from Abraham, whose posterity were distinguished from the rest of mankind by this rite, he received the seal of circumcision to show that he was rightly descended from that patriarch: and as every person that was circumcised was "a debtor to the whole law" (Gal. v. 3.), it was further necessary, that Jesus Christ the true Messiah should be circumcised; because, being thus subjected to the law of Moses, he was put into a condition to fulfil all righteousness, and redeem those who were under the law. (Gal. iv. 4, 5.)

At the same time that the child was circumcised, we learn from the Gospel, that it was usual for the father, or some near relation, to give him a name. Thus John the Baptist and Jesus Christ both received their names on that day. (Luke i. 59. ii. 21.) It appears, however, that the Jews had several names during the period comprised in the evangelical history. Thus it was customary with them, when travelling into foreign countries, or familiarly conversing with the Greeks and Romans, to assume a Greek or Latin name of great affinity, and sometimes of the very same signification with that of their own country, by which name they were usually called among the Gentiles. So Thomas was called Didymus (John xi. 16.); the one a Syriac and the other a Greek word, but both signifying a twin. (See Acts i. 23., xii. 12.; 2 Pet. i. 1.; Col. iv. 11., &c.) Sometimes the name was added from their country, as Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot (Matt. x. 4.); but more frequently from their assuming a new and different name upon particular occurrences in life. (See 2 Chron. xxxvi. 4. ; 2 Kings xxiv. 17.; John i. 42.) The same practice obtains in the East to this day."

However necessary circumcision was while the ceremonial law remained in force, it became equally indifferent and unnecessary on the abrogation of that law by the destruction of the temple. Until that time the apostles allowed it to be performed on the Jewish converts to Christianity; but they expressly prohibited the imposition of such a yoke on the necks of the Gentile converts: and therefore St. Paul, who has fully proved how unprofitable and unnecessary it is (1 Cor. vii. 19.), thought it proper to have Timothy circumcised, because his mother was of Jewish extraction (Acts xvi. 1-3.); though he would not, on the other hand, allow this ceremony to be performed on Titus, because he was a Greek (Gal. ii. 3.):—thus giving to the church in all ages a most excellent pattern, either of condescension or resolution, in insisting upon or omitting things indifferent according to the difference of times and circumstances.

SECT. II.

ON THE MINISTERS OF THE TEMPLE AND OTHER ECCLESIASTICAL OR SACRED PERSONS.

THE Jews, on the establishment of their republic, had no king but Jehovah himself; and the place appointed for their sacrifices and

'Macknight and Whitby on Luke ii. 21.

See Harmer's Observations, vol. iv. pp. 431-433.

prayers was at the same time both the temple of their God and the palace of their sovereign. This circumstance will account for the pomp and splendour of their worship, as well as the number, variety, and gradations in rank of their ministers; which were first established by Moses, and afterwards renewed by David, with increased splendour, for the service of the temple. To this service the tribe of Levi was especially devoted, instead of the first-born of the tribes of Israel, and was disengaged from all secular labours. The honour of the priesthood, however, was reserved to the family of Aaron alone, the rest of the tribe being employed in the inferior offices of the temple: so that all the priests were Levites, but all the Levites were not priests.

I. The tribe of Levi was divided into the three families and orders of Gershomites, Kohathites, and Merarites (1 Chron. vi. 16, &c.). The principal office of the LEVITES was to wait upon the priests, and be assisting to them in the service of the tabernacle and temple; so that they were properly the ministers and servants of the priests, and obliged to obey their orders. (Numb. iii. 9.; 1 Chron. xxiii. 28.) But the particular duties incumbent upon them were different in the time of Moses, while the Israelites were in the wilderness, from those which they had to discharge afterwards, in the days of David and Solomon. In the wilderness the tabernacle was always in a moveable condition as well as the Israelites: and at that time the chief business of the Levites was, when the Israelites journeyed, to take down the tabernacle, to carry it about as the host removed, to take care of all the instruments and sacred vessels belonging to it, and when the army pitched their tents to set them up again.

