The Priestly Households Receive Their Turns

“Divisions” is machleqot, the same word as the Levite “courses” of 23:6, now applied to the priests themselves. The four sons of Aaron are listed exactly as in Exodus 6:23, including the two whose line ended before it began.

Nadab and Abihu offered “strange fire” and were consumed (Leviticus 10:1–2); Numbers 3:4 adds that they had no children. “Before their father” means in his lifetime, while Aaron still served. Chronicles gives only the bare fact and leaves the cause to the older books.

Zadok stands for Eleazar’s line and Ahimelech for Ithamar’s. Ithamar’s branch was the house of Eli, under the sentence of 1 Samuel 2:31–35, and Solomon will banish Abiathar to Anathoth (1 Kings 2:27), fulfilling that word. The smaller branch in the next verse carries that history.

“Chief men” is literally “heads of men”, the recognised leaders of each family. Sixteen and eight make twenty-four, twice twelve, and the same number will organise the musicians in chapter 25 and the monthly army divisions of chapter 27.

“One sort with another” is literally “these with these”: both branches went into the same drawing rather than each being drawn separately. “Governors of the sanctuary” is sarei qodesh, princes of holiness, a phrase Isaiah 43:28 uses for “the princes of the sanctuary”.

Shemaiah son of Nethaneel is known only from this verse, a Levite scribe whose one recorded act is writing the result down. The last clause repeats its verb, “taken, taken for Ithamar”, which many read as a drawing that alternated between the two houses, though the exact pattern is unclear.

Mattathias, who began the Maccabean revolt, was “a priest of the sons of Joarib” (1 Maccabees 2:1), and Josephus claims the same first course as his own. Jedaiah’s house returned from Babylon 973 strong (Ezra 2:36), the first priestly family on that list.

Harim’s descendants returned numbering 1,017 (Ezra 2:39), and several of them had married foreign wives in Ezra’s day (Ezra 10:21). Seorim appears nowhere else; the name looks like the Hebrew for barley.

Malchijah means “my king is the LORD”; a priest named Pashur, son of Malchijah, is listed among those living in Jerusalem after the return (9:12). Mijamin, “from the right hand”, appears among the priests who came back with Zerubbabel (Nehemiah 12:5).

Hakkoz’s family could not find their genealogy after the exile and were barred from the priesthood as polluted (Ezra 2:61–62), yet a Meremoth son of Uriah son of Koz later weighs the temple treasure (Ezra 8:33). Abijah, “my father is the LORD”, shares his name with Rehoboam’s son, the king of 2 Chronicles 13.

Jeshua is the later Hebrew form of Joshua, the name behind the Greek Iesous, and it was carried by the high priest of the return (Ezra 3:2). Shecaniah is among the priests who went up with Zerubbabel (Nehemiah 12:3).

A later Eliashib was high priest in Nehemiah’s day; he rebuilt the sheep gate (Nehemiah 3:1) and then gave Tobiah the Ammonite a room in the temple courts (Nehemiah 13:4–7). Jakim, “he raises up”, leaves no further trace as a priestly house.

Huppah is the word for a canopy, the covering of a bride and bridegroom (Joel 2:16). Jeshebeab occurs only here. Ezra 2:36–39 lists just four priestly families among those who returned from Babylon, so most of these twenty-four houses are not heard of again in the post-exilic lists.

The Mishnah (Sukkah 5:8) remembers the course of Bilgah as penalised in the temple, its ring fixed and its niche closed, over a daughter of the family who abandoned the faith. Immer’s house included Pashur, the priest who beat Jeremiah and put him in the stocks (Jeremiah 20:1–2).

The Bene Hezir tomb, cut into the rock of the Kidron valley below the temple mount in the second century before Christ, bears an inscription naming the sons of Hezir as priests, a family of this course still prominent centuries later. The Hebrew for Aphses carries the article, Happizzez.

Pethahiah means “the LORD opens”. Jehezekel is the same Hebrew name as Ezekiel, “God strengthens”, and the only other man in Scripture to bear it is the prophet, who was also a priest (Ezekiel 1:3).

Jachin, “he establishes”, is also the name Solomon gives the right-hand bronze pillar at the porch of the temple (2 Chronicles 3:17). Gamul appears only here; the word is used for a weaned child or for one repaid.

Delaiah means “the LORD has drawn up”, the name of the prince who begged Jehoiakim not to burn Jeremiah’s scroll (Jeremiah 36:25). Maaziah closes the list, and a priest of that name signs the covenant of Nehemiah 10:8.

“Orderings” is pequddah, an appointed duty or post. “According to their manner” is mishpatam, their ordinance. The authority is traced past David to Aaron, “as the LORD God of Israel had commanded him”, so the schedule claims the same origin as the priesthood.

Shubael is the Shebuel of 23:16, Moses’ grandson through Gershom; here he is simply filed under Amram, with Moses’ name left out. Jehdeiah extends the line by a generation beyond chapter 23.

Rehabiah, whose descendants were “very many” (23:17), now has a named first son, Isshiah. “The first” implies there were others, though only one is given.

Shelomoth is the Shelomith of 23:18, spelled differently. His son Jahath takes a name that belongs to the Gershonite branch as well (23:10), another case of the same name in separate lines.

The Hebrew of this verse is damaged and lacks Hebron’s name; the King James supplies “of Hebron” from 23:19, where the same four sons appear in the same order.

Shamir, the son of Michah, adds a generation not found in chapter 23. The name matches a town in the hills of Ephraim where the judge Tola lived and was buried (Judges 10:1–2).

Isshiah is the Jesiah of 23:20; the Hebrew name is the same. His son is a Zechariah, one of the most common names in the Old Testament, borne by some thirty different men.

Jaaziah is a son of Merari not found in chapter 23 or in Numbers. “Beno” is the ordinary Hebrew for “his son”, and the phrase may mean “Jaaziah his son” rather than naming a man called Beno.

Shoham is the Hebrew for the onyx stones set on the shoulders of the high priest’s ephod (Exodus 28:9). Ibri has the same letters as the word for “Hebrew”. Zaccur means “remembered”.

The Eleazar here is the Merarite of 23:22, not Aaron’s son. Chapter 23 explains that his daughters married their cousins; this list records only that he left no son.

This Jerahmeel is a Levite of Merari’s line, unrelated to the Judahite Jerahmeel of 2:9 whose clan gave its name to a stretch of the Negev (1 Samuel 27:10).

Jerimoth is spelled Jeremoth in 23:23. The closing sentence marks the end of the Levite register that runs alongside the priestly courses.

“Over against” means alongside, on the same footing. Lots, goral in Hebrew, divided the land in Joshua 18:10 and will assign the musicians in 25:8 and the gatekeepers in 26:13, “as well the small as the great”. Acts 1:26 uses the same method to fill Judas’ place.