xxxiv. 10; Hos. xii. 14), as his brother Aaron also is not only a Levite (Exodus iv. 14), but also a prophet (iv. 15; Numbers xii. 2).  There is thus a close relation between priests and prophets, i.e., seers; as with other peoples (1Samuel vi.,; 1Kings xviii. 19, compare with 2Kings x. 19), so also with the Hebrews.  In the earliest time it was not knowing the technique of worship, which was still very simple and undeveloped, but being a man of God, standing on an intimate footing with God, that made a man a priest, that is one who keeps up the communication with heaven for others; and the seer is better qualified than others for the office (1Kings xviii. 30 seq.).  There is no fixed distinction in early times between the two offices; Samuel is in 1Samuel i.-iii. an aspirant to the priesthood; in ix. x. he is regarded as a seer.

In later times also, when priests and prophets drew off and separated from each other, they yet remained connected, both in the kingdom of Israel (Host iv. 5) and in Judah.  In the latter this was very markedly the case (2Kings xxiii. 2; Jeremiah xxvi. 7 seq., v. 31; Deuteronomy xviii. 1-8, 9-22; Zechariah vii. 3).  What connected them with each other was the revelation of Jehovah which went on and was kept alive in both of them.  It is Jehovah from whom the torah of the priest and the word of the prophet proceeds:  He is the true DIRECTOR, as Isaiah calls Him in the passage xxx. 20 seq., where, speaking of the Messianic time, he says to the people, “Then thy director (MWRYK) is no more concealed, but thine eyes see thy director, and thine ears hear the words of One calling behind thee; this is the way, walk ye in it; when ye are turning to the right hand or to the left.”  TORAH and WORD are cognate notions, and capable of being interchanged (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9; Isaiah i. 10, ii. 3, v. 24, viii. 16, 20).  This explains how both priests and prophets claimed Moses for their order:  he was not regarded as the founder of the cultus.

The difference, in the period when it had fully developed itself, may be said to be this:  the Torah of the priests was like a spring which runs always, that of the prophets like a spring which is intermittent, but when it does break forth, flows with all the greater force.  The priests take precedence of the prophets when both are named together; they obviously consolidated themselves earlier and more strongly.  The order, and the tradition which propagates itself within the order, are essential to them:  they observe and keep the torah (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9).  For this reason, that they take their stand so entirely on the tradition, and depend on it, their claim to have Moses for their father, the beginner and founder of their tradition, is in itself the better founded of the two. l