Monday, May 16, 2022

James M. Hamilton Jr., "Jeremiah on Future Levitical Priests"

  

Jeremiah on Future Levitical Priests

 

The prophets teach that when God does the new exodus salvation (e.g., Jer 16:14-15; 23:7-8), he will make a new covenant with his people that will not be like the one he made with them after the exodus (31:31-34). Isaiah indicates that this will result in not only Israelites but also gentiles serving as priests and Levites. Does this hold for Jeremiah as well? Or does Jeremiah teach that in the same way that God will cause a Davidic king to reign forever, he will cause the Levitical priests to minister forever? If the Levitical priests were to continue forever, would that not mean that the covenant under which they minister, the Sinai covenant, would also continue to be in force forever (cf. Heb 7:12)?

 

The ESV’s rendering of Jeremiah 33:17-18 could lend itself to the impression that the two verses are parallel statements:

 

Jeremiah 33:17

Jeremiah 33:18

For thus says the LORD:
David shall never lack a man

to sit on the throne of the house
of Israel

and
the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence
to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.

 

Read this way, verses 17 and 18  seem to indicate (1) that a descendant of David will always sit on the throne of Israel, and (2) that a descendant of Aaron from the tribe of Levi will always serve as priest. The CSB and NASB have similar readings, but the renderings in the KJV and NET are more open a different understanding. Consider my own very literal translation of these two verses (italics denote matching phrases):

 

Jeremiah 33:17

Jeremiah 33:18

For thus says Yahweh:
He shall not be cut off for David,
a man sitting on the throne of
the house of Israel,

and for the priests, the Levites,
he shall not be cut off,
a man from before me offering up burnt offerings and making tributes smoke and making sacrifices all the days.

 

The word order and phrasing of these two verses leaves open the possibility that the man who “shall not be cut off for David” in verse 17 is the same who “shall not be cut off” for the priests, the Levites, in verse 18. Note that in verses 17 and 18 the same expression is used for “he shall not be cut off . . . , a man” (לא-יִכּרֵת . . . אִיש).

 

As reflected in my literal translation above, verse 17 has the “for David” clause immediately following the verbal phrase, “He shall not be cut off.” In verse 18, by contrast, the phrase “and for the priests, the Levites,” precedes the verbal clause, indicating that rather than presenting parallel statements in which neither the man from David nor the man from the Levitical priesthood will be cut off, there would be one man who will not be cut off “for David . . . and for the priests, the Levites” (33:17-18a). On this reading, the repetition of the phrase “he shall not be cut off” in verse 18 serves to reiterate for the same man from verse 17, who “shall not be cut of for David,” will also stand for the priests.

 

Five lines of evidence supports the idea that Jeremiah 33:17-18 speaks of one figure (the future Davidic king) who will not be cut off, not two (a Davidic king and a Levitical priest): fir, the literary structure of Jeremiah 33:14-26; second, lexical points of contact with 1 Samuel 2:27-35; third, points of contact with 1 Kings 8:25; fourth, the usage of the terms “Levites” and “priests” in Jeremiah (and Isaiah); the fifth, the typological interpretation of these matters in Zechariah 6:19-25. (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], 78-80)

 

To be fair, it should be noted that Hamilton does not believe in the perpetuity of the Levitical priesthood (I would argue this goes against the exegesis of the text, including what he produces in his book, and more his Protestant theology—putting the cart before the horse, so to speak):

 

In my view, to understand Jeremiah 33:18 as a promise of ongoing Levitical priesthood is to misread Jeremiah. The author of Hebrews teaches that for one from the tribe of Judah to become a priest, a new covenant is required in which the priesthood is not limited to the tribe of Levi (Heb 7:12-22). (Ibid., 79 n. 16)

 

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