'blessing.' But there is no indication in the story that David did so, or that Saul or Samuel did so. Thus we read as follows::-

'And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt-offering to me and peace-offerings. And he offered the burnt-offering,' 18.xiii.9 ;

'And Samuel took a sucking-lamb, and offered it for a burnt-offering unto Jehovah,' 18.vii.9;

just as we have had also in Genesis,—

'And Noah built an altar to Jehovah, . . . and he offered burnt-offerings upon the altar,' viii.20;

'And Israel sacrificed sacrifices unto the Elohim of his father Isaac,' xlvi.1. 247. In short, exactly as in the Book of Judges, Gideon the Manassite, vi.26,27, and Manoah the Danite, xiii.19, offer sacrifices themselves,-plainly without the intervention of a Priest or Levite, so here there would be no doubt, except for its directly contradicting the laws of the Pentateuch, that David did actually in his own person offer the sacrifices on this occasion, that is, he did not himself kill the animals, but he 'blessed the sacrifice,' 1S.ix.13, and performed what other ceremonies constituted in those days the act of 'offering.'

248. Just so we find it stated in 1K.viii.55 that Solomon "blessed the congregation of Israel,' and in v.64 that Solomon 'consecrated the middle of the court that was before the House of Jehovah,' and in ix.25 that Solomon offered incense upon the Altar that was before Jehovah,'-which last act he could hardly have done by means of the Priests,' any more than the first. Yet for offering incense, Korah, though a Levite, and Dathan and Abiram were destroyed, N.xvi, and their brazen censers made into a covering for the Altar,

'to be a memorial unto the children of Israel, that no stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense before Jehovah, that he be not as Korah and his company,' v.40;

and for attempting to do it, according to the Chronicler, 2Ch.xxvi. 16-21, Solomon's descendant, King Uzziah, was in later days stricken with leprosy.

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CHAPTER XV.

THE LEVITES IN THE TIME OF DAVID.

249. WE have thus seen sufficient proof that at the time when we suppose 'Jacob's Blessing' to have been writtenperhaps, about the time of the bringing up of the Ark, or not long after it, the Levites must have been, to all appearance, in a low and insignificant position. Not only are they not named in the history of 2S.vi, but in the very Psalm, lxviii, which is believed generally (and we also believe this) to have been written on this very occasion, of the bringing-up of the Ark to Mount Zion, not the slightest reference is made to the tribe of Levi, as having any special duties on that occasion, or any special rank and privileges in Israel, nor are they even mentioned at all, although Benjamin, Judah, Zebulun, and Naphtali, are each expressly named, v.27. And the Levites are equally ignored in Ps.lx, which belongs most probably to a somewhat later period of the same age, and in which Gilead and Manasseh, Ephraim and Judah are especially mentioned, v.7.

250. Nay, all the conditions of the Priesthood, as we gather them from the more authentic history, were in those days utterly at variance with the laws and examples of the Pentateuch. In David's time, 2S.viii.17, and in Solomon's, 1K.iv.4, we have two chief priests, instead of one, like Aaron, Eleazar, or Phinehas. And the two are not father and son, or elder and younger brothers, but apparently not closely related to each other, and in Solomon's days in direct opposition and hostility to each

other, 1K.1.7,8,25,26. And accordingly Solomon, a youth of eighteen, thrusts out' Abiathar, 1K.ii.27, the older of the two chief priests, and therefore, if any, the true High-Priest, 'anointed with the holy oil,' L.xxi. 10, N.xxxv.25, who 'bare the Ark before David his father,' and Zadok the Priest did the king put in his room,' 1K.ii.35. It is plain-whatever may have been the case in later or in earlier days-the 'priests' of the time of David and Solomon were merely nominees of the king's own appointment; and as such they are ranked among the king's chief officers, but low down in the list, 2S.viii. 16-18, 1K.iv.2-6, instead of at the head of all, in accordance with the Pentateuch, where Aaron ranks everywhere next to Moses, and Eleazar to Joshua, or even before him, Jo.xiv.1.

