But
the principle of heredity had already pervaded the other priestly
families so thoroughly that to enter any secular calling was
nowhere expected of them. The Deuteronomic legislator had
conferred upon them the right of carrying on their office at
Jerusalem, and of executing it there on behalf of any one who
requested their services; but this regulation, from the opposition
of the B'ne Zadok, was found on the whole impracticable (2Kings
xxiii. 9), although doubtless some extraneous elements may at
that time have succeeded in making their way into the temple
nobility. The bulk of the priests of the high places who had been
superseded had to content themselves (since they could not now
get rid of their spiritual character) with being degraded among
their brethren at Jerusalem, and with admission to a subordinate
share in the service of the sanctuary (comp. 1Samuel ii. 36).
It was thus, at the close of the pre-exilic history, that the
distinction between priests and Levites arose to which Ezekiel
is at pains to give the sanction of law.
IV.III.
IV.III.1. On the whole it is easy here to bring the successive strata
of the Pentateuch into co-ordination with the recognisable steps
of the historical development.
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