(17:173) Besides this, there was the obligation to keep in idleness men hateful to them, and connected by no ties of blood. (174) Especially would this seem grievous when provisions were dear. What wonder, then, if in times of peace, when striking miracles had ceased, and no men of paramount authority were forthcoming, the irritable and greedy temper of the people began to wax cold, and at length to fall away from a worship, which, though Divine, was also humiliating, and even hostile, and to seek after something fresh; or can we be surprised that the captains, who always adopt the popular course, in order to gain the sovereign power for themselves by enlisting the sympathies of the people, and alienating the high priest, should have yielded to their demands, and introduced a new worship? (175) If the state had been formed according to the original intention, the rights and honour of all the tribes would have been equal, and everything would have rested on a firm basis. (176) Who is there who would willingly violate the religious rights of his kindred? (177) What could a man desire more than to support his own brothers and parents, thus fulfilling the duties of religion? (178) Who would not rejoice in being taught by them the interpretation of the laws, and receiving through them the answers of God?
(17:179) The tribes would thus have been united by a far closer bond, if all alike had possessed the right to the priesthood. (180) All danger would have been obviated, if the choice of the Levites had not been dictated by anger and revenge. (181) But, as we have said, the Hebrews had offended their God, Who, as Ezekiel says, polluted them in their own gifts by rejecting all that openeth the womb, so that He might destroy them.
(17:182) This passage is also confirmed by their history. As soon as the people in the wilderness began to live in ease and plenty, certain men of no mean birth began to rebel against the choice of the Levites, and to make it a cause for believing that Moses had not acted by the commands of God, but for his own good pleasure, inasmuch as he had chosen his own tribe before all the rest, and had bestowed the high priesthood in perpetuity on his own brother. (183) They, therefore, stirred up a tumult,and came to him, crying out that all men were equally sacred, and that he had exalted himself above his fellows wrongfully. (184) Moses was not able to pacify them with reasons; but by the intervention of a miracle in proof of the faith, they all perished. (185) A fresh sedition then arose among the whole people, who believed that their champions had not been put to death by the judgment of God, but by the device of Moses. (186) After a great slaughter, or pestilence, the rising subsided from inanition, but in such a manner that all preferred death to life under such conditions.
(17:187) We should rather say that sedition ceased than that harmony was re- established. (188) This is witnessed by Scripture (Deut. xxxi:21), where God, after predicting to Moses that the people after his death will fall away from the Divine worship, speaks thus: "For I know their imagination which they go about, even now before I have brought them into the land which I sware;" and, a little while after (xxxi:27), Moses says: For I know thy rebellion and thy stiff neck: behold while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death!"(17:189) Indeed, it happened according to his words, as we all know.
(190) Great changes, extreme license, luxury, and hardness of heart grew up; things went from bad to worse, till at last the people, after being frequently conquered, came to an open rupture with the Divine right, and wished for a mortal king, so that the seat of government might be the Court, instead of the Temple, and that the tribes might remain fellow- citizens in respect to their king, instead of in respect to Divine right and the high priesthood.
