In a gloss upon 1Samuel vi. 13 seq. the divergence of
later custom reveals itself. When the ark of Jehovah was brought
back from exile in Philistia upon the new cart, it halted in the
field of Bethshemesh beside the great stone, and the inhabitants
of Bethshemesh, who were at the time busy with the wheat harvest,
broke up the cart and made on the stone a burnt-offering of the kine
by which it had been drawn. After they have finished, the Levites
come up (ver. 15) (in the pluperfect tense) and proceed as if nothing
had happened, lift the ark from the now no longer existent cart,
and set it upon the stone on which the sacrifice is already burning;-
of course only in order to fulfil the law, the demands of which
have been completely ignored in the original narrative. Until
the cultus has become in some measure centralised the priests have
no _locus standi_; for when each man sacrifices for himself and his
household, upon an altar which he improvises as best he can for
the passing need, where is the occasion for people whose
professional and essential function is that of sacrificing for
others? The circumstance of their being thus inconspicuous in the
earliest period of the history of Israel is connected with the
fact that as yet there are few great sanctuaries.
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