-- Footnote I Pharez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, Shobal (iv. 1), is a genealogically descending series; Chelubai must therefore of necessity be read instead of Carmi, all the more because Chelub and not Carmi appears in the third place in the subsequent expansion; for this, ascending from below, begins with Shobal (ver. 2), then goes on to Hur (vers. 5-10), who stands in the same relation to Ash-hur as Tob to Ish-tob, and finally deals with Chelub or Caleb (vers. 11-15). -- Footnote Levi of course receives the fullest treatment (1Chronicles v. 27 [vi. 1]-vi. 66 [81], ix. 10 seq., xv., xvi., xxiii.-xxvii., &c.). We know that this clerical tribe is an artificial production, and that its hierarchical subdivision, as worked out in the Priestly Code, was the result of the centralisation of the cultus in Jerusalem. Further, it has been already shown that in the history as recorded in Chronicles the effort is most conspicuous to represent the sons of Aaron and the Levites, in all cases where they are absent from the older historical books of the canon, as playing the part to which they are entitled according to the Priestly Code. How immediate is the connection with the last-named document, how in a certain sense that code is even carried further by Chronicles, can be seen for example from this circumstance, that in the former Moses in a novel reduces the period of beginning public service in the case of a Levite from thirty years of age to twenty-five (Numbers iv. 3 seq., viii. 23 seq.), while in the latter David (1Chronicles xxiii. 3, 24 seq.) brings it down still further to the age of twenty; matters are still to some extent in a state of flux, and the ordering of the temple worship is a continuation of the beginning made with the tabernacle service by Moses. Now, in so far as the statistics of the clergy have a real basis at all, that basis is post-exilian. It has long ago been remarked how many of the individuals figuring under David and his successors (e.g., Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun) bear names identical with families or guilds of a later time, how the two indeed are constantly becoming confluent, and difficulty is felt in determining whether by the expression "head" a person or a family ought to be understood. But, inasmuch as the Chronicler nevertheless desires to depict the older time and not his own, he by no means adheres closely to contemporary statistics, but gives free play at the same time to his idealising imagination; whence it comes that in spite of the numerous and apparently precise data afforded, the reader still finds himself unable to form any clear picture of the organisation of the clergy,--the ordering of the families and tribes, the distribution of the offices,--nay, rather, is involved in a maze of contradictions. Obededom, Jeduthun, Shelomith, Korah, occur in the most different connections, belong now to one, now to another section of the Levites, and discharge at one time this function, at another, that.