Thematic Bible: Priests and levites


Thematic Bible



After finishing these things the officials approached me saying, "The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated from the people of the lands with their detestable things, and from the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. For they have taken from their daughters for themselves and their sons. So the holy seed has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands, and the hand of the officials and prefects were foremost in this sin.

And from the descendants of the priests: the descendants of Habaiah, the descendants of Hakkoz, and the descendants of Barzillai (who took a wife from the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called by their name). These sought their record in the genealogy [records], but they were not found, and {were excluded from the priesthood as unclean}.

There was found from the sons of the priests those who had married foreign women, from the sons of Jeshua son of Jehozadak and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib, and Gedaliah. {They pledged themselves} to put away their wives, and their guilt offering was a ram of the flock for their guilt. From the sons of Immer: Hanani and Zebadiah. read more.
From the sons of Harim: Maaseiah, Elijah, Shemaiah, Jehiel, and Uzziah. From the sons of Pashhur: Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethanel, Jozabad, and Eleasah. From the Levites: Jozabad, Shimei, Kelaiah (that is, Kelita), Pethahiah, Judah, and Eliezer. From the singers: Eliashib. From the gatekeepers: Shallum, Telem, and Uri.

Before this, Eliashib the priest who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God--the one related to Tobiah-- prepared for [Tobiah] a large chamber where they had formerly put the grain offering, the frankincense, the [temple] objects, tithes of grain, wine, and oil commanded for the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the offerings of the priests. During all of this, I was not in Jerusalem because in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. At the end of [some] days I asked permission from the king [to leave]. read more.
So I came to Jerusalem. And I came to learn of the wrong that Eliashib had done for Tobiah by making him a room in the courtyard of the house of God. It was very displeasing for me, and I threw all of the objects from the house of Tobiah outside of the chamber. And I spoke [in order], and they cleansed the chambers. Then I returned the objects of the house of God--the grain offering and the frankincense. And then I came to learn that the food of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, the doers of the work, had gone back each to his field. So I quarreled with the prefects, and I said, "Why is the house of God forsaken?" And I gathered them and set them at their station. So all of Judah brought the tithe of grain, new wine, and olive oil into the storehouses. I appointed as treasurer over the storehouses Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, Pedaiah from the Levites, and as their hand Hanan son of Zaccur, son of Mattaniah, for they were considered faithful. [The responsibility given] to them was to distribute to their brothers.

One from the sons of Jehoiada, son of the high priest Eliashib, [who was] the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonote [was there]. I chased him away from me. Remember them, my God, because of their defilements of the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

"Say to all the people of the land and to the priests: 'When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months for these seventy years, did you really fast for me? And when you eat and drink, are you not eating and drinking [for yourselves]?


And the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Yahweh, and the priests [in their] apparel with the trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with the cymbals, were positioned to praise Yahweh, {as described by} King David of Israel. And they {sang responsively}, with praising and thanksgiving to Yahweh [saying], "For he is good, for his loyal love is everlasting for Israel." And all of the people responded with a great shout of joyful acclaim in praise to Yahweh because the house of Yahweh was laid.