[5] For example, in 1 Kings viii. 4, there are many indications that the context has undergone considerable editing at a fairly late date. The Septuagint translators did not read the clause which speaks of “priests and Levites,” and 2 Chron. v. 5 reads “the Levite priests,” the phrase characteristic of the Deuteronomic identification of priestly and Levitical ministry. 1 Sam. vi. 15, too, brings in the Levites, but the verse breaks the connexion between 14 and 16. For the present disorder in the text of 2 Sam. xv. 24, see the commentaries.
[6] See Father H. Vincent, O.P., Canaan d’après l’exploration récente (1907), pp. 151, 200 sqq., 463 sq.
[7] So Gen. xxxiv. 7, Hamor has wrought folly “in Israel” (cf. Judges xx. 6 and often), and in v. 30 “Jacob” is not a personal but a collective idea, for he says, “I am a few men,” and the capture and destruction of a considerable city is in the nature of things the work of more than two individuals. In the allusion to Levi and Simeon in Gen. xlix. the two are spoken of as “brothers” with a communal assembly. See, for other examples of personification, [Genealogy]: Biblical.
[8] See E. Meyer, Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstämme, pp. 299 sqq. (passim); S. A. Cook, Ency. Bib. col. 1665 seq.; Crit. Notes on O.T. History, pp. 84 sqq., 122-125.
[9] The second element of the name Abiathar is connected with Jether or Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, and even Ichabod (1 Sam. iv. 21) seems to be an intentional reshaping of Jochebed, which is elsewhere the name of the mother of Moses. Phinehas, Eli’s son, becomes in later writings the name of a prominent Aaronite priest in the days of the exodus from Egypt.
[10] With this development in Israelite religion, observe that Judaean cult included the worship of a brazen serpent, the institution of which was ascribed to Moses, and that, according to the compiler of Kings, Hezekiah was the first to destroy it when he suppressed idolatrous worship in Judah (2 Kings xviii. 4). It may be added that the faithful Kenites (found in N. Palestine, Judges iv. 11) appear in another light when threatened with captivity by Asshur (Num. xxiv. 22; cf. fall of Dan and Shiloh), and if their eponym is Cain (q.v.), the story of Cain and Abel serves, amid a variety of purposes, to condemn the murder of the settled agriculturist by the nomad, but curiously allows that any retaliation upon Cain shall be avenged (see below, note 5).
[11] The name Korah itself is elsewhere Edomite (Gen. xxxvi. 5, 14, 18) and Calebite (1 Chron. ii. 43). See Ency. Bib., s.v.
[12]: The musical service of the temple has no place in the Pentateuch, but was considerably developed under the second temple and attracted the special attention of Greek observers (Theophrastus, apud Porphyry, de Abstin. ii. 26); see on this subject, R. Kittel’s Handkommentar on Chronicles, pp. 90 sqq.
[13] Even the tithes enjoyed by the Levites (Num. xviii. 21 seq.) were finally transferred to the priests (so in the Talmud: see Yebamoth, fol. 86a, Carpzov, App. ad Godw. p. 624; Hottinger, De Dec. vi. 8, ix. 17).
[14] For some suggestive remarks on the relation between nomadism and the Levites, and their influence upon Israelite religion and literary tradition, see E. Meyer, Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstämme (1906), pp. 82-89, 138; on the problems of early Israelite history, see [Simeon] (end), [Jews], §§ 5, 8, and [Palestine], History.