Esther and living Jewish in Hard Times...

Gxg (G²)

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And there you have why David can go to the tabernacle and eat shewbread..
Not really, as one has to assume David was a LEVITICAL priest in order to make the conclusion that he was allowed into the tabernacle/eat the showbread. Again, the scriptures are to be the scripture--and there were differing kinds of priests outside of the Levitical priesthood, regardless of protest or avoidance of what the text says plainly on that...be it with Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:10-12/ Hebrews 7
), Jethro, Job, Ira or a host of others already discussed. One is able to accept that or they simply have an issue dealing with how the Lord described Himself/his dealings in the Word--and that's something only the Lord can address fully if one cannot deal with the text as it is when describing a myriad of priesthoods.

Alot of this goes directly in line with what Jeremiah 33:14-2 notes (shared more in-depth here and here ), as it's a prose of salvation, which is an expansion of Jeremiah 23:5-6. Coming from the exile, it promises the restoration of the Davidic monarchy and the Levitical priesthood. God's promises to David and the Levites will be honored (Deuteronomy 18:1-2, II Samuel 7). In many ways, what is said of the Levitical priesthood is a repetition of the promise made to Phinehas in Numbers 25:13. Some understand this of a continuance of Gospel ministers unto the end of the world, who succeeded the priests and Levites (I Peter 2:1-10)--for the NT describes how the people of God now have the honorific titles taken from Exodus 19:6 and Isaiah 43:20-21 applied to them as now being "kings and priests." What in the OT describes aspects of Israel is here applied to the Christian community......

Essentially, the Messiah's literal priesthood (Heb 7:17, Hebrews 7:21, Hebrews 7: 24-28), and His followers' spiritual priesthood and sacrifices (Jer 33:11, Ro 12:1, Romans 15:16, I Peter 2:5-9, Revelation 1:6), shall never cease, according to the covenant with Levi, broken by the priests, but fulfilled by Messiah (Nu 25:12-13; Malachi 2:4, Malachi 2:5-8)---and much of what occurred with others such as David and others not priests by Levitical standards and yet having significant power is a preview of what the Messiah came to do when He himself, from the Tribe of Judah, came through a different line to accomplish things far greater than others were able to do with the Levitical priestly system/code..

It is what it is--and I'll go with what the scriptures note plainly with differing priesthoods/means of walking holy before the Lord as have most Messianics :)
 
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visionary

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Easy G (G²);59596023 said:
Not really, as one has to assume David was a LEVITICAL priest in order to make the conclusion that he was allowed into the tabernacle/eat the showbread. Again, the scriptures are to be the scripture--and there were differing kinds of priests outside of the Levitical priesthood, regardless of protest or avoidance of what the text says plainly on that...be it with Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:10-12/ Hebrews 7
), Jethro, Job, Ira or a host of others already discussed. One is able to accept that or they simply have an issue dealing with how the Lord described Himself/his dealings in the Word--and that's something only the Lord can address fully if one cannot deal with the text as it is when describing a myriad of priesthoods.

It is what it is--and I'll go with what the scriptures note plainly with differing priesthoods/means of walking holy before the Lord as have most Messianics :)
All he has to be is of the order of Mechezedek...
 
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Gxg (G²)

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All he has to be is of the order of Mechezedek...
The Order of Melchizedek, which is NOT a Levitical priesthood. He was a priest, but not according to Levitical standards since he (nor many others ) were not Levities...and his basis for holiness didn't automatically come through the Levitical priesthood/walking fully with it since he was different in the eyes of the Lord as were others.

The same is the case with Esther, in regards to the Lord's mercy/His own discretion toward those in certain situations.
 
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visionary

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In the scriptures it says that King David met with Zadok the priest and most people think it is the name of the priest but what almost every scholar knows it is a title of priesthood. Although at this point in my study, I have some issues that I can’t explain. How could the guy named Zadok support the young King David and then serve Solomon for years? The priestly ministry does not start until a man is 30 years of age.
 
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In the scriptures it says that King David met with Zadok the priest and most people think it is the name of the priest but what almost every scholar knows it is a title of priesthood. .
Sincerly, I'd one would need to show significant evidence of known scholars saying Zadok was not the literal name of a person (in favor of saying it was a "priesthood" title only). There are many who've said otherwise, from what I've seen..

Although at this point in my study, I have some issues that I can’t explain. How could the guy named Zadok support the young King David and then serve Solomon for years? The priestly ministry does not start until a man is 30 years of age.
One would need to show where Zadok wasn't in his 30s when he began serving David. To my knowledge, the main reference for the 30yrs of age/Priest connection was 1 Chronicles 23:2-4 when it came to counting/numbering the Levites in one instance--and for the other:
Numbers 4:3
Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of age who come to serve in the work at the tent of meeting.
Numbers 4:2-4/


Numbers 8:23-25Numbers 8
19 From among all the Israelites, I have given the Levites as gifts to Aaron and his sons to do the work at the tent of meeting on behalf of the Israelites and to make atonement for them so that no plague will strike the Israelites when they go near the sanctuary.”

