Chron. viii. 14.) and all these had their chiefs or overseers as well as the priests. (Ezra viii. 29.) The duty of the porters was not only to be a military guard upon the temple, but to take care that no person who was unclean or uncircumcised might enter the court of the Israelites. (2 Chron. xxiii. 19.) And however mean their employment was, yet it was the pious desire of David, rather to be a doorkeeper in the house of God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. (Psal. lxxxiv. 10.) The order of singers was instituted by David, and it appears that the whole book of psalms was composed for this kind of devotion. David (by whom the greatest number was composed) directed many of them to the chief musician, for this very purpose, that they might be used in the service of the house of God. And we have one particular instance in which it is said, that David delivered this psalm to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. (1 Chron. xvi. 7.) The principal persons of this order, who had the superintendency over all the rest, were Heman and Asaph of the line of Gershon, and Jeduthun of the line of Merari, of whom we have an account in 1 Chron. xxv.

In the service of the tabernacle Moses did not appoint the use of any musical instruments; he only caused some trumpets to be made which upon solemn occasions were to be sounded, at the time when the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings were upon the altar. (Numb. x. 10.) But David, by the advice of the prophets Gad and Nathan, introduced several kinds of music into the service of the temple, as a thing highly conducive to inspire the people with respect, with joy, and with affection for the solemnities and assemblies of religion. (2 Chron. xxix. 25. 1 Chron. xxiii. 5. and xxv. 1.) These instru ments were confided to the care of the Levites; some of whom played on instruments, while others sang psalms, but all were divided into companies, over whom a president was placed. (1 Chron. XXV.)

The mere circumstance of birth did not give the Levites a title to officiate; they were obliged also to receive a sort of consecration, which consisted chiefly in sprinkling them with water, in washing, and in offering sacrifices. (Numb. viii. 6, 7, 8.) The usual age, at which the Levites were to enter on their office, was at five and twenty years, and so to continue till fifty. (Numb. viii. 24, 25.) But there was a particular precept which restrained the Kohathites (one of the three branches) from being employed to carry the holy things belonging to the sanctuary, till they were of the age of thirty (Numb. iv. 30.), probably, because these being the most valuable and important of all the moveables belonging to the tabernacle, required therefore persons of greater experience and strength. Afterwards, when David new-moulded the constitution of the Levites, he (by the same authority which empowered him to give directions about the building and situation of the house of God), ordered that for the future the Levites should be admitted at the age of twenty years. (1 Chron. xxiii. 24.) It does not appear by the first institution of the Levites that they had any peculiar habit in the ceremonies of

religion, by which they were distinguished from other Israelites. None of the Levites, of what degree or order soever, had any right to sacrifice, for that was the proper duty of the priests only: the Levites indeed were to assist the priests in killing and flaying the sacrifices, and, during the time they were offered up, to sing praises to God and in this sense the two passages in 1 Chron. xxiii. 31. and 2 Chron. xxxi. 2. are commonly understood; neither had they any title to burn incense to the Lord; and though the speech of Hezekiah (mentioned in 2 Chron. xxix. particularly ver. 11.) seems to imply otherwise, yet we ought to consider that he is there speaking to the priests as well as to the Levites. It was upon account of their aspiring to the priest's office in this particular of burning incense, that Korah and his company (who were Levites) were miraculously destroyed, and their censers ordered to be beaten into broad plates, and fixed upon the altar, to be perpetual monuments of their presumptuous sacrilege, and a caution to all the children of Israel, that none presume to offer incense before the Lord, but the seed of Aaron, who alone were commissioned to the priestly office.

As the Levites were subordinate to the priests, so they the Levites had others under them, called Nethinims, whose business it was to carry the water and wood, that was wanted in the temple for the use of the sacrifices, and to perform other laborious services there. They were not originally of Hebrew descent, but are supposed to have been chiefly the posterity of the Gibeonites, who for their fraudulent stratagem in imposing upon Joshua and the Hebrew princes (Josh. ix. 3-27.), were condemned to this employment, which was a sort of honourable servitude. We read in Ezra, that the Nethinims were devoted by David and the other princes to the service of the temple (Ezra viii. 20.), and they are called the children of Solomon's servants (Ezra ii. 58.), being probably a mixture of the race of the Gibeonites, and some of the remains of the Canaanites, whom Solomon constrained to various servitudes. (1 Kings ix. 20, 21.) They had a particular place in Jerusalem where they dwelt, called Ophel, for the conveniency of being near the service of the temple. (Neh. iii. 26.)

