ZADOK AND NEHUSHTAN H. H. ROWLEY I HE figure of Zadok has always commanded the interest of T Old Testament students, and the problem of his anteced- ents has found no certain solution. He appears suddenly beside Abiathar in the Jerusalem priesthood in the time of David, but the Old Testament gives us no reliable information as to whence he came. He is provided, indeed, with two different genealogies, but of these one is almost certainly due to textual corruption, and the other to the pious fabrication of a later age. For whereas 2 Sam 8 17 declares him to be the son of Ahitub, and so apparently of the family of Eli,1 1 Chron 24 3 represents him as belonging to the house of Eleazar, which is contrasted with the house of ־Ithamar, to which Eli belonged, while 1 Chron 5 30-34, 6 35r38 provides him with a full genealogy back to (־־E. V. 6 450-53 ,8) Aaron. That he was not the son of Ahitub, Eli’s grandson (1 Sam 14 3) is certain,2 for 1 Sam 2 27-36 was clearly written to explain the 1 Kennett {Old Testament Essays, 1928, 77) thinks the text of 1 Sam 143 unreliable, and doubts the soundness of the connexion of Ahitub with the house of Eli. 2 Graf, indeed, held that Zadok's father was the same person as Ahimelech's father, and hence that Zadok belonged to the house of Eli. Cf. De templo Silonensi commentario ad illustrandum locum lud. xviii. 30 sq. scripta (Mem- oriam anniversariam dedicatae ante hos CCCXII annos Scholae Regiae Afranae d. v. lui. MDCCCLV indicit Fridericus Franke) p. 13: Omnes qui in Sauli et Davidis historia nominantur sacerdotes ex una eademque sacer- dotum gente fuisse videntur ex Ahitubi filiis, qui Nobae sedem et sacrarium In making ״.habuerunt et Davidis partes secuti Sauli iussu plerique occisi sunt Zadok the uncle of Abiathar, this view renders 1 Sam 2 27-36 unintelligible. 113 114 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE supersession of Eli's house by that of Zadok in the time of Solomon (1 Kings 2 26 f.). But neither was Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and the text of 2 Sam 8 17 is manifestly out of order.3 The restoration of A1biathar the son of Ahimelech 1was long since proposed,4 and is found, indeed, in the Syriac version, but the corruption would seem to be deeper than that, and by the comparison with 1 Sam 22 20 it becomes almost certain that instead of 'Zadok the son of Ahi tub, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar,’ we should read 4Zadok, and Abiathar the son of It thus appears that the Ahitub 5״. Ahimelech the son of Ahitub of this verse, accidentally transferred to Zadok, is indeed Eli's - grandson, but that in the original text Zadok was entirely with out genealogy. He is therefore not seldom referred to as a parvenu.6 That he should be given a full genealogy by the Chronicler is not surprising. For owing to the respective parts played by Abiathar and Zadok in the intrigue that preceded the accession of Solomon, the one was dismissed from Jerusalem, and the other left without rival in the Jerusalem priesthood (1 Kings - f.), with the result that his successors continued to monop 26 2 olize the priestly offices of Jerusalem down to the Exile, and is to be observed that whereas 2 Sam 817 says that Zadok and Ahimelech גIt were the priests, 20 25 gives the names of Zadok and Abiathar, and we know that Abiathar, who was David’s priest during his outlawry, was still priest at .the beginning of Solomon’s reign So Tirinus: ‘Videtur potius dicendum Abiathar filius Achimelech’ {Biblia 4 maxima versionum, cum annotationibus , IV , 1660, 460(. T*h is reading is commonly attributed to Wellhausen, who proposed Abiathar the son of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, and Zadok’ (Der Text der * Bücher Samuelis, 1871, 177). But in the order given above the proposal is older than Wellhausen, being found in Maurer (Commentarius grammaticus criticus in Vetus Testamentum, I, 1835, 184) and Hitzig (apud Thenius,Die Bûcher Samuels, 1842, 166). In one or other of these forms it is followed by most modern writers, though H. P. Smith (Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel, 1899, 309), DriverNotes ( on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, 2nd ed., 1913, 283) and Rehm Textkritische( Untersuchungen zu den Parallelstellen der Samuel-Königsbücher und der Chronik , 1937, 126( content themselves with the change to ‘Abiathar the son of Ahimelech,’ and re’. tain ‘Zadok the son of Ahitub Cf. