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Levi's Elevation to the Priesthood in Second Temple Writings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

James Kugel
James Kugel
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

In ancient Israel, the tribe of Levi was deemed to have a special connection with the service of God. Numerous biblical texts speak of the Levites as the priestly tribe or attribute to them certain special functions connected with cultic worship. But why exactly had the Levites been selected for such honors, and how did their selection come about? Several biblical narratives appear to have been designed in order to answer this question. Thus, the selection of the Levites is at one point connected with their zealousness following the Golden Calf incident (Exod 32:25–29), while elsewhere God's choice of the Levites seems to follow as a natural consequence after the death of the Levite Aaron (see Deut 10:8) or, possibly, to be the result of Moses' words in his final blessing of this tribe before his death (Deut 33:8– 10).

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 86 , Issue 1 , January 1993 , pp. 1 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1993

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References

1 It is implied elsewhere in the Testaments as well, in such passages as T. Reub. 6.7–12; T. Jud. 21. 1–5; T. Iss. 5.7; etc.

2 This text is known from the Cairo Geniza and a number of fragments found at Qumran caves 1 and 4. Parts of what was apparently a Greek translation of this work are also preserved in one manuscript of the Testaments (MS e, that is, Athos, Monastery of Koutloumous, Cod. 39). A translation of the Cairo Geniza fragments was printed n i APOT, 2. 364–67; a more recent, annotated translation is that of Michael E. Stone and Jonas C. Greenfield contained in Hollander, H. W. and Jonge, M. de, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary (STVP 8; Leiden: Brill, 1985) 457–69Google Scholar. In the present article, I have generally used the translations of both the Testament of Levi and the Aramaic Levi Document as they appear in this commentary. For further bibliography on the Aramaic Levi Document, see Greenfield, Jonas C. and Stone, Michael E., “Two Notes on the Aramaic Levi Document,” in Attridge, Harold W., et al. , Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins Presented to John Strugnell on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday (College Theology Society Resources in Religion 5; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990) 153–61Google Scholar.

3 The identification of this “man” as an angel is found in Hos 12:4–5 and throughout later retellings and commentaries.

4 This motif is found as well in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, ad loc. On that passage and the continuation of this section of Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer, see below, pp. 33–36.

5 This motif also appears in some manuscripts of Midrash Tanhuma, whence it apparently found its way into Rashi's commentary.

6 See Theodor, J. and Albeck, Ch., Midrash Bereshit Rabba (3 vols.; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1965) 2Google Scholar. 968, 972 and notes for parallels; see also Buber, Salomon, Midrash agadah ‘al ḥamishah ḥumshe Torah (Vienna: Panet, 1894) 86Google Scholar (on Gen 35:1) [Hebrew].

7 The narrator of Jubilees is an angel, the “angel of the presence.”

8 For the latter term, see Kugel, James, In Potiphar's House (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1990) 38Google Scholar, 134, 146, 256–57.

9 Abel-Mehola is mentioned in Judg 7:22; 1 Kgs4:12; 19:16. Note that the Aramaic Levi Document mentions in connection with this vision of Levi's the town of Abel-Mayin (=Abel-Mayim, a far-northern city mentioned in 2 Chr 16:4); on these two locations, see below, p. 60.

10 On the phrase “a son and servant and a minister of his presence,” see Greenfield and Stone, “Two Notes on the Aramaic Levi Document,” 157–58. Accordingly, the phrase should probably be understood as reflecting an original in which Levi requests that “the son of your servant [Jacob]”—that is, Levi himself—become a “minister of your presence.”

11 For a Hebrew original of the Aramaic Levi Document, see, among others, Grelot, Pierre, “Le Testament araméen de Levi est-il traduit de l'hébreu?” REJ n.s. 14 (1955) 91–99Google Scholar; Becker, Jurgen, Untersuchungen zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Testamente der zwölf Patriarchen (AGJU 8; Leiden: Brill, 1970) 73Google Scholar; Greenfield, J. C. and Stone, M. E., “Remarks on the Aramaic Testament of Levi from the Geniza,” RB 88 (1979) 228–29Google Scholar; Jonge, M. de, “Testament of Levi and Aramaic Levi,” RevQ 13 (1988) 373Google Scholar; for the Aramaic Levi Document as a source for Jubilees, see sources listed in the last article, 373–74.

