

The common solution of this difficulty is, that these kings and prophets caused the priests to perform the sacrifices for them, and are said to do what was done by their order. But this sense of the expressions used on these occasions, is too forced to be easily admitted. What Elijah is said to have done, in particular, in the forecited passage, seems evidently to have been done by himself; and cannot, without great force upon the words, be understood of any other person's doing it for him. The difficulty, therefore, is perhaps better solved by supposing, that when these persons acted as priests, they did it not, as being heads of the people, but as being prophets, and under the special direction of the Spirit of God, who had, no doubt, a right to dispense with his own laws, and sometimes did, on extraordinary occasions. Some, on this principle, interpret the words of Samuel to Saul; "The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy; then do thou as occasion shall serve thee, for God is with thee," 1 Sam. x. 6, 7; that is, according to them, when thou art thus endowed with the Spirit, thou mayest follow his directions upon all emergencies, without regarding the letter of the law. Though this will not excuse his sacrificing, because from his own account it appears, that he did not do it by special divine direction, but contrary to his judgment; he "forced himself to it," according to his own expression, "and did it out of fear;" 1 Sam. xiii. 11, 12.

With respect to the different orders and ranks of priests, and of other ministers about the Jewish temple-service, Godwin saith, they were three, Priests, Levites, and Nethinims; and he adds, they may be paralleled with ministers, deacons, and subdeacons in the primitive church; and over them the