20 Moses, Aaron and the whole Israelite community did with the Levites just as the LORD commanded Moses. 21 The Levites purified themselves and washed their clothes. Then Aaron presented them as a wave offering before the LORD and made atonement for them to purify them. 22 After that, the Levites came to do their work at the tent of meeting under the supervision of Aaron and his sons. They did with the Levites just as the LORD commanded Moses.

23 The LORD said to Moses, 24 “This applies to the Levites: Men twenty-five years old or more shall come to take part in the work at the tent of meeting, 25 but at the age of fifty, they must retire from their regular service and work no longer. 26 They may assist their brothers in performing their duties at the tent of meeting, but they themselves must not do the work. This, then, is how you are to assign the responsibilities of the Levites.”
Numbers 8 liberalizes the age limits for levitical duty, and other writings expand them even more---if investigating I Chronicles 23 and I Chronicles 23:24/1 Chronicles 23:23-25
2 Chronicles 31:17
And they distributed to the priests enrolled by their families in the genealogical records and likewise to the Levites twenty years old or more, according to their responsibilities and their divisions.
2 Chronicles 31:16-18
Ezra 3:7-9
In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak and the rest of the people (the priests and the Levites and all who had returned from the captivity to Jerusalem) began the work. They appointed Levites twenty years old and older to supervise the building of the house of the LORD.
The variations/diffeences are presumably due to variations over time in the numbers and duties of the Levities. An upper age limit is more appropriate for those doing heavy work such as transportating (Numbers 3-4)..and in Numbers 8:26, it was noted that Levites over fifty could still assist in the tent of meeting. When the tabernacle was stationary within the temple (I Kings 8:1-13), no such duties would fall to the Levites. Differences in lower age limits may be due to changing numbers of available Levite Males (see Ezra 2 , etc).


If one takes issue with Zadok on the basis of age, the man who was leader before him became corrupt/was displaced...and on the issue of replacements, when no one was available, if disagreeing, it'd be a good thing for one to show where the Law never allowed for exceptions in replacing others who were more righteous than others in a position when they were corrupt.

David Wilkerson (author of the book entitled "Cross and Switchblade" and creator of the organization Teen Challenge ) shared more on the subject here in the thread entitled "The Zadok Priesthood!" by David Wilkerson, founding pastor of Times Square Church ...






The Folks at "Jewish Virtual Library" did an excellent review on the matter, as seen here (for an excerpt) :):
ZADOK (Heb. צָדוֹק, "righteous"), priest in the time of king *David. Zadok established a high priestly dynasty which continued until approximately 171 B.C.E., both in the First and Second Temple periods. He first appears, together with *Abiathar, as the priest in charge of the Ark at the time of Absalom's revolt (II Sam. 15:24–37). He and Abiathar joined David in his flight from Jerusalem, carrying the Ark with them, but the king ordered them to return to the capital to inform him of events in Absalom's court. There they had freedom of movement and were able to deliver messages to David about the rebels' intrigues (ibid. 17:15ff.).

After Absalom's death, Zadok and Abiathar acted according to a message sent to them by David requesting them to suggest to the people that the king should be called back (ibid. 19:12–13). They are mentioned next to each other in both lists of David's chief officials (ibid. 8:17; 20:25), where Zadok is always mentioned before Abiathar. They are heard of again in the story of the dynastic struggle in David's last days (I Kings 1–2). When *Adonijah plotted to usurp the throne, Zadok remained faithful to David, while Abiathar joined the usurper (ibid 1:7,8).

When David became aware of the plot, he instructed Zadok and *Nathan the prophet to anoint *Solomon king (ibid. 32ff.). For his loyal service in anointing Solomon, Zadok was made chief priest (ibid. 2:35), while Abiathar was deposed from the priesthood and banished to Anathoth (ibid. 2:26–27). Zadok must have died shortly afterwards, for he is never again mentioned and in the list of the main officials, which was compiled in the middle of the reign, it is his son Azariah who holds the title of priest (I Kings 4:2; the mention of Zadok and Abiathar in verse 4 is probably an interpolation).


Origin

The question of Zadok's origin is extremely obscure, for there is no clear and accurate picture of his background in the Bible. In the narrative he appears, as it were, from nowhere. In II Samuel 8:17 he is called the "son of Ahitub" and seems to be connected with the House of *Eli, but this verse is clearly the result of a textual corruption.

Indeed, the prophecy of I Samuel 2:27–36 (cf. I Kings 2:27) makes it clear that the House of Zadok was considered to have supplanted the House of Eli. Nor are the genealogies in Chronicles and Ezra (I Chron. 5:27–34; 6:35–38; 24:3; Ezra 7:2), which treat Zadok as a descendant of the Aaronide house of Eleazar, any more reliable, for they repeat the error of II Samuel 8:17. Zadok thus remains without a genealogy in the ancient texts.