12 How Jacob decided that Levi ought to serve as a priest at this occasion is not clear from this fragmentary text. Charles had suggested emending the word hwh to ḥzh in the previous sentence, translating, “Then, when Jacob saw (in regard to the twelve) all that should happen to him according to his vow.” This “saw” would thus provide the Aramaic Levi Document with a parallel to Jacob's vision as reported in T. Levi 9.3. Greenfield and Stone support this emendation, translating “then, when Jacob had a vision, he did tithe everything he possessed.” I do not see any justification for this emendation, which seems to be based solely on a desire to bring the Aramaic Levi Document in line with T. Levi 9.3. See below, pp. 13–17.

13 The normal biblical understanding is that it is the first-born male who belongs to God (Exod 13:13–15; Num 18:15), but that would obviously not work here, since Levi was not a first-born and yet ended up with the priesthood. Perhaps, a champion of the “human tithe” argument might claim, Reuben the first-born had to be eliminated because of his sin with Bilhah (see below), and as a result the principle of tithing was substituted in this case.

14 Rabbinic expositors were bothered by the same problem of Simeon's being passed over in favor of Levi; see Sifre Debarim 349, Midrash Tannaʾim 214–15.

15 Other rabbinic texts presuppose the same system of counting backwards: see thus Sifre Debarim 355 (Midrash Tannaʾim 220), where Asher is said to have pointed out that the levitical office could either belong to him, if the counting starting from Reuben, or to Levi, if the counting started from Benjamin.

16 See the note of Luria, R. David in Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer ʿim Beʾur R. David Luria (Jerusalem: n.p., 1970)Google Scholar 86a and b.

17 See Ginzberg, Louis, The Legends of the Jews (trans. Szold, Henrietta; 7 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968)Google Scholar 1. 332; 5. 199 n. 79, 283 n. 89 among others. For a possible reflection of such a list of priests in Jubilees, see Jub. 19.24, 27.

18 Indeed, one might put the case more pointedly: for the author of Jubilees, the very fact that Genesis had here and there noted that someone “built an altar” was not (as a modern biblical scholar might suppose) an attempt to connect the sacredness of a particular site or ancient sanctuary with some action undertaken by one of Israel's ancestors. Such an explanation would be quite pointless to this author. And so, if Genesis nonetheless narrates the building of these altars, was it not because the text wished to hint thereby that the various regular sacrifices, especially those connected with festivals later promulgated by Moses (and other festivals known to us from the Temple Scroll), had in fact been inaugurated by Israel's earliest ancestors? Now, if this is the true hidden significance of so-and-so “building an altar” in Genesis, it follows that those primordial festivals, the archetypes of later, institutionalized worship, should have been performed by priests who were themselves archetypes of the later, institutionalized priesthood, that is, no mere improvisers but regular priests in all respects, indeed, part of an ongoing chain of priests.

19 See Endres, John C., Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jubilees (CBQMS 18; Washington DC: Catholic Bible Association, 1987) 18–19Google Scholar.

20 One might describe this more accurately as a “high priesthood,” for it appears that there could not be two such priests simultaneously. Thus, after Abraham appoints Isaac to be a priest, he (Abraham) is no longer eligible to offer the first fruit sacrifices in the next chapter; they are offered by Isaac.

21 The reference to the altar that Jacob “established” () in Gen 33:20 was apparently less of a problem, since no sacrifices are mentioned and the unusual verb used here (instead of , “build”) might allow an interpreter to conclude that what Jacob did was something less than what was done by the priests Abraham and Isaac, both of whom are said to have built an altar and “called on the name of the Lord” (Gen 12:8 and 26:25). Whatever the case, Jubilees makes no mention at all of this incident; Jacob is thus a nonpriest throughout the book.

22 On Noah's book, see below, n. 51.

23 After the vision is over (T. Levi 5.2), the angel says, “Levi, I have given to you the blessings of the priesthood, until I come and sojourn in the midst of Israel,” but this is clearly a Christian remark. Instead of being specifically granted the priesthood in the original vision, Levi is twice told (T. Levi 2.10; 4.2) that he is to be God's “minister” (λειτουργóς the Greek counterpart to Hebrew ), a word that may refer to both priestly and levitical service. (Indeed, the Hebrew root is used specifically of the Levites in one classical contrast of their role with that of the priests, Num 8:24–26).

24 See above, n. 10.

25 Again, a clearly Christian addition, from the latter half of T. Levi 4.4 through 4.6, is to be excluded from consideration here; the mention of “your sons” there is thus to be considered secondary.

