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Thus there was connected with the building of the temple by Solomon, not only the reunion of the families of the tribe of Levi – if these even previously had formed a separate tribe; – by means of adoption from all the families which for generations had been dedicated to the sacred rites, the formation and separation of the priestly order became perfect.³⁶⁷ At first, without any independent position, this order was dependent on the protection of the monarchy, which built the temple for it, and the importance of the priests was increased with the splendour of the worship. At the head of the new order stood the priests of the ark of Jehovah, who had already, in earlier times, maintained a pre-eminent position, which was now increased considerably by the reform in the worship. But they also were dependent on the court, though they soon came to exercise a certain influence upon it. As David had made Zadok and Abiathar high priests, so Solomon removed Abiathar and transferred the highest priestly office to Zadok, of the branch of Eleazar. Far more important than the position of the priesthood at the court was the feeling and consciousness of the mission given to them, of the duties and rights, to which the priesthood attained when combined in the new society. As they were at pains to practise a worship pleasing to Jehovah, they succeeded even before Solomon in discovering an established connection between the past and the present of the nation, in recognising the covenant which Jehovah had made with his people. From isolated records, traditions, and old customs they collected the law of ritual in the manner which they considered as established from antiquity, the observation of which was, from their point of view, the maintenance of the covenant into which Israel had entered with his God. This was the light in which, even in David's time, the fortunes of Israel appeared to the priests, and from this point of view they were recorded in the first decade of David's reign. The order which the priests required for the worship, its unity, centralisation and adornment, the exact obedience to the ritual which was considered by them true and pleasing to God, the position which the priesthood had now obtained, or claimed, appeared to them as already ordained and current in the time when Jehovah saved his people with a mighty arm, and led them from Egypt to Canaan. They had been thrust into the background and forgotten, owing to the guilt and backsliding of later times. Now the time was come to establish in power the true and ancient ordinances of Moses in real earnest, and to restore them. It was of striking ethical importance, that by these views the present was placed in near relation and the closest combination with a sublime antiquity, with the foundation of the religious ordinances. The impulse to religious feeling which arose out of these views and efforts found expression in a lyrical poetry of penetrating force. David had not only attempted simple songs, but also, as we have seen, more extended invocations of Jehovah; and the skilled musical accompaniment which now came to the aid of religious song in the families of the musicians, must have contributed to still greater elevation and choice of expression. The intensity of religious feeling and its expression in sacred songs must also have come into contact more especially with that impulse which had hitherto been represented in the seers and prophets, who believed that they apprehended the will of Jehovah in their own breasts, and, in consequence of their favoured relation to him, understood his commands by virtue of internal illumination. All these impulses operated beyond the priestly order. In union with the lofty spiritual activity of the people, they led, in the first instance, to the result that in the last years of Solomon the annalistic account of the fortunes of the people and the record of the law was accompanied by a narrative of greater liveliness, of a deeper and clearer view of the divine and human nature (I. 386), which at the same time, in the fate of Joseph, gave especial prominence to the newly-obtained knowledge of Egyptian life, the service rendered by the daughter of the king of Egypt to the great leader of Israel in the ancient times, the blessing derived from the friendly relations of Israel and Egypt, and the distress brought upon Egypt by the breach with Israel.

