The Typology of Scripture, Volume 2 by Patrick Fairbairn

Author:Patrick Fairbairn [Fairbairn, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-11-22T23:00:00+00:00

SECTION THIRD. THE MINISTERS OF THE TABERNACLE

--THE PRIESTS AND LEVITES.

The general divisions of the tabernacle, and even its particular parts and services, were so peculiarly connected with the persons who were appointed to tread its courts, that it is necessary, before proceeding farther, to understand distinctly the place which these held in the Mosaic dispensation, and especially, how they stood related to God, on the one hand, and to the people on the other. This section must therefore be devoted to the consideration of the Levitical priesthood.

I. It is somewhat singular, that the earliest notices we have of a priesthood in Scripture, refer to other branches of the human family than that of the line of Abraham. The first person with whom the name of priest is there associated, is Melchizedec, who is described as "king of Salem, and priest of the Most High God." To him Abraham, though the head of the whole chosen family, paid tithes of all, and thus virtually confessed himself to be no priest as compared with Melchizedec. Then, in the days of Joseph, we meet with Potipherah, priest of On, or Heliopolis in Egypt, and of the priests generally, as a distinct and highly privileged order in that country (Gen. xli. 45; xlvii. 22); and a few generations later still, mention is made of Jethro, the priest of Midian. Not till the children of Israel left the land of Egypt, and were placed under that peculiar polity which was set up among them by the hand of Moses, do we hear of any individual, or class of individuals, holding the office of the priesthood as a distinct and exclusive prerogative. How, then, did they make their approach to God and present their oblations? Did each worshipper transact for himself with God? Or, did the father of a family act as priest for the members of his household? Or, was the priestly function among the privileges of the first-born? This last position has been maintained by many of the leading Jewish authorities (Jonathan, Onkelos, Saadias, Jarchi, Abenezra, &c.), and also by some men of great learning in Christian times (Grotius, Selden, Bochart, &c.). They have chiefly grounded their opinion on the circumstance of Moses having employed certain young men to offer the sacrifices, by the blood of which the covenant was ratified (Ex. xxiv. 5), connecting this fact, on the one hand, with the profaneness of Esau in having despised his birth-right, which is thought to have been a slighting of the priesthood, and, on the other, with God's special consecration of the first-born, after their redemption in Egypt. This opinion, however, may now be regarded as almost universally abandoned. The consecration of the first-born on the eve of Israel's departure from Egypt, did not, as we shall see, include their appointment to the priestly office; nor was this reckoned among the rights of primogeniture. These rights Scripture itself has plainly restricted to pre-eminence in authority among the brethren, and the possession of a double portion in the inheritance (1 Chron.

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