251. When, therefore, we read of 'Zadok, and all the Levites with him,' in attendance upon David in his flight, bearing out of Jerusalem the Ark of the covenant, and of Abiathar 'goingup' with David also, 2S.xv.24, and of Z adok and Abiathar being sent back with the Ark to stay in the city, and do their best to keep it for David, v.29, we have evidence certainly that there were Levites attached at that time to the Sanctuary, with two Priests at their head; but we have no ground to infer that the former were a numerous and influential body, or the latter were invested with anything like the power and dignity which are ascribed to them in the Pentateuch. In Josiah's time, when, no doubt, the Priests had considerable influence, there was one chief Priest,' some Priests of the second order,' and others, keepers of the door,' 2K.xxiii.4, who are expressly called Priests' in 2K.xii.9. In Zedekiah's days, there were only five Priests altogether ministering in the Temple, 2K.xxv. 18, 'a chief' and a 'second' Priest, and three doorkeepers.' It is probable that in David's time, in the Tabernacle, and still more in Solomon's time in the Temple, there was a larger number of Levites in attendance upon the two chief Priests. Yet, until David set up the Tabernacle on Mount Zion, in con

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nection with which he probably called into activity some number of the Levites, there appears no sign of their having at all emerged from the obscurity, in which for some centuries at least before that time they appear to have been lying.

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252. But the question arises, was SAMUEL himself a Levite? We read in 1S.i.1, that Samuel's father Elkanah was—

'a man of Ramathaim-Zophim, of Mount Ephraim. . . an Ephrathite.'* Here there would be no doubt that the epithet 'Ephrathite,' when used of a man living in Mount Ephraim,' means Ephraimite,' as it does in 1K.xi.26, where we read of 'Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite, of Zereda.' But then we come upon the difficulty (upon the traditionary view) that Samuel, an Ephraimite, should be found discharging so many duties peculiar to Levites. And this, of course, is assumed to have been impossible, and would in fact have been impossible, if the Pentateuch really existed in that age.

253. Accordingly, it is usual to explain the word 'Ephrathite' as meaning here a man of Bethlehem-Ephrata, as in fact it

Eight places claim to be the Ramah of Samuel, none of them, however, in the tribe of Ephraim. All that we know certainly about the place is that it was on an eminence, as its name Ramah implies, and was situated somewhere south of Gibeah, the birth-place of Saul. From the dual form of the name, Ramathaim, it might be inferred that it was an eminence with a double height, on which, no doubt, in times of danger, the 'watchers,' Zophim, took their station. From the text it is plain that Elkanah was either living at Ramah, though born in Mount. Ephraim, or vice versa. We assume (with Dean STANLEY) the former, because we find Samuel afterwards having his home at Ramah, 1S.vii.17, and it seems most natural that the place of residence should first be mentioned, and then the place of birth. See Dean STANLEY'S note, Sinai and Palestine, p.224.

It is noticeable that the country near Ramah is called in 1S.ix.5, 'the land of Zuph,' and Zuph was Samuel's grandfather, 1S.i.1. So in Zululand, a certain district is called Kwa 'Magwaza, 'the land of Magwaza,' from a grandfather of the present generation, who settled there. Is there any connection between the name of the man Zuph (y), and the name of the town, Ramathaim-Zophim (D'piy)? The LXX has here a singular reading èv Naoìß 'Eppatu, as if for 'n

בְּנָצִיף אֶפְרָיִם there had been read

does in R.i.2, 1S.xvii.12. And, though indeed a man of Bethlehem-Ephrata, which was a city of Judah and not a Levitical city, would naturally have been a man of Judah, as in both the cases just quoted, yet, it is said, Elkanah may have been a Levitę, who formerly lived in Bethlehem, though he now lived in Mount Ephraim, as we read elsewhere of

a young man out of Bethlehem-Judah, out of a family of Judah, and he was a Levite,' Ju.xvii.7.

And, in support of this view, great stress is naturally laid upon the statement of the Chronicler, 1Ch.vi.33-38, where the genealogy of Heman, Samuel's grandson, is traced up to Levi. 254. On this we observe as follows.

(i) If Elkanah was a Levite, the difficulty is not really removed. For he certainly was not a Priest, and yet we find Samuel acting repeatedly in the Priest's office, 1S.vii.9,x.8, which according to the Pentateuch it was forbidden to do under pain of death, N.iv.9.

(ii) If Samuel was a Levite by birth or was believed by the writer of 1S.i-iii to have been a Levite, what is the meaning of the language ascribed to Hannah, 1S.i.28,—

'therefore also have I lent him to Jehovah, as long as he liveth he shall be lent to Jehovah,'

since he belonged by the Mosaic Law to Jehovah from his birth?

(iii) If Elkanah was, indeed, a Levite, surely this would have been stated in 1S.i.1, where the description given of him is very circumstantial,

'a certain man [why not a 'certain Levite,' as in Ju.xix. 1?] of RamathaimZophim, of Mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite.'

(iv) The term Ephrathite could surely not have been used for a Levite, who was born in Mount Ephraim and was now living at Ramah, merely because he had formerly sojourned for a time in the town of Bethlehem. The young man in Ju.xvii.7 is not called an Ephrathite because he had lived in Bethlehem, but a