CHAPTER IX
THE LAW OF THE PRIESTS

Out of the peculiar relation in which Israel stood from all antiquity to his God, out of the protection and prosperity which he had granted to the patriarchs and their seed, out of the liberation from the oppression of the Egyptians, which Jehovah had prepared for the Israelites with a strong arm, out of the bestowal of Canaan, i. e. the promise of Jehovah to conquer the land, which the Israelites had now possessed for centuries, there grew up in the circles of the priests, from about the time of Samuel, the idea of the covenant which Jehovah had made with the patriarchs, and through them with Israel. Jehovah had assured Israel of his protection and blessing; on the other hand, Israel had undertaken to serve him, to obey his commands, and do his will. If Israel lives according to the command of Jehovah, the blessing of his God will certainly be his in the future also; the reward of true service will not and cannot be withheld from him. The will of Jehovah which Israel has to obey, the law of Jehovah which he has to fulfil, was contained in the moral precepts, the rules of law, and rubrics for purification and sacrifice, the writing down of which in the frame-work of a brief account of the fortunes of the fathers, the slavery in Egypt, the liberation and the conquest of Canaan, on the basis of older sketches of separate parts, was brought to a conclusion at Hebron, in the priestly families of the tribe of Aaron, about the first decade of David's reign (I. 385). In this writing were laid down the views held by the priesthood on the life pleasing to God, on the past of the nation and the priests, and of the correct mode of worship. It was the ideal picture of conduct in morals, law and worship which the priests strove after, which must in any case have existed in that great period when Jehovah spoke to the Israelites by the mouth of Moses. And, as a fact, the foundations of the moral law, the fundamental rules of law and customs of sacrifice, as we found above (I. 484), do go back to that time of powerful movement of the national feeling, of lofty exaltation of religious emotion against the dreary polytheism of Egypt.

It is doubtful, whether the families of the priests and sacrificial servants who traced back their lineage to Levi, the son of Jacob (p. 197), and were now united by David and Solomon for service at the sacred tabernacle, for sacrifice and attendance at the temple, had of antiquity formed a separate tribe, which afterwards became dispersed (I. 488), – or if this tribe first was united under the impression made by the idea of true priesthood, which those writings denoted as an example and pattern, and under the influence of the change introduced by the foundation of a central-point for the worship of Israel in the tabernacle of David, and then in the temple of Solomon, for the priestly families scattered through the land, by means of a gradual union of the priestly families; at all events, a position at least equal in dignity to the rest of the tribes ought to be found for the tribe of Levi, which knew the will and law of Jehovah, and the correct mode of sacrifice. It was not indeed possible in Israel to give the first and most ancient place to the tribe of the priests, as has been done in other nations where a division of orders has crystallised into hereditary tribes. In the memory of the nation Reuben was the first-born tribe, i. e. the complex of the oldest families, the oldest element of the nation, and the importance of the tribes derived from Joseph and the tribe of Judah in and after the conquest of Canaan was so firmly fixed that the tribe of Levi could not hope to contend with them successfully in the question of antiquity. But what was wanting in rank of derivation could be made up by special blessings given by Jehovah, and by peculiar sanctity. According to an old conception the first-born male belonged to Jehovah. In the sketch of the fortunes of Israel and of the law, Jehovah says to Moses, he will accept the tribe of Levi in place of the first-born males of the people. The number of the first-born males of one month old of all the other tribes was taken – they reached 22,373; the number of all the men and boys down to the age of one month in the tribe of Levi was 22,000. These 22,000 Levites Jehovah took in the place of the first-born of the people, and the remaining 373 were ransomed from Jehovah at the price of five shekels of silver for each person.³⁶⁸ Thus the Levites were raised by Jehovah to be the first-born tribe of Israel. Levi was the tribe which Jehovah had selected for his service, the chosen tribe of a chosen nation. Moses and Aaron were of this tribe, and if, instead of a few families who stood beside Moses when he led Israel out of Egypt, and restored the worship of the tribal deity, the whole tribe of Levi was represented as active in his behalf, and as a supporter of Moses, the consecration of age was not wanting to this tribe, and reverence was naturally paid to it in return for such ancient services.

