Isaiah on Future Priests and
Levites
In Isaiah 61:6, speaking to God’s
people, the prophet points to a day when the restriction of the priesthood to
the line of Aaron will be removed: “you shall be called the priests of the
LORD; they shall speak of you as the ministers [מְשָׁרְתֵ֣י; λειτουργοι] of our God.” In these statements
Isaiah asserts that the Lord’s purpose for the nation asserted in Exodus 19:6,
for it to be a kingdom of priests, will be realized. This assertion has the
same implications about the Mosaic law and the Levitical priesthood as Psalm
110:4, which is exposited in Hebrews 7:11-21.
But Isaiah does not stop with the
declaration that all Israelites will be priests: he includes gentiles as well.
Having listed a series of gentile nations to whom survivors will be sent—Tarshish,
Pul, Lud, Tubal, and Javan (Isa 66:19)—Isaiah asserts, “And they shall bring
all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD . . . And
some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the LORD” (Isa
66:20-21). Here again, there is nothing in the Torah of Moses about
non-Israelites serving as priests or Levites. By definition, men from the tribe
of Levi serves as Levites. Aaron and Moses descended from Levi, and the only
men who descend from Aaron could serve as priests. Just as the assertion in
Isaiah 61;6 overrides the law concerning priests by saying all Israel will be
priests, even more flagrantly the Isaiah 66:21 prophecy that gentiles will
serve as priests points beyond the genealogical requirement of the law (cf. Num
3:5-13).
As Isaiah heralds a day when all God’s
people will know and keep the covenant—“All your children shall be taught by
the LORD” (Isa 54:13)—he announces a day when the terms of the covenant will be
changed, when the Lord will raise up for himself faithful priests from all
Israel and Levites from the nations. Jeremiah likewise makes an important
statement about the Levitical priests in 33:14-16. (James M. Hamilton Jr., Typology
Understand the Bible’s Promise-Shaped Patterns: How Old Testament Expectations
are Fulfilled in Christ [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2022], 77-78)