In order to enable the Levites to devote themselves to that service, forty-eight cities were assigned to them for their residence on the division of the land of Canaan; thirteen of these were appropriated to the priests, to which were added the tithes of corn, fruit, and cattle. The Levites, however, paid to the priests a tenth part of all their tithes; and as they were possessed of no landed property, the tithes which the priests received from them were considered as the first fruits which they were to offer to God. (Num. xviii. 21-24.)

II. Next to the Levites, but superior to them in dignity, were the ordinary PRIESTS, who were chosen from the family of Aaron exclusively. They served immediately at the altar, prepared the

victims, and offered the sacrifices. They kept up a perpetual fire on the altar of the burnt sacrifices, and also in the lamps of the golden candlestick in the sanctuary; they kneaded the loaves of show-bread, which they baked, and offered on the golden altar in the sanctuary; and changed them every sabbath day. Every day, morning and evening, a priest (who was appointed at the beginning of the week by lot) brought into the sanctuary a smoking censer of incense, which he set upon the golden table, and which on no account was to be kindled with strange fire, that is, with any fire but that which was taken from the altar of burnt sacrifice. (Lev. x. 1, 2.) And as the number and variety of their functions required them to be well read in their law, in order that they might be able to judge of the various legal uncleannesses, &c. this circumstance caused them to be consulted as interpreters of the law (Hos. iv. 6. Mal. ii. 7., &c. Lev. xiii. 2. Num. v. 14, 15.), as well as judges of controversies. (Deut. xxi. 5. xvii. 8-13.) In the time of war, their business was to carry the ark of the covenant, to sound the holy trumpets, and animate the army to the performance of its duties. To them also it belonged publicly to bless the people in the name of the Lord.

The priests were divided by David into twenty-four classes (1 Chron. xxv.); which order was retained by Solomon (2 Chron. viii. 14.); and at the revivals of the Jewish religion by the kings Hezekiah and Josiah. (2 Chron. xxxi. 2. xxxv. 4, 5.) As, however, only four classes returned from the Babylonish captivity (Ezra ii. 36-39. Neh. vii. 39-42. xii. 1.), these were again divided into twenty-four classes, each of which was distinguished by its original appellation. This accounts for the introduction of the class or order of Abiah, mentioned in Luke i. 5., which we do not find noticed among those who returned from the captivity. One of these classes went up to Jerusalem every week to discharge the sacerdotal office, and succeeded one another on the sabbath day, till they had all attended in their turn. To each order was assigned a president (1 Chron. xxiv. 6. 31. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14.), whom some critics suppose to be the same as the chief priests so often mentioned in the New Testament, and in the writings of Josephus. The prince or prefect of each class appointed an entire family to offer the daily sacrifices; and at the close of the week they all joined together in sacrificing. And as each family consisted of a great number of priests, they drew lots for the different offices which they were to perform. It was by virtue of such lot that the office of burning incense was assigned to Zacharias the father of John the Baptist, when he went into the temple of the Lord. (Luke i. 9.)

The sacerdotal dignity being confined to certain families, every one who aspired to it was required to establish his descent from those families: on this account the genealogies of the priests were

1 See Matt. xxvii. i. Acts iv. 23. v. 24. ix. 14. 21. xxii. 30. xxiii. 14. xxv. 15. xxvi. 10.; and also Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xx. c. 8. § 8. De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. c. 3. § 7. c. 4. § 3. et de vita sua, § 2. 5.

inscribed in the public registers, and were preserved in the archives of the temple. Hence, in order to preserve the purity of the sacerdotal blood, no priest was permitted to marry a harlot or profane woman, or one who had been divorced and if any one laboured under any bodily defect, this excluded him from serving at the altar. Purity of body and sanctity of life were alike indispensable; nor could any one undertake the priestly office, in the early period of the Jewish polity, before he had attained thirty years, or, in later times, the age of twenty years.2 According to Maimonides, the priest, whose genealogy was defective in any respect, was clothed in black, and veiled in black, and sent without the verge of the court of the priests; but every one that was found perfect and right was clothed in white, and went in and ministered with his brethren the priests. It is not improbable that St. John refers to this custom of the Jewish sanhedrin in Rev. iii. 5. Those priests, whose birth was pure, lived in certain apartments of the temple, in which was deposited wood for the altar, and were employed in splitting and preparing it, to keep up the sacred fire. No particular ceremony appears to have taken place at the consecration of the ordinary priests, who were admitted to the exercise of their functions by "filling their hands," as the Scriptures term it, that is, by making them perform the offices of their order. But when the priests had departed from their religion, or had been a long time without discharging their functions, (which happened under some of the later kings of Judah,) it was deemed necessary to sanctify anew such priests, as well as those who had never exercised their ministry. (2 Chron. xxix. 34.)

