Joel b.  Samuel b.  Elkanah b.  Jeroham b.  Eliab b.  Tahath b.  Zuph, only the line does not terminate with Ephraim as in 1Samuel i. 1 (LXX) because it is Levi who is the goal; Zuph. sic however, is an Ephraitic district, and Tahath (Tohu, Toah, Tahan, Nahath) is an Ephraimite family (vii. 20).  Further back the same elements are individually repeated more than once, Elkanah four times in all; he occurs once as early as in Exodus vi. 24, where also he is doubtless borrowed from 1Samuel i.  The best of it is that, contrary to the scope of the genealogies recorded in1 Chronicles vi., which is to provide a Levitical origin for the guilds of singers, there is found in close contiguity the statement (ii. 6) that Heman and Ethan were descendants of Zerah b.  Pharez, b.  JUDAH.  The commentators are indeed assisted in their efforts to differentiate the homonyms by their ignorance of the fact that even as late as Nehemiah’s time the singers did not yet pass for Levites, but their endeavours are wrecked by the circumstance that the names of fathers as well as of sons are identical (Psalm lxxxviii. 1, lxxxix. 1; Ewald, iii. 380 seq.).  In point of history these musicians of the second temple are descended of course neither from Levi nor from the sons of Mahol (1Kings v. 11 [iv. 31), but they have at least derived their names from the latter.  On all hands we meet with such artificial names in the case of Levites.  One is called Issachar; it would not be surprising to meet with a Naphtali Cebi, or Judah b.  Jacob.  Jeduthun is, properly speaking, the name of a tune or musical mode (Psalm xxxix. 1, lxii. 1, [xxvii. 1), whence also of a choir trained in that.  Particularly interesting are a few pagan names, as for example Henadad, Bakbuk, and some others, which, originally borne by the temple servitors (Nehemiah vii. 46 seq.), were doubtless transferred along with these to the Levites.

With the priests, of whom so many are named at all periods of the history of Israel, matters are no better than with the inferior Levites, so far as the Books of Samuel and Kings are not drawn upon.  In particular, the twenty-four priestly courses or orders are an institution, not of King David, but of the post-exilic period.  When Hitzig, annotating Ezekiel viii. 16, remarks that the five-and-twenty men standing between the temple and the altar worshipping the sun toward the east are the heads of the twenty-four priestly courses with the high priest at their head (because no one else had the right to stand in the inner court between temple and altar), he reveals a trait that is characteristic, not only of himself, but also of the entire so-called historico-critical school, who exert their whole subtlety on case after case, but never give themselves time to think matters over in their connection with each other; nay, rather simply retain the traditional view as a whole, only allowing themselves by way of gratification a number of heresies.  It is almost impossible to believe