(3) After the Captivity. Under the edict of Cyrus, only 341 Levites, according to Ezra (ii: 40-42), or 35o, according to Nehemiah (vii :43-45), returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem. This is less surprising than might at first sight appear; for if, before the captivity, the great body of them had been in straitened circumstances and without fixed possessions in Judah, it was only consistent with human prudence that those who had, in all probability, comfortably settled themselves in Babylon, should not be anxious to return in such numbeis to Palestine as were likely to produce similar effects, A few more are mentioned in Nch. x11:24-26. Those who did return seem to have had no very correct notion of their obliga tions and duties; for there were many who formed matrimonial alliances with the idolaters of the land, and thereby corrupted both their morals and genealogies. But they_ were prevailed upon to reform this abuse, and, as a token of obedience, signed the national covenant with Nehemiah, and abode at Jerusalem to influence others by their authority and example (Neh. x: 9-13; xi:15-19).
(4) In New Testament. The Levites are not mentioned in the Apocryphal books, and very slightly in the New Testament (Luke x:32; John i :19; Acts iv:36) ; but the 'scribes' and the 'law yers,' so often named in the gospels, are usually supposed to have belonged to them.
3. General Summary. It would be tak
ing a very narrow view of the duties of the Levitical body if we regarded them as limited to their services at the sanctuary. On the contrary we see in their establishment a provision for the religious and moral instruction of the great body of the people. which no ancient lawgiver except Moses ever thought of attending to. But that this was one principal object for which a twelfth of the population—the tribe of Levi—was set apart, is clearly intimated in Dent. xxxii :9, to: 'They shall teach Jacob thy judgments and Israel thy law; they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar.' They were to read the volume of the law publicly every seventh year at the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut. xxxi:to-t3). 'This public and solemn periodical instruction,' observes Dean Graves (Lectures, p. r7o), 'though eminently useful, was certainly not the entire of their duty.; they were bound from the spirit of this ordinance to take care that at all times the aged should be improved and the children instructed in the knowledge and fear of God, the adoration of his majesty, and the ob servance of his law ; and for this purpose the peculiar situation and privileges of the tribe of Levi, as regulated by the Divine appointment, ad mirably fitted them.' (