The Temple Service in the Days of our Savior Described, Chapter 3
CHAP. III. Of the High-priesthood.
1. THE High-priesthood, still descended to the first-born: for so was Eleazar to Aaron when Nadab and Abihu were dead; which[a]R. Sol. in 1. Chr. 24. Rabbi Sol. pertinently observes upon those words, in 1 Chron. 24.1. Nadab and Abihu died and had no Sons, therefore Eleazar and Ithamar executed the Priests office: For [saith he] if Nadab or Abihu, had left sons, they had had the High-priesthood before Eleazar or Ithamar. And so Jozedek and Ezra were the sons of Seraiah the High priest, but Jozedek, was the High-priest after him, and not Ezra, for Jozedek was the first born. And as the first born in the family of any tribe, was Priest before the Law was given [& accordingly doth the[b]Targ. in Gen. 49. Chaldee, on Gen. 49.3. paraphrase the words of Jacob to this sense, Reuben thou art my first born, and to thee belonged three portions, the Birthright, the Priesthood and the Kingdom [so the first born in the chief family of Aaron, was High-priest lineally descended and by succession. And therefore[c]Iucasin fol. 15. when Simeon the just having two sons Shimei and Onias, would have put Shimei the eldest, by the High-priesthood, and put Onias the younger in, he could not do it but Shimei obtained his right, and Onias was put to flee into Aegypt, where he built a sumptuous and a famous Temple.
And by this necessity of succession it came to pass that sometimes the High-priest proved to be but meanly qualified for such an office; as appears amongst other evidences, by that passage in[d]Ioma per. 1. Joma where it is related how against the Expiation day, some Elders were appointed to attend the High-p…iest, and they said to him, Sir High-priest read thou thy self, it may be thou hast forgotten, or it may he thou hast not learned: And a little after it is said, If he was a wise man hee expounded; if not, they expounded before him. And to this purpose is that proverb, or probleme foreign.[e]Maym. in Talmud. Torah. per. 3. A Scholar though hee be a bastard, is of more value then an unlearned High-priest. This sheweth that the function was rather typicall then the person.
2.[f]Id. in Kele Mikdash. per. 4. The installing of the High-priest into his office was by the Sanhedrin, who anointed him, or when the oyl failed [as there was none under the seond Temple] cloathed him with the high-priestly garments: If he were anointed, hee was anointed dayly seven daies together; and if hee were not anointed [when the holy oyl was gone] he was cloathed with the eight garments of the Priesthood, daily seven dayes together, and he was called foreign, The installed by the garments.
The garments were these,
1. foreign The coat: [g]Id. ib. per. 8.This he ware next his skin: it was made of fine linnen, wrought checker work, like Diaper, and therefore it is called foreign, the checkered coat, Exod. 28.4. as Sauls coat of mail is called foreign, 2 Sam. 1.9. such a coat as this had every one of the Priests in the service, without any difference: and such a one did the High-priest wear whilst he was an ordinary Priest, before he came to that dignity:*Talm. Ierus in Succah. per. 5. when these linnen coats of the ordinary Priests were grown so old; that they were past wearing, they ravelled them in pieces and made yarn of them for the lamps in the golden candlestick.
2. foreign. Linnen breeches. Exod. 28.42. when it is said that the checkered coat was next the skin, it is to be understood from the loins upward, and thicker clad were not the ordinary Priests there then with that thin diaper shirt, for so we may call it: but upon their thighs they had linnen breeches to cover their nakedness: which breeches or drawers when they were old, they raveld them also to make wick-yarn for candles of light at the joyful festivity of drawing of water on the last and great day of the feast of Tabernacles; and so they did by their overworn girdles.
3. foreign The girdle; which was as a long linnen swaddle, which went many times about them, over their paps and downward; partly to keep them warm, and partly to strengthen their backs in the hard service to which they were sometime put. The High-priest and ordinary Priests had of these alike.
4. foreign The coat of the Ephod. This garb the ordinary Priests had not, but only the High-priest, and it was called the coat of the Ephod, because the Ephod did gird it to him: it had no sleeves as his checkered coat had, but it was made of two main peeces, the one whereof, hung before him, and the other behind him: the collar of this Ephod was like the collar of an habergion whole, and to be put over his head: and from the collar downward the peeces were parted, and his arms came out between them: At the lower end of either of these peeces, were thirty six little golden bells with clappers; and pomgranats of needlework, between every bell: seventy two bells in all. This coat was foreign as both[h]Ioseph. Ant. lib. 3. cap. 8. Josephus, and[i]Philo de Vita Mosis l. 3. p. apud. me. 519. Philo relate, and so render the word foreign of which [as Maymonides saith] it was all made, which Philo renders also foreign the colour of the air, or skie colour.
5. foreign The Ephod. The bredth of this was the bredth of his back from shoulder to shoulder, and it hung behind him, from his armholes to his feet, from it there came two peeces under his armholes, and met together and clasped over his paps; and this was called foreign the curious girdle of the Ephod, because both it and the Ephod were curiously wrought of fine twist and gold. It had two shoulder-peeces also which went over the Priests shoulders, and were fastned to the Ephod behind, and to the girdle before: and so the Ephod hung low behind like a womans vail, and came but short before, like some workmens aprons hanging over their shoulders and coming down but to their brests. Upon these shoulder peeces were two Beryll stones set in gold, in which the names of the twelve tribes were ingraven, six in one stone on the one shoulder, and six in the other: so equally divided for the letters, that there were 25. letters in either stone, and Josephs name was written Jehoseph to make the equality, and so he is called and written, Psal. 81.6.