For the more regular performance of the several duties belonging to the tabernacle, the whole business was divided between the Kohathites, the Gershomites, and the Merarites. The first were principally concerned in carrying the ark and sacred vessels belonging to the tabernacle under the conduct of Eleazar the priest (Numb. iv. 16.), which being the most honourable employment, was given to them, most probably out of respect to Moses, who was descended from this family. The Gershomites and Merarites, under the direction of Ithamar, had the burden and charge of every thing else belonging to the tabernacle, as the coverings, hangings, wood-work, cords, pins, &c. (ver. 24-34.) When the Israelites were encamped, these three families of Levites were to pitch their tents round three sides of the tabernacle, and Moses and Aaron with their sons round the fourth quarter; by which means they were so disposed, as to be each of them as near as conveniently they could to their respective charges. Such was the office of the Levites in the time of Moses. Afterwards, when the Israelites were settled in the promised land, this employment of the Levites, in carrying the tabernacle and its utensils, ceased; and therefore David and Solomon appointed them to new offices. They were chiefly indeed employed about the service of the temple: but during their recess, while they were not in attendance there, they were dispersed through the whole country, and employed in the service of the state as well as of the church. David made six thousand of them officers

and judges (1 Chron. xxiii. 4.); they also took care to instruct the people where they resided in the Mosaic law, by expounding the several parts of it; and, according to the Jews, they kept the public records and genealogies of the several tribes.

In the business about the temple some of the chief amongst them had the charge of the sacred treasures. (1 Chron. xxvi. 20.) Others of a lower rank were to prepare the shew-bread and unleavened cakes, with the proper quantity of flour for the morning and evening service. (1 Chron. xxiii. 29.) From which text it appears also that they had in their custody within the sanctuary the original standard for weights and measures, liquid and dry, according to which every thing of this kind was to be regulated. Hence it is we often read in Scripture of the shekel of the sanctuary; not that there were two sorts of shekels, one sacred and another civil, but because weights and measures, being reckoned among the sacred things, were kept in the sanctuary, as they were in the temples of the Pagans, and afterwards in Christian churches. Many of the Levites were likewise employed as porters, to guard the gates and passages into the temple. (1 Chron. ix. 17.) Others were more honourably employed as singers, and were to stand every morning to thank and praise the Lord, and likewise in the evening (1 Chron. xxiii. 30.); and this we find they did in a very solemn manner at the dedication of the temple. (2 Chron. v. 12, 13.) The whole body of the Levites in David's time amounted to thirtyeight thousand, from thirty years old and upwards (1 Chron xxii. 3.); of which number he appointed four and twenty thousand to attend the constant duty and work of the temple: and these being divided as the priests were into four and twenty courses (as appears from 1 Chron. xxiii. 24. and 2 Chron. xxxi. 17.), there were one thousand for each week. Six thousand again were to be officers and judges, as already mentioned, four thousand for porters, and four thousand for singers. (1 Chron. xxiii. 4, 5.) The four and twenty courses of singers are mentioned in 1 Chron. xxv. 8-31. This disposition of them was afterwards confirmed by Solomon when the temple was finished (2 Chron. viii. 14.); and all these had their chiefs or overseers as well as the priests. (Ezra viii. 29.) The duty of the porters was not only to be a military guard upon the temple, but also to take care that no person who was unclean or uncircumcised might enter the court of the Israelites. (2 Chron. xxiii. 19.) And however mean their employment was, yet it was the pious desire of David, rather to be a doorkeeper in the house of God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. (Psal. lxxxiv. 10.) The order of singers was instituted by David, and it appears that the whole book of psalms was composed for this kind of devotion. David (by whom the greatest number was composed) directed many of them to the chief musician, for this very purpose, that they might be used in the service of the house of God. And we have one particular instance in which it is said, that David delivered this psalm to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. (1 Chron. xvi. 7.) The principal persons of

1 Novels of Justinian, nov. 128. cap. 15.

this order who had the superintendency over all the rest, were Heman and Asaph of the line of Gershom, and Jeduthun of the line of Merari, of whom we have an account in 1 Chron. xxv.

