Naturally the monarchy itself benefited most by this stability.  The king’s cultus, which in the kingdom of Samaria was in no position to supersede the popular and independent worship, easily obtained a perceptible preponderance in the smaller Judah; the king’s priesthood, which in the former was incidentally involved in disaster by the overthrow of the dynasty, in the latter gained in strength side by side with the house of David—­even Aaron and Amminadab were according to the Priestly Code related to the royal family, as Jehoiada and Ahaziah were in actual fact.  Thus at an early period was the way paved for the Act of Uniformity by which Josiah made the king’s cultus the official and the only one.  One effect which accompanied the measures he took was naturally the exclusive legitimation of the king’s priesthood at Jerusalem.  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  The bulk of the priests of the high places who had been superseded had to content themselves (since they could not now get rid of their spiritual character) with being degraded among their brethren at Jerusalem, and with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.  In the Jehovistic legislation there is no word of priests (Exodus xx.-xxiii., xxxiv.), and even such precepts as “Thou shalt not go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon " (Exodus xx. 26) are directed to the general “thou,” that is, to the people.  With this corresponds the fact that in the solemn ratification of the covenant of Sinai (Exodus xxiv. 3-8), it is young men of the children of Israel who officiate as sacrificers.  Elsewhere in the Jehovist Aaron (Exodus iv. 14, xxxii. 1 seq.) and Moses (xxxiii. 7-lI; Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8) figure as the founders of the clerical order.  Twice (in Exodus xix. 22 and xxxii 29) mention is made of other priests besides; but Exodus xxxii. 29 rests upon Deuteronomy, and even Exodus xix. 22 can hardly have been an original constituent of one of the Jehovistic sources.