Upon these shoulder peeces there were two bosses of gold, neer to these stones, into which, two gold chains, which tyed the brest-plate to the Ephod, were so fastned, that brest-plate and Ephod might not be parted: and who so willingly parted them was to be whipt.
6. foreign The brest-plate. This was a rich peece of cloth of gold, an hand bredth square, double; set with twelve precious in four rowes, three in a row; these are called Vrim and Thummim, Exod. 28.30. which are eminently mentioned in scripture, and famous for the inquiring by Vrim and Thummim, and Gods answering by them, the manner of which wee have discoursed elsewhere.[k]Maym. ubi supr. per. 10. In the second Temple they made a brest-plate and Ʋrim and Thummim, that is, set the stones in the brest-plate, but never inquired by them, because the spirit of Prophesie was then departed.
7. foreign. The miter. So it is almost Englished in Philoes Greek, when speaking of the High-priests garb, he saith among other things,[l]Philo in lib. de profugis. pag. apud me 364. foreign that in the service he never went without the miter. [m]Ioseph. Aut. ubi. sup.This was called foreign. A bonnet [saith Iosephus] without a crown, which went not over all his head, but only a little above the middle of it: sitting upon his head as it were a Crown. It was made of linnen, and was a long kind of swaddles of a large bredth, which he wrapt oft about his head, and complicated it in and out: that the wrapping or warping of it up about his head was after the manner of the Turkish Tullibants: only it wanted a crown, but was open on the top, sitting on his brows after the manner of a garland.
8. foreign The golden plate, Exod. 28.36. this was fastned on the front of the miter: and in it was ingraven Holiness to the Lord: [n]Maym. ubi sup. per. 10.And between the miter and the plate he put and wore his frontall Phylacteries.
Thus was the High-priest drest, exceeding rich and exceeding gorgeous: and his office eminent, and high in dignity; but the choicest eminency of it, was in what it typified and resembled, the great High-priest that was to come; the explication and application of which type & antitype is so abundantly set forth in the scripture, especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that it is needless to insist upon it: Let us only for conclusion take the testimony of one that was either a stranger or an enemy to the Gospel, and yet in this point and matter speaketh exceeding consonant and concurrent to it, and that is Philo the Jew whom we mentioned before, who speaking divers things concerning the High-priest concludes thus, foreign.[o]Philo ubi supra. We say that the High priest meaneth not a man but the word of God: who was free from all sin, both voluntary and unvoluntary. And if any one desire to see how allegorically hee applieth the severall parcels of the High-priests garments to the severall parts of the world, Air, Earth, Water, Fire, &c. hee may have him at large discoursing it, according to accustomed fluency, in his third book de Vita Mosis pag. apud me 519, 520, 521. where after he hath spent a great deal of time and words, and fancy to little profit, he at last comes on with this golden saying, worthy a thousand volumes of such stuffe as hee had produced before: foreign.[p]Id. p. 521. It was necessary that he setting up a Priest to the father of the world, should use his most absolutely perfect son for a Mediator or advocate both for the obtaining of pardon of sin, and supply of abundant good.
An High-priest once installed was High-priest for his life. foreign.[q]Ioseph. Ant. lib. 15. cap. 3. For none was deposed from this honour, when hee had once obtained it: that is, not by any legall deposition: but money and power at the last broke this priviledg, and the High-priests were frequently thrust in and thrust out by these, according as the one or the other prevailed, as the Gemara on the treatise Ioma maketh mention, and Iosephus in divers places giveth example.
The High-priest in some things was nothing differenced from others of the people[r]Sanhedr. per. 2. Hee might bee a witness in causes and might; be witnessed against as well as any other. Hee might bee a Iudge as well as any other, and he might be judged. Nay foreign.[s]Maym. in Biath. Mikdash per. 4. If he committed an offence which by the Law deserved whipping, the great Sanhedrin whipt him, and then hee was restored again to his dignity. His shoe was pulled off for not raising seed to his brother [though by the Law hee might not do it, being not permitted to marry a widow,] and his wife so left, might pull off the shoe of the next kinsman: and severall other things might bee mentioned in which the High-priest in point of law or practice had no priviledge above other men, or difference from them, which are not materiall to insist upon, to our purpose.
But there were some things again in which hee was differenced from the rest of the people, and that not only in regard of the dignity of his function [in which hee was also distinguished from the rest of the Priests] but also in regard of some things in civill converse. As had he any of his that died, hee might not follow the corps to the grave, he might not rent his clothes for the dead: hee might not bee vailed if others were vailed, nor unvailed if they were unvailed, but still in a contrary garb to them; whilst others sate on the ground he sate on a seat; and divers particular differences which it would bee tedious to recite.
His difference from the rest of the Priests was especially in his superiority above them, in his anointing or cloathing with the rich garments, and in his service on the day of Expiation.