604 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1879 



questions of textual criticism. Is it certain that 2 Sam. 

 xv. 24 is so corrupt that no value can be put on the 

 association of Zadok with the Levites ? And, on the 

 other hand, does not Judges xvii. 7 show marks of a later 

 hand in the words &quot; of the family of Judah,&quot; which, if 

 taken as indicating the descent of Jonathan, are incon 

 sistent with the statement that he was a mere Ger in 

 Bethlehem ? The tendency to conceal the true Levitic 

 descent of a schismatical priest, which appears in the 

 Massoretic text of xviii. 30, was also at work in xvii. 7. 

 The Peshita, which has not the words rrnrr nnQ&DD, 

 effects the same end by changing &quot; he was a Levite &quot; 

 into &quot; his name was Levi.&quot; The exegesis proposed for 

 Deut. xxxiii. 9 is very striking in comparison with 

 i Kings xii. 31 ; but Wellhausen himself indicates its 

 weak point when he says that it could only be in extreme 

 cases that a man left his wife and children to become a 

 priest. A guild of priests in which the son did not, as 

 a rule, follow his father s profession is incredible under 

 the social conditions of ancient Israel, and we know that 

 the priesthood at Dan was hereditary in a Levitic family. 

 The problem of the Levites cannot be solved without 

 going back to the time of Moses. Wellhausen admits it 

 to be possible that the priesthood was hereditary in the 

 descendants of Moses. Now, the priesthood of Moses, 

 if it is admitted in any sense at all, must be regarded 

 as of national significance, and implies the existence of 

 some sacred ordinance or sanctuary of more than tribal 

 importance. The ark answers to this condition ; and, 

 as a matter of fact, the sanctuary of the ark has a more 

 than local importance in the oldest records of the history 

 of the Judges. Why, then, should it be doubted that 

 in connection with the ark the priestly prerogative of Levi 

 goes back to Mosaic times? Wellhausen objects that 

 there was no considerable number of priestly places open 

 to Levites in the time of the Judges. But that is not 

 so clear. The chief function of the priests was to give 