26 The connection of this passage with the Jubilees material has already been pointed out by VanderKam, James C., “Jubilees and the Priestly Messiah of Qumran,” RevQ 13 (1988) 353–65Google Scholar.

27 So, incidentally, is the verse rendered in the Septuagint.

28 Note that the blessing of Moses (Deut 33:9) likewise alludes to a divine covenant between God and the Levites, but here the plural verb leaves room for the notion that this covenant is in fact with the Levites as a tribe rather than with the individual named Levi.

29 Of course, can refer to a human as well as divine emissary in biblical Hebrew, but that is quite irrelevant here, for “emissary of the Lord of hosts” certainly implied a divine emissary, an angel, and so this phrase was interpreted from the Septuaginton.

30 Just such an understanding of nm as “go down” in this verse is reflected in b. Ber. 12b; the verse is adduced to support the idea that one should “go down” (i.e., bow down or remain bowed) at the mention of the divine name.

31 Levi's reading what was “written in heaven by the finger of God,” may be a reference to Jacob's reading the seven tablets from heaven in Jub. 32.20–26, which he then wrote down (Jub. 32.26) and apparently passed on to Levi before his death (Jub. 45.16).

32 Thus, for example, the angelic speaker of Jubilees says, “And the seed of Levi was chosen for the priesthood and levitical [service], to minister before the Lord always, just as we [angels] do” (Jub. 30.18). Similarly, Isaac blesses Levi by saying, “May the Lord give you and your seed very great honor. May he draw you and your seed near to him from all flesh to serve in his sanctuary as angels of the presence and the holy ones” (Jub. 31.14). Underlying these passages is the idea that Levi became like an angel: his service to God on earth was like that performed for God on high by the angels. This is not an uncommon idea in Second Temple texts. But if Jubilees specifically mentions it twice in regard to Levi, it is because such is, by this author's interpretation, precisely what Malachi had said was the significance of Levi's divine covenant: from now on “he was [like] an angel.”

33 That is, why should a rabbinic text like Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer have come up with this biblical word if it were attempting to recount a motif taken from a Greek or Aramaic source? And why, in any case, use a biblical word if it requires a gloss immediately following it? The most plausible answer is that here is an allusion to some biblical text (Mai 3:10, see below), an allusion that was made in the source used by Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer here; that source must therefore have been written in Hebrew. Note, incidentally, that the meaning of the (in rabbinic times) problematical is explicitly the subject of the discussion in b. Sanh. 108b.

34 R. Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer ‘im Be'ur R. David Luria, 86a and b.

35 For the number seven elsewhere, see Hollander and de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary, 151.

36 See Jonge, M. de, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Study of Their Text, Composition and Origin (Assen: van Gorcum, 1975) 45–46Google Scholar.

36 For the dual leadership of Levi and Judah, see Hollander and de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary, 56–61. On the superiority of the Levites, see especially T. Jud 21.1–4, as well as the section of the Aramaic Levi Document represented in 1 QTLevi 1.

38 In addition to the present T. Levi 2.2–5.7 (minus certain editorial interpolations), “Levi's Apocalypse” may well have contained a further section of exhortations and predictions such as presently found in the Testament ofLevi 13 and perhaps even some of the subsequent material.

39 Here the text mentions the revenge against Shechem (T. Levi 2.2) and continues, “And, when we were feeding the flocks at Abelmaul,” implying that the vision at Abelmaul came about subsequently. At the same time, it is certainly noteworthy that T. Levi 2.2 says that the revenge on Shechem occured when Levi was “about twenty years of age.” Is this not an editorial attempt to blur somewhat the obvious contradiction between T. Levi 12.5, which says that Levi was eighteen when he killed Shechem and nineteen when he became a priest, and T. Levi 5.3, which has the revenge occur after Levi's heavenly ascent?

40 It may therefore well be that the assertion in T. Levi 8.18 that Levi “awoke” and understood that “this was like the former [vision]” was not part of the original text of “Levi's Priestly Initiation.” After all, this sentence forms the transition between separate sections of the narrative and is a likely place for such editorial activity to occur (compare ALD 7, with similar purpose but using different language). It may also be, however, that this author simply sought to deemphasize the dream setting by omitting its mention from the beginning of his account.

41 T. Levi 7.4–8.1; ALD 10.

42 The Book of Malachi itself seems to represent this particular point of view, for it repeatedly mentions, as we have seen, God's “covenant with Levi,” presumably a panlevitical priesthood. There is not the slightest hint of a distinction between priests and (other) Levites in Malachi, nor any mention of Aaron or Zadok. A panlevitical priesthood may likewise be implied in Jer 33:22; as is well known, such a priesthood s i assumed by Deuteronomy (see Deut 18:1–8).

