IV.III.2.  In Deuteronomy the priests, as compared with the judges and the prophets, take a very prominent position (xvi. 18-xviii. 22) and constitute a clerical order, hereditary in numerous families, whose privilege is uncontested and therefore also does not require protection.  Here now for the first time begins the regular use of the name of Levites for the priests,—­a name of which the consideration has been postponed until now.

In the pre-exilic literature apart from the Pentateuch it occurs very seldom.  First in the prophets, once in the Book of Jeremiah (xxxiii. 17-22), in a passage which in any case is later than the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans, and certainly was not written by Jeremiah. 1 The use of the name is an

********************************************** 1.  In the LXX, chap. xxxiii. 14-26 is wanting.  The parallelism between vers. 17-22 and 23-26 is striking.  It looks as if David and Levi arose out of a misunderstanding of the families mentioned in ver. 24, namely, Judah and Ephraim.  In any case wdwd in ver. 26 is an interpolation. ************************************************

established thing in Ezekiel (573 B.C.), and henceforward occurs without interruption in the writings of the later prophets, a sign that its earlier absence is not to be explained as accidental, not even in Jeremiah, who speaks so frequently of the priests. 2

******************************************** 1.  Ezekiel xl. 46, xliii. 19, xliv. 10, 15, xlv. 5, xlviii. 11-13, 22, 31; Isaiah lxvi. 21; Zechariah xii. 13; Malachi ii. 4, 8, iii. 3. *******************************************

In the historical books the Levites (leaving out of account 1Samuel vi. 15, 2Samuel xv. 24, and 1Kings viii. 4, xii. 31) 1

********************************************** 1.  Upon 1Samuel vi. 15 all that is necessary has been said at IV.II.1; on 1Kings viii. 4 see.  I.III.1.  That 1Kings xii. 31 proceeds from the Deuteronomic redactor, the date of whose writing is not earlier than the second half of the exile, needs no proof.  The hopeless corruptness of 2Samuel xv. 24 I have shown in Text. d.  BB.  Sam. (Goettingen, 1871). ******************************************

occur only in the two appendices to the Book of Judges (chaps. xvii., xviii., and xix., xx.), of which, however, the second is unhistorical and late, and only the first is certainly pre-exilic.  But in this case it is not the Levites who are spoken of, as elsewhere, but A LEVITE, who passes for a great rarity, and who is forcibly carried off by the tribe of Dan, which has none.