E.g., Josh. iii. 3 and Isaiah lxvi. 21 in the LXX, Deuteronomy
xviii. 1 and Judges xvii. 13 in "Jerome; and many passages in
the Syriac. On the carrying out of the new organisation of
the temple _personnel_ after the exile, see Vatke, p. 568, Graf (in
Merx's Archiv, i., p. 225 seq.), and Kuenen (Godsdienst, ii. p. 104
seq ). With Zerubbabel and Joshua, four priestly families,
4289 persons in all, returned from Babylon in 538 (Ezra iv. 36-39);
with Ezra in 458 came two families in addition, but the number
of persons is not stated (viii. 2). Of Levites there came on the
first occasion 74 (ii. 40); on the second, of the 1500 men who
met at the rendezvous appointed by Ezra to make the journey
through the wilderness, not one was a Levite, and it was only
on the urgent representations of the scribe that some thirty
were at last induced to join the company (viii. 15-20). How can
we explain this preponderance of priests over Levites, which
is still surprising even if the individual figures are not
to be taken as exact? Certainly it cannot be accounted for
if the state of matters for a thousand years had been that
represented in the Priestly Code and in Chronicles.
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