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: |
and |
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: |
and for the priests, the Levites, |
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)