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of priests then living, and not merely the amount of four classes. Hence we cannot but regard Jedaiah, Immer, Pashur, and Harim, of Ezr 2:36, as names not of priestly orders, but of great priestly races, and explain the occurrence of three of these names as those of certain of the orders of priests formed by David, by the consideration, that the Davidic orders were names after heads of priestly families of the days of David, and that several of these heads, according to the custom of bestowing upon sons, grandsons, etc., the names of renowned ancestors, bore the names of the founders and heads of the greater races and houses. The classification of the priests in Ezr 2:36. is genealogical, i.e., it follows not the division into orders made by David for the service of the temple, but the genealogical ramification into races and houses. The sons of Jedaiah, Immer, etc., are not the priests belonging to the official orders of Jedaiah, Immer, etc., but the priestly races descended from Jedaiah, etc. The four races (mentioned Ezr 2:36, etc.), each of which averaged upwards of 1000 men, were, as appears from Neh 12:1-7 and Neh 12:12, divided into twenty-two houses. From this number of houses, it was easy to restore the old division into twenty-four official orders. That it was not, however, considered necessary to make this artificial restoration of the twenty-four classes immediately, is seen from the circumstances that both under Joiakim, i.e., a generation after Zerubbabel's return (Neh 12:12-21), only twenty-two houses are enumerated, and under Nehemiah, i.e., after Ezra's return (in Neh 10), ), only twenty-one heads of priestly houses sealed the document. Whether, and how the full number of twenty-four was completed, cannot, for want of information, be determined. The statement of Joseph. Ant. vii. 14. 7, that David's division into orders continues to this day, affords no sufficient testimony to the fact.
According, then, to what has been said, the difference between the names in the two lists of Neh 10 and 12 is to be explained simply by the fact, that the names of those who sealed the covenant, Neh 10, are names neither of orders nor houses, but of heads of houses living in the days