They shall not come near
unto me to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to
any of my holy things, but they shall bear their shame and
their abominations which they have committed. And I will make
them keepers of the charge of the house, for all its service, and
for all that shall be done therein. But the priests, the Levites,
sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when
the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near
to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to
offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord Jehovah;
they shall enter into my sanctuary, and come near to my table
to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge."
From this passage two things are to be learned. First, that the
systematic separation of that which was holy from profane contact
did not exist from the very beginning; that in the temple of
Solomon even heathen (Zech. xiv. 21), probably captives, were
employed to do hierodulic services which, according to the law,
ought to have been rendered by Levites, and which afterwards
actually were so rendered. Ezekiel, it is indeed true, holds
this custom to be a frightful abuse, and one might therefore
maintain it to have been a breach of the temple ordinances
suffered by the Jerusalem priests against their better knowledge,
and in this way escape accusing them of ignorance of their own
law.
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