The mere circumstance of birth did not give the Levites a title to officiate; they were obliged to receive a sort of consecration, which consisted chiefly in sprinkling them with water, in washing, and in offering sacrifices. (Numb. viii. 6, 7, 8.) According to Numb. viii. 24, 25., the age at which the Levites were to enter on their office was at five and twenty years, and they continued till fifty. But in Numb. iv. 3. 23. 30. 35. and 43., we read that thirty years old and upwards even to fifty years old were the age at which they were to do the work of the tabernacle in the congregation. The seeming discrepancy between these two directions is thus reconciled by the Jews. The Levites were admitted to learn their duty at five and twenty, and to minister at thirty years of age. At this last age they were allowed to carry the holy things belonging to the sanctuary; which being the most valuable and important of its moveables, required persons of greater experience and strength. Afterwards, when David new-moulded the constitution of the Levites, he (by the same authority which empowered him to give directions about the building and situation of the house of God) ordered that for the future the Levites should be admitted at the age of twenty years. (1 Chron. xxiii. 24.) It does not appear by the first institution of the Levites that they had any peculiar habit in the ceremonies of religion by which they were distinguished from other Israelites. None of the Levites, of what degree or order soever, had any right to sacrifice, for that was the proper duty of the priests only: the Levites, indeed, were to assist the priests in killing and flaying the sacrifices, and, during the time they were offered up, to sing praises to God: and in this sense the two passages in 1 Chron. xxiii. 31. and 2 Chron. xxxi. 2. are commonly understood; neither had they any title to burn incense to the Lord; and though the speech of Hezekiah (mentioned in 2 Chron. xxix. particularly ver. 11.) seems to imply otherwise, yet we ought to consider that he is there speaking to the priests as well as to the Levites. It was on account of their aspiring to the priest's office in this particular of burning incense, that Korah and his company (who were Levites) were miraculously destroyed, and their censers ordered to be beaten into broad plates, and fixed upon the altar, to be perpetual monuments of their presumptuous sacrilege, and a caution to all the children of Israel, that none presume to offer incense before the Lord but the seed of Aaron, who alone were commissioned to the priestly office.

As the Levites were subordinate to the priests, so they (the Levites) had others under them, called NETHINIMS, whose business it was to carry the water and wood, that was wanted in the temple for the use of the sacrifices, and to perform other laborious services there. They were not originally of Hebrew descent, but are supposed to have been chiefly the posterity of the Gibeonites, who for their fraudulent

1 Gemara Babylonica upon the title Cholin; and Aben Ezra on Numb. viii., cited by Bishop Patrick in his Commentary on Numb. iv. 3.

stratagem in imposing upon Joshua and the Hebrew princes (Josh. ix. 3-27.) were condemned to this employment, which was a sort of honourable servitude. We read in Ezra, that the Nethinims were devoted by David and the other princes to the service of the temple (Ezra viii. 20.), and they are called the children of Solomon's servants (Ezra ii. 58.), being probably a mixture of the race of the Gibeonites, and some of the remains of the Canaanites, whom Solomon constrained to various servitudes. (1 Kings ix. 20, 21.) They had a particular place in Jerusalem where they dwelt, called Ophel, for the conveniency of being near the service of the temple. (Neh. iii. 26.)

In order to enable the Levites to devote themselves to that service, forty-eight cities were assigned to them for their residence, on the division of the land of Canaan; thirteen of these were appropriated to the priests', to which were added the tithes of corn, fruit, and cattle. The Levites, however, paid to the priests a tenth part of all their tithes; and as they were possessed of no landed property, the tithes which the priests received from them were considered as the first fruits which they were to offer to God. (Numb. xviii. 21—24.) 2

II. Next to the Levites, but superior to them in dignity, were the ordinary PRIESTS, who were chosen from the family of Aaron exclusively. They served immediately at the altar, prepared the victims, and offered the sacrifices. They kept up a perpetual fire on the altar of the burnt sacrifices, and also in the lamps of the golden candlestick in the sanctuary; they kneaded the loaves of shew-bread, which they baked, and offered on the golden altar in the sanctuary; and changed them every sabbath-day. Every day, morning and evening, a priest (who was appointed at the beginning of the week by lot) brought into the sanctuary a smoking censer of incense, which he set upon the golden table, and which on no account was to be kindled with strange fire, that is, with any fire but that which was taken from the altar of burnt sacrifice. (Lev. x. 1, 2.) And as the number and variety of their functions required them to be well read in their law, in order that they might be able to judge of the various legal uncleannesses, &c., this circumstance caused them to be consulted as interpreters of the law (Hos. iv. 6. ; Mal. ii. 7., &c.; Lev. xiii. 2.; Numb. v. 14, 15.), as well as judges of controversies. (Deut. xxi. 5., xvii. 8—13.) In the time of war, their business was to carry the ark of the covenant, to sound the holy trumpets, and animate the army to the performance of its duties. To them also it belonged publicly to bless the people in the name of the Lord.

The priests were divided by David into twenty-four classes (1 Chron. xxiv. 7-18.); which order was retained by Solomon (2 Chron. viii. 14.); and at the reformations of the Jewish religion by the kings Hezekiah and Josiah. (2 Chron. xxxi. 2., xxxv. 4, 5.) As, however, only four classes returned from the Babylonish captivity (Ezra ii. 36-39.; Neh. vii. 39-42., xii. 1.), these were again divided into twenty-four classes, each of which was distinguished by its original appellation.

1 See p. 11. suprà.

2 Home's Script. Hist. of Jews, vol. ii. pp. 214-221. Schulzii Archæol. Hebr. pp. 227

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