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel , E. T. by Black arid 6 Menzies, 1885, 143, and Kennett,Old Testament Essaysf 1928, 78. ROWLEY: ZADOK AND NEHUSHTAN l i s even the reform of Josiah failed to interfere with their privileges Kings 23 9), despite the provisions of Deuteronomy 2( )186 -8(. Ezekiel rationalized this position of privilege, and laid it down - that in the future community priestly functions should be re served for the family of Zadok (Ezk 44 15 ), while the country - priests who had failed to secure what the Deuteronomic reform e rs had proposed for them should be reduced to a sub-priestly status (Ezk 4410 ff.).7 But by the time of the Chronicler the Priestly Code was already established, and while it accepted Ezekiel’s principle of two grades of Temple attendants, it adopted a wider basis than Ezekiel’s for the limits of the priesthood, which - it assigned to the descendants of Aaron.8 It was therefore neces sary to legitimate the family of Zadok within the family of Aaron,9 and the creation of the genealogy set out in Chronicles i s the natural result. It would seem that the corruption of 2 Sam had already taken place,10 so that Ahitub had to figure as 17 8 As - Gray observes: *Ezekiel. leaves us . in no doubt that the distinc ך tion between the sons of Zadok and other priests which he would introduce -in the future had not been a feature of life before the fall of Jerusalem* (Sacri fice in the Old Testament ,1 925,6 4(. Ke-nnett accounted for this by the theory that after the Jerusalem prie 8st hood (Zadokite) had been carried into exile, the Bethel priesthood, which traced its descent from Aaron (cf. Aaron’s Golden Calf, and the Calf-worship of Bethel), migrated to Jerusalem, and became so strongly entrenched during the Exile that when the Zadokites returned, the most they could do was to o d ,JTS״,secure a place beside them. Cf. ‘The Origin of the Aaronite Priestho VI 1)904-5(, 161-86. T-he Priestly Code not merely carried back the post-Deuteronomic distin c 9 tion between Aaronites and ordinary Levites to the Mosaic age; it assigned a third reason for the predominance of the Zadokites. For whereas 1 Sam ascribed it to the misconduct of the family of Eli, and Ezk 44 10 ff. to 27-36 2 the misdeeds of the country priests, Num 25 10 ff. ascribed it to the virtue of Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson. It is of interest to note, too, that whereas Sam- 2 27-36 states that Yahweh repented of His promise to confer an ever 1 las,)ting priesthood on the family of Eli’s father (i. e. on the house of Ithamar and would raise up a faithful priest (i. e. Zadok), Num 25 12 f. declares that already in the Mosaic age Yahweh had promised the abiding priesthood, not to. the family of Ithamar, but to the family of Eleazar Cf. 1 Chron 24 6, where the other corruption of this verse, ‘Ahimele c10h -the son of Abiathar’ is also reproduced. In 1 Chron 18 16 by a further cor ruption we have ‘Abimelech the son of Abiathar.’ In both of these passages the Syriac has 1Ahimelech the son of Abiathar*; ct. 2 Sam 8 17, supra. 116 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE the father of Zadok, but was now converted into a descendant of Eleazar. Kittel accepts the view that Zadok was a Levite,11 and thinks it probable that he was a descendant of Aaron, but though he promises proof of this, all he is able to offer is the consideration that he can hardly have been a non-Levite, for Solomon would have avoided appointing in Abiathar’s place one who had no claim whatever to priestly descent.12 The argument is a non- sequitur, for it tacitly assumes that the only title to the priest- hood in the age of David was Levitical descent.13 Hölscher rejects the view that Zadok was a Levite, and believes that the Zadokites were first recognized as Levi tes by Deut 18 7.14 I am not persuaded of this, however. When the tribe of Levi lost its secular status,15 many of its wandering members appear to have ־History of the Hebrews, E. T. by Taylor, I, 1908, 124. So, too, von Baud 11 issin, Geschichte des alttestamenüichen Priesterthums, 1889, 198 f. ” Op. cit.f II, 1909, 182 f. Cf. Geschichte des Volkes Israel, II 7th ed., 1925, 196. ** In Theologische Studien aus Württemberg , III (1882), 299 ff., Kittel had earlier argued for the view that Zadok was a Levite, and on p. 302 advanced the consideration that were he not a Levite, David and Solomon would have been guilty of the sin which 1 Kings 12 31 regards as one of the worst of Jero- boam’s sins — viz.