43 Olyan, Saul M., “Ben Sira's Relationship to the Priesthood,” HTR 80 (1987) 261–86Google Scholar.

44 See Milik, J. T., “4Q Visions de ‘Amram et une citation d'Origène,” RB 79 (1972) 77–97Google Scholar; Puesch, Émile, “Le Testament de Qahat en araméen de la grotte 4 (4QTQah),” RevQ 17 (1991) 23–54Google Scholar.

45 See Milik, “4Q Visions de ‘Amram,” 96–97.

46 At the same time, the fact that Jubilees asserts that Levi “dreamed a dream” (when, according to our hypothesis, the putative original presented Levi's initiation as an actual happening) is significant. See below, pp. 48–49.

47 The other leader, Simeon, could hardly be so rewarded, since he himself violated the very divine teaching embodied in it, namely, the prohibition against intermarriage. How so? The author of Jubilees once again proves to be a careful reader of the Bible. I n the genealogy at Gen 46:8–27, mention is made of Simeon's sons, “Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul the son of the Canaanite woman” (Gen 46:10). Jubilees specifically mentions Simeon's marriage to this Canaanite woman (Jub. 34.20).

48 See n. 47.

49 Moreover, if “in those days Rachel became pregnant,” how is it that she gives birth to Benjamin less than a month later (Jub. 32.33)? “In those days” would be appropriate to some earlier point in the story. It was observed above that rabbinic texts containing the motif “Jacob Counts Backward” located it at the crossing of the Jabbok, and that there was nothing inherent in this motif itself connecting it to the Bethel site. Perhaps Jubilees is thus integrating this motif from a source or tradition that (like our rabbinic texts) connected it with the Jabbok crossing.

50 Delcor, M., “La Fête des huttes dans le Rouleau du Temple et dans le Livre des Jubilés,” RevQ 16 (1991) 181–98Google Scholar.

51 Some scholars have asserted that there actually was a Second Temple apocryphon i n circulation known as the “book of Noah.” It may be that such a text existed, although the arguments adduced thus far seem weak to me (see most recently, Martinez, Florentio Garcia, Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran [STDJ 9; Leiden: Brill, 1992] 1–44Google Scholar; I prefer the cautious assessment of Caquot, André, “4QMess Ar 1 i 8–11” RevQ 16 [1991] 155Google Scholar.) But even if there eventually was a text written under this name, there is no indication that it existed by the time of the Aramaic Levi Document or that the author of the Aramaic Levi Document knew of it. As we have just seen, his reference to the “book of Noah” can easily be explained as having come solely from what he read in Jubilees.

52 A number of scholars have asserted just the opposite; see above, note 11. I believe, however, that these scholars might have concluded differently if they had considered the possibility that the Aramaic Levi Document itself had in fact been assembled from two earlier works, namely, “Levi's Apocalypse” and “Levi's Priestly Initiation.” It is the prior existence of the latter text, and not of the whole Aramaic Levi Document, that Jubilees reflects. By the way, there is no reason why, even if the Aramaic Levi Document borrowed from Jubilees (and not vice versa), the mention of certain words spoken by “Levi, the son of Jacob” in CD 4.15 might not be a reference to the (by then complete) Aramaic Levi Document; see Greenfield, Jonas, “The Words of Levi in CD iv 15–19” RevQ 13 (1988) 319–22Google Scholar. At the same time, this need not necessarily be so; the reference in the Damascus Document might likewise just as easily be to one of the Aramaic Levi Document's constituent texts, “Levi's Apocalypse” or “Levi's Priestly Initiation.”

53 On this translation, see Greenfield and Stone, “Aramaic Testament of Levi,” 219.

54 See above, n. 12.

55 Rabbinic traditions, incidentally, present a picture which is actually rather close to that of Jubilees. Not only do a number of rabbinic texts presuppose a similar chain of priests (see above, n. 17), but one tradition cited in the Mishnah holds that “before the Tabernacle was erected, [sacrifices at the] high places were permitted and the priestly service was performed by the firstborns” (m. Zebahim 14.4, see also Midrash Tanhuma [ed. S. Buber; Vilnius: n.p., 1885] 133). Esau thus was destined for the priesthood-at least until he sold his birthright to Jacob. See Gen. Rab. 63.13; Ginzberg, Legends, 5. 277 n. 44.