The priests were not distinguished by their sacerdotal habits, unless when engaged in the service of the altar. Of these garments there are four kinds mentioned in the books of Exodus (xxviii.) and Leviticus (viii.) viz. 1. Linen drawers; 2. A linen tunic, which reached down to the ancles, fitting closely to the body, and the sleeves of which were tightly drawn round the arms: it was without seam, and woven from the top throughout. Such was the tunic worn by Jesus Christ, for which the soldiers cast lots; 3. A girdle; and, 4. A tiara, which was originally a pointed kind of bonnet or turban, made of several rolls of linen cloth twisted round the head, but in the time of Josephus it approached somewhat to a globular form.5

In order that the priests, as well as the Levites, might be wholly

1 Ezra ii. 62. Neh. vii. 64. Josephus contra Apion, lib. i. 67. et in vita sua, § 1. 2 Levit. xxi. 7. 17-23. Numb. iv. 3. 2 Chron. xxxi. 17. Maimonides has enu. merated not fewer than 140 bodily defects which disqualified persons for the priesthood. See Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. iii. c. 12. § 2. and compare Carpzov's Appara tus Antiquitatum Sacrarum, p. 89. et. seq.

3 Lamy, Apparatus Biblicus, vol. i. p. 213.

4 Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. iii. c. 7. § 2. See also the Observations of Ernesti, Inst. Interp. Nov. Test. part ii. c. 10. § 88. pp. 371–373. It was for a long time supposed that the art of making such vests was irrevocably lost. Braunius however rediscovered it, and procured a loom to be made, in which tunics were woven all of one piece. See his treatise de Vestitu Sacerdotum Habræorum, lib. i. c. 16. p. 264. 5 Josephus, Antiq. Jud. lib. iii. e. 7. § 3.

at liberty to follow their sacred profession, they were exempted from all secular burthens or labours. Of the Levitical cities already mentioned, thirteen were assigned for the residence of the priests, with their respective suburbs (Numb. xxxv.); the limits of which were confined to a thousand cubits beyond the walls of the city, which served for out-houses, as stables, barns, and perhaps for gardens of herbs and flowers. Beyond this they had two thousand cubits more for their pasture, called properly the fields of the suburbs. (Lev. xxv. 34.) So that there were in the whole three thousand cubits round the city; and in this sense we are to understand Numb. Xxxv. 4, 5. where the word suburbs comprehends both the houses, without the walls, and also the fields. But though the tribe of Levi had no portion in Canaan assigned them in the first division. of it, yet they were not prevented from purchasing land, houses, goods, or cattle, out of their own proper effects. Thus we read that Abiathar had an estate of his own at Anatheth, to which Solomon banished and confined him (1 Kings ii. 26.); and the prophet Jeremiah, who was also a priest, purchased a field of his uncle's son in his own town. (Jer. xxxii. 8, 9.) Such were the residences allotted to the priests. Their maintenance was derived from the tithes offered by the Levites out of the tithes by them received, from the first fruits, from the first clip of wool when the sheep were shorn, from the offerings made in the temple, and from their share of the sin-offerings and thanksgiving-offerings sacrificed in the temple, of which certain parts were appropriated to the priests. Thus in the peace-offerings they had the shoulder and the breast (Lev. vii. 33, 34.) in the sin-offerings, they burnt on the altar the fat that covered certain parts of the sacrifice; the rest belonged to the priest. (Lev. vii. 6. 10.) To him also was appropriated the skin or fleece of every victim; and when an Israelite killed an animal for his own use, there were certain parts assigned to the priest. (Deut. xviii. 3.) All the first-born also, whether of man or beast, were dedicated to God, and by virtue of that devotion belonged to the priests. The men were redeemed for five shekels (Numb. xviii. 15, 16.): the first-born of impure animals were redeemed or exchanged, but the clean animals were not redeemed. They were sacrificed to the Lord; their blood was sprinkled about the altar, and the rest belonged to the priests; who also had the first-fruits of trees, that is, those of the fourth year (Numb. xviii. 13. Lev. xix. 23, 24.), as well as a share in the tithes of the spoils taken in war. (Numb. xxxi. 28-41.) Such were the principal revenues of the priests, which, though they were sufficient to keep them above want, yet were not (as some writers have imagined) so ample as to enable them to accumulate riches, or to impoverish the laity; thus their political influence, arising from their sacred station, as well as from their superior learning and information, was checked by rendering them dependent on the people for their daily bread. By this wise constitution of Moses, they were deprived of all power, by which they might injure the liberty of the other tribes, or in any way