The Levites were not to busy themselves with care for their maintenance, they were not to work for hire, or possess any property; they were to occupy themselves exclusively with their sacred duties. Instead of inheritance Jehovah was to be their heritage.³⁶⁹ It is true that the plan for the maintenance of the tribe of Levi, sketched in the first text on the occasion of the division of Canaan, the 48 cities allotted to them in the lands of the other twelve tribes (13 for the priests and 35 for the assistant Levites³⁷⁰), could never be carried out; yet claims might be founded on it. Moreover, the necessary means for support were supplied in other ways. The firstlings of corn, fruits, the vintage, the olive tree, were offered by being laid on the altar. No inconsiderable portion of other offerings was presented in the same manner. All these gifts could be applied by the priests to their own purposes.³⁷¹ But by far the most fruitful source of income for the priesthood was the tithe of the produce of the fields, which was offered according to an ancient custom to Jehovah as his share of the harvest. The law required that a tenth of corn, and wine, and oils, and of all other fruits, and the tenth head of all new-born domestic animals, should be given to the priests.³⁷² The statements of the prophets and the evidence of the historical books prove that the tithes were offered as a rule, though not invariably. As the Levites who were not priests had no share in the sacrifices, the law provided that the tithe should go to them, but the Levites were in turn to restore a tenth part of these tithes to the priests. Finally, the law required that a portion of the booty taken in war should go to the Levites; that in all numberings of the people and levies each person should pay a sum to the temple for the ransom of his life.³⁷³

Only the descendants of Aaron could take part in the most important parts of the ceremonial of sacrifice. From his twenty-fifth or thirtieth year to his fiftieth every Levite was subject to the temple service.³⁷⁴ The law prescribed a formal dedication, with purifications, expiations, sacrifices, and symbolical actions for the exercise of the lower as well as the higher priesthood, for the offering of sacrifice and the sprinkling of the blood as well as for the due performance of the door-keeping. At the dedication of a priest these ceremonies lasted for seven days, but the chief import of the ritual was to denote the future priest himself as a sacrifice offered to Jehovah. Only those might be dedicated who were free from any bodily blemish. "A blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or anything superfluous, or a man that is broken-footed, or broken-handed, or crook-backt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken shall not come nigh to offer the offering of the Lord made by fire."³⁷⁵

No priest was to make baldness on his head or shave off the corners of his beard, or make any cuttings in his flesh;³⁷⁶ before the sacrifice he might not take wine or any intoxicating drink; he was required to devote himself to especial purity and cleanliness, and observe in a stricter degree the laws concerning food; he might not marry a widow or a woman divorced from her husband, still less a harlot; he was to avoid most carefully any contact with a corpse: only in the case of his nearest relatives was this defilement allowed. The clothing of the priests was definitely prescribed. He must wear a robe of white linen (byssus), woven in one piece; and this robe was held together by a girdle of three colours, red, blue and white. The priest also wore a band of white linen round his head, and trousers of white linen in order that he might not discover his nakedness when he ascended the steps of the altar.³⁷⁷

The foremost place among the consecrated priests was occupied by the high priest. He alone had the right to enter the inner space of the sanctuary, the cell in which stood the ark of the covenant – the other priests could enter the outer space only; he alone could offer sacrifice in the name of the whole people, he alone could announce the will and oracle of Jehovah, and consecrate the priests. The ritual for the high priest was most strict. In the belief of the Hebrews the most accurate knowledge and the most careful circumspection was needed in order to offer an effective sacrifice and avoid arousing the anger of Jehovah by some omission in the rite, and if the law required of all priests that they should devote themselves to especial purity and holiness, this demand was made with peculiar severity upon the high priest. He might marry only with a pure virgin of the stock of his kindred; he must keep himself so far from all defilement that he might not touch the corpse even of his father and his mother; he might not, on any occasion, rend his garments in sorrow. The distinguishing garb of the high priest was a robe of blue linen, which on the edge was adorned with pomegranates and bells; the bells were intended, as the law says, to announce the coming of the priest to the God who dwelt in the shrine of the temple, that the priest might not die.³⁷⁸ Over this robe the high priest wore a short wrapper, the so-called ephod or shoulder-garment, and on his breast in front the tablet with the holy Urim and Thummim, by means of which he inquired of Jehovah, if the king or any one from the people asked for an oracle. The other priests also, at least in more ancient times, wore the ephod with the Urim and Thummim; but the ephod of the high priest was fastened on the shoulders by two precious stones, and the front side of his breastplate was made of twelve precious stones set in gold, on which were engraved the names of the twelve tribes. The head-band of the high priest was distinguished from that of the other priests by a plate of gold bearing the inscription, "Holy is Jehovah;" he might not even uncover his head.³⁷⁹

