On the
other hand, all perplexity vanishes if the Levites were the
degraded priests of the high places of Judah. These were
certainly not on the whole more numerous than the Jerusalem
college, and the prospect of thenceforward not being permitted
to sacrifice in their native land, but of having slaughtering
and washing for sole duties, cannot have been in any way very
attractive to them; one can hardly blame them if they were
disinclined voluntarily to lower themselves to the position
of mere laborers under the sons of Zadok. Besides, it may be
taken for granted that many (and more particularly Levitical)
elements not originally belonging to it had managed to make way
into the ranks of the Solomonic priesthood; that all were not
successful (Ezra ii. 61) shows that many made the attempt, and
considering the ease with which genealogies hoary with age were
then manufactured and accepted, every such attempt cannot have
failed.
How then came it to pass that afterwards, as one must conclude
from the statements in Chronicles, the Levites stood to the priests
in a proportion so much more nearly, if even then not quite fully
corresponding to the law? Simply by the "Levitising" of alien
families.
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