It seems likely, however, that the reason David made Zadok an equal to Abiathar, who had served him loyally from the time of his break with Saul, is connected with the position occupied by Zadok before he entered the service of David. Several hypotheses have been consequently advanced about his origin:
a) Zadok was the priest of *Gibeon, where the Tabernacle stood (cf. II Chron. 1:3), while Abiathar served before the Ark at Jerusalem (Auerbach; Grintz). This hypothesis is based on I Chronicles 16:37ff., where the two are mentioned as the principal sanctuaries in David's time. In support of this theory it is pointed out that after the exile of Abiathar not only was Zadok made the sole chief priest, but Solomon went to Gibeon to sacrifice (I Kings 3:4).


b) Zadok was appointed priest already by Saul, replacing Abijah (= *Ahimelech; cf. Jos., Ant., 5:350; Wellhausen).


c) The proper name Ahio in II Samuel 6:3–4 should be read as 'aḥiw, "his [Uzzah's] brother," this nameless brother being Zadok (Sellin, Budde). According to this theory Zadok served the Ark at Kiriath-Jearim and afterwards remained at Jerusalem, as one of the two men who carried the Ark (*Uzzah would have been replaced by Abiathar; II Sam. 15:29).


d) Since Zadok does not appear until after the capture of Jerusalem and since his genealogy is not given, he may have been a priest of Jebusite Jerusalem before the conquest by David (Rowley). According to this theory, David permitted him to retain his priestly function in order to help reconcile the old inhabitants to their new master.
It is safer to admit that Zadok's origin is unknown; it can be assumed that he was indeed of levitical origin, though not from the same branch as the house of Eli.


The House of Zadok

I Chronicles 5:34–40 gives a list of the successors of Zadok as head of the priesthood in Jerusalem. It contains eleven names from *Ahimaaz (Zadok's son) to Jehozadak. This gives exactly 12 generations of priests from the building of the Temple under Solomon to its reconstruction after the Exile. The list of Zadok's ancestors given immediately before, in I Chronicles 5:29–34, also contains exactly 12 generations from the erection of the Sanctuary in the desert to the building of the Temple; and 12 generations of 40 years corresponds exactly to the 480 years in I Kings 6:1 as the period from the Exodus to the erection of the Temple. This symmetry is deliberate, and other parts underline the artificial nature of the list. Ahimaaz was undoubtedly Zadok's son (II Sam. 15:36), but Azariah was another son of Zadok, not his grandson (as I Chron. 5:35 states). Moreover, the list is incomplete; though it contains some names which are found elsewhere in the Bible (Azariah, II Kings 4:2; *Hilkiah, II Kings 22:4; *Seraiah, II Kings 25:18; Jehozadak, Hag. 1:1), it omits *Jehoiada (II Kings 12:8), Urijah (or *Uriah; II Kings 16:10; Isa. 8:2), and at least two others who are mentioned in the narrative part of Chronicles itself (II Chron. 26:20; 31:10). Another difficulty is that the series Amariah-Ahitub-Zadok recurs in identical form among the immediate ancestors of Zadok (I Chron. 5:33–34) and among his descendants (verses 37–38). The list, however, seems to express a real fact, namely the continuity of Zadok's line, but it cannot be used as the basis of a detailed history of his house.

J.M. Grintz attempted to reconstruct a list of the high priests by comparing those mentioned in Josephus (Ant., 10:152) with those retained in Seder Olam Zuta 5–6. He claims that the list he obtained by this process is authentic and that those names which appear in the list, but not in I Chronicles, represent a lineage other than that of the House of Zadok. This new, otherwise not attested, dynasty (probably of the House of Abiathar) began to serve, according to Grintz, in the Temple after Solomon's death, but was deposed during the reforms of King *Josiah, being, as it seems, suspected of idolatrous inclinations.

J.R. Bartlett, on the other hand, doubts that the high priests of Jerusalem were directly descended from Zadok. He claims that they were rather appointed in each case by the kings, on the basis of merit. According to this view, the term "House of Zadok" was fixed only in Josiah's time, in order to distinguish between the Jerusalemite priests and the priests of the high places.

The fortunes of the House of Zadok after the Exile are reflected in the position given to them in the books of Ezekiel and Chronicles. In Ezekiel 40–48, the exiled Zadokites expect as reward for their faithfulness that they alone shall perform the priestly functions in the new temple; the rest of the levites are to be reduced to the status of servants. The Book of Chronicles shows that after the return this program was not put into practice.
 
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Gxg (G²)

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Beautiful article I was blessed to be alerted to, in light of Purim coming up:



From Brother James Pyles, on the subject of Esther and the beauty of Mixed Marriages..for in his words:


Most Christians don't realize that Esther's actual name was Hadassah, and they ofte...n misunderstand Purim as "the Jewish halloween," because kids (and adults) often wear costumes. However, everyone dresses up, acts silly, and plays "practical jokes" in the Jewish community out of a profound sense of joy at having escaped genocide by the evil Haman. There is a must less known application to Purim though, and one you won't find being taught in the synagogue. It is a celebration of a very public and very successful intermarriage between a Jewish woman and a Gentile man. This intermarriage, more than anything, resulted in the survival of the Jewish people in ancient Persia. How does that speak to Jewish/Gentile intermarriages and Jewish survival now?

 
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