The mode of worship was regulated by the law in a systematic manner. Beside the Sabbath, on keeping which the law laid special stress, and regarded it as a symbol of the relation of Israel to Jehovah, the Israelites celebrated feasts at the new moon and the full moon,³⁸⁰ and held three great national festivals in the year. These festivals marked in the first instance certain divisions of the natural year. Yet the first, the festival of spring, had from ancient times a peculiar religious significance. It has been remarked above that at the spring festival not only were the firstlings of the harvest, the first ears of corn, offered to the tribal God, but that also, as at the beginning of a new season of fertility, a sin offering, the vicarious sacrifice of a lamb, was made for the first-born which were not offered. The spring festival was also the festival of the sparing of the first-born, the Passah or passover of Jehovah (I. 414). The priestly ordinance, which sought to give a definite historical cause for the customs of the festival, and to mark the favours which Jehovah had granted to his people, connects the old usages of this festival with the exodus from Egypt, and we have already seen how from this point of view old ceremonies of this festival were transformed, and new ones were added (I. 445). As the spring festival was kept in the first month of the Hebrew year, Nisan (March-April) (it began on the evening of the day after the new moon, at the rise of the full moon, when the sun is in the Ram), the exodus from Egypt was supposed to have taken place on the morning which followed this night. The Passah continued for seven days, in which, from the morning of the second day to the evening of the seventh, only unleavened bread could be eaten, i. e. the firstlings of the corn in their original form, and no business could be carried on. On each of the seven days of the feast, according to the law, two young bulls, a ram and seven yearling lambs were offered as a burnt offering for Israel in the temple, and besides these a goat, as a sin offering. The neglect of the festival, the eating of leavened bread on any of the days, was threatened by the law with extirpation from the community.³⁸¹ As the greater number of the tribes attained to a settled life and agriculture, the feast of the ripe fruits or harvest naturally rose to importance beside this festival of the earliest fruits. Seven full weeks after the commencement of the Passah, or six weeks after the end of it, the feast of new bread was celebrated. The sheaves were brought, the corn trodden out, the first new meal prepared. According to the law, each house in Israel, i. e., no doubt, each which possessed land and flocks, had to bring two leavened firstling loaves of new wheaten meal and two yearling lambs as a thank offering. Before these were offered no one could eat bread made from the new corn.³⁸² The festival of autumn, which took place in the seventh month of the Hebrew year (September – October), from the fourteenth to the twenty-first day of the month, was merrier and of longer duration. It was the festival of the completion of the in-gathering, and of the vintage, and consequently can hardly go back beyond the time of the settlement in Canaan.³⁸³ It was customary to erect arbours of palm leaves, willows, and oak branches, as was indeed necessary at a time when men were occupied in remote orchards and vineyards, and in these the feast was kept, unless it was preferred to keep it at some important place of sacrifice, in order to offer the thank offering there,³⁸⁴ and in this case those who came to the feast also passed the day in tents or arbours. Like the feast of spring, the feast of tabernacles continued for seven days. According to the law, Israel was to offer 70 bulls, 14 rams, and seven times 14 lambs at this festival as a burnt offering. To this feast also a historical meaning was given; the tabernacles were erected to remind Israel of the fact that he had once dwelt in tents in the wilderness.

At these three festivals, "thrice in the year, all the males of Israel must appear before Jehovah."³⁸⁵ Such was the law of the priests. It was the intention of the priests that the three great festivals should be celebrated at the dwelling of Jehovah, i. e. at the tabernacle, and afterwards at the temple; hence at the great festivals the Israelites were to go to Jerusalem. But the strict carrying out of such a common celebration was opposed to the character of the festivals themselves. We saw that even when the sacred ark still stood at Shiloh, pilgrimages were made thither once a year at the festival of Jehovah. After the erection of the tabernacle and the temple this, no doubt, took place more frequently, and the numbers were greater. Yet the object of the priests could not be completely realised. The paschal festival was the redemption of the separate house, of each individual family. This meaning and object was very definitely stamped on the ritual. In a similar manner, the feast of the beginning of harvest and of the first fruits required celebration at home, on the plot of land, and this was still more the case with the festival of thanksgiving for the completed harvest.

