Levite: a man of the tribe of Levi, the family line Israel set apart for the work of its sanctuary instead of giving it land of its own
This is a family word before it is a job word. It says that a man belongs to Levi's line, and because that line was given no territory, belonging to it meant belonging to the sanctuary. Israel's other tribes are counted as fighting men and handed a share of the land; this one is counted apart, settled in scattered towns with pasture around them, and supported out of the tithe.
Who the word covers is the hard part, because it shifts from book to book:
- In Deuteronomy the priests are simply the priests of Levi's line, and a man of that line who comes to the central sanctuary may serve there.
- In Numbers the men of the line are handed over to Aaron's family as assistants, and stepping into the priests' own work is fatal.
- In Chronicles and in Ezra and Nehemiah they are the temple's singers, gatekeepers, treasurers, teachers, and officials.
The single Levite is worth watching too. In Judges a young man of this line hires himself out to a private household as its priest for ten pieces of silver, his board, and his clothes, which shows what such a man had to sell: not land, but the standing to handle holy things. Deuteronomy keeps naming him beside the resident foreigner, the orphan, and the widow, as one of the people in your town with no field to fall back on.
None of this makes him a priest. The word for priest (כֹּהֵן) names the office at the altar, and outside Deuteronomy most men of Levi's line never hold it. That is the distinction the English word hides, and it is the one worth carrying into every passage.
Nuances
Disputed
What the fixed phrase joining the word for priests to this word means, and therefore whether any man of Levi's line could serve at the altar.
- contestedIn Deuteronomy the phrase means the priests who are men of Levi's line, so every such man was in principle qualified to serve at the altar, and the later split between priests and Levites is a product of the exile.; Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (English translation, 1885), 121-157
- contestedThe distinction between Aaron's priests and the rest of Levi is older than both Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, so the phrase names the priestly branch of the tribe without implying that every man of the line could serve at the altar.; Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel (1978); Jacob Milgrom, Studies in Levitical Terminology (1970); Moshe Greenberg, "A New Approach to the History of the Israelite Priesthood", Journal of the American Oriental Society 70 (1950), 41-47