Before the people rejoiced in the blessing of the completed harvest at the feast of tabernacles, all misdeeds which might have defiled the year to that time must be cancelled and removed by a special sacrifice. For this object the law on this occasion made a requirement never demanded at any other time. From the evening of the ninth to the evening of the tenth day there was not only a cessation of business, but a strict fast was kept. Every man among the people must subject himself to this regulation, and he who transgressed it was threatened with the loss of his life.³⁸⁶ The high priest had first to cleanse himself and the other priests, and then the dwelling of Jehovah; for even the sanctuary might be defiled by the inadvertence of the priests. When the high priest had bathed he must clothe himself in a coat and trousers of white linen, with a girdle and head-band of the same material, and offer a young bull as a sin offering. Bearing a vessel filled with the blood of this victim, and with the censer from the altar of incense in the interior of the sanctuary, which contained burning coals and frankincense, the high priest went alone into the holy of holies, behind the curtain before the ark of the covenant. Immediately on his entrance the clouds arising from the censer must fill the chamber, that the priest might not see the face of Jehovah over the cherubs and die. Then the high priest sprinkled the blood from the vessel seven times towards the ark, and when thus cleansed he turned back to the court of the sanctuary, in which two goats stood ready for sacrifice. He cast lots which of the two should be sacrificed to Jehovah and which to Azazel, the evil spirit of the desert. When the lot was cast, the high priest laid his hand on the head of the goat assigned to Azazel, confessed all the sins and transgressions of Israel on this goat, and laid them on his head, in order that he might carry them into the desert-land into which the goat was driven from the sanctuary. Then the high priest slew the other goat assigned to Jehovah, and, returning into the holy of holies, sprinkled with his blood the ark of the covenant for the second time, in order to purify the people. When the altar of incense, in the outer part of the sanctuary, had been sprinkled in a similar manner, the high priest declared that Jehovah was appeased. After a second bath he put on his usual robes, and offered three rams as burnt offerings for himself, the priesthood, and the nation.³⁸⁷

All sacrifices were to be offered at the tabernacle, "before the dwelling of Jehovah;" and afterwards in like manner in the temple. The law of the priests threatened any one with death who sacrificed elsewhere.³⁸⁸ The most essential regulations for the offering of sacrifice are perhaps the following: – Any one who intended to bring an offering must purify himself for several days. Wild animals could not be offered. In the Hebrew conception the sacrifice is the surrender of a part of a man's possessions and enjoyments. Hence only domestic offerings could be offered, because only these are really property. Cattle, sheep, and goats were the animals appointed for sacrifice. The poorer people were also allowed to offer doves. Each victim must be without blemish and healthy, and it must not be weakened and desecrated by labour. Before the animal was killed the sacrificer laid his hand on its head for a time; then he who offered the sacrifice, whether priest or layman, slew the victim, but only the priest could receive the warm blood in the sacrificial vessel. With this vessel in his hand the priest went round the altar and sprinkled the feet, the corners, and the sides of it with the blood of the victim. In the Hebrew conception the life of the victim was in its blood, and thus the sprinklings which were to be made with it form the most important part of the holy ceremony. From ancient times the burnt offering was the most solemn kind of sacrifice. Only male animals, and, as a rule, bulls and rams, could be offered as burnt offerings. When they had been slain and skinned these offerings were entirely burnt in the fire on the altar, without any part being enjoyed by the sacrificer or the priest, as was the case in other kinds of offerings; only the skin fell to the share of the priests. As the burnt offering was intended to gain the favour of Jehovah, so were the sin offerings intended to appease his anger and blot out transgressions. For sin offerings female animals were used as a rule, as male animals for the burnt offerings,³⁸⁹ but young bulls and he-goats were also offered as expiatory offerings for the whole people, and for oversights or transgressions of the priests in the ritual, and for sin offerings for princes. In sin offerings only certain parts of the entrails were burnt, the kidneys, the liver, and other parts; and in this sacrifice the priests sprinkled the blood on the horns of the altar; the flesh which was not burned belonged to the priests. In thank offerings and offerings of slaughter (so called because in these the slaying and eating of the victim was the principal matter) only the fat was burnt, the priests kept the breast and the right thigh,³⁹⁰ the rest was eaten by the sacrificer at a banquet with the guests whom he had invited; but this banquet must be held at the place of sacrifice, on the same or at any rate on the following day. Drink offerings consisted of libations of wine, which were poured on and round the altar (libations of water are also mentioned, though not in the law, p. 115); the food offerings in fruits, corn, and white meal, which the priests threw into the fire of the altar; in bread and cookery, which, drenched with oil and sprinkled with salt and incense, was partly burned, and partly fell to the lot of the priests. Lastly, the incense offerings consisted in the burning of incense, which did not take place, like the other sacrifices, on the larger altar in the court of the sanctuary, but on the small altar, which stood in the space before the holy of holies of the tabernacle, and afterwards of the temple.³⁹¹

According to the law, a service was to be continually going on in the dwelling of Jehovah. The sacred fire on the altar in the interior of the tabernacle was never to be quenched; before the holy of holies on the sacred table twelve unleavened loaves always lay sprinkled with salt and incense, as a symbolical and continual offering of the twelve tribes. Each Sabbath this bread was renewed, and the loaves when removed fell to the priests. Before the curtain of the holy of holies the candlestick with seven lamps was always burning, and every morning and evening the priests of the temple were to offer a male sheep as a burnt offering at the dwelling of Jehovah, and two sheep on the morning and evening of the Sabbath. The high priest had also to make an offering of corn every morning and evening.³⁹²

Beside the sacrifice, the law of the priests required the observance of a whole series of regulations for purity. It is not merely bodily cleanliness which these laws required of the Israelites, nor is it merely a natural abhorrence of certain disgusting objects which lies at the base of these prescriptions; it is not merely that to the simple mind physical and moral purity appear identical, that moral evil is conceived as a defilement of the body; nor are these regulations merely intended to place a certain restriction on natural states and impulses. These factors had their weight, but beside them all a certain side of nature and of the natural life was set apart as impure and unholy. The laws of purity among the Israelites are far less strict and comprehensive than those of the Egyptians and the Indians; but if we unite them with the ritual by which transgressions of these rules were done away and made good, they form a system entering somewhat deeply into the life of the nation.

For the laity also the law required and prescribed cleanliness of clothing. Stuffs of two kinds might not be worn; pomegranates must be fixed on the corners of the robe. The field and vineyard might not be sown with two kinds of seed; nor could ox and ass be yoked together before the plough.³⁹³ Certain animals were unclean, and these might not be eaten. The clean and permitted food was obtained from oxen, sheep, goats, and in wild animals from deer, wild-goats, and gazelles, and in fact from all animals which ruminate and have cloven feet. Unclean are all flesh-eating animals with paws, and more especially the camel, the swine, the hare, and the coney. Of fish, those only might be eaten which have fins and scales; all fish resembling snakes, like eels, might not be eaten. Most water-fowl are unclean; pigeons and quails, on the other hand, were permitted food. All creeping things, winged or not, with the exception of locusts, are forbidden.³⁹⁴ Moreover, if the permitted animals were not slain in the proper manner their flesh was unclean; if it had "died of itself," or was strangled, or torn by wild beasts,³⁹⁵ the use of the blood of the animal was most strictly forbidden, "for the life of all flesh is the blood;" even of the animals which might be eaten the blood must be poured on the earth and covered with earth.³⁹⁶ As the eating of forbidden food made a man unclean, so also did all sexual functions of man or woman, and all diseases connected with these functions, including lying in child-bed. Every one was also unclean on whose body was "a rising scab or bright spot," but above all the white leprosy rendered the sufferer unclean.³⁹⁷ Finally, any contact with the corpse of man or beast, whether intentional or accidental, rendered a man unclean. The house in which a man died, with all the utensils, was unclean; any one who touched a grave or a human bone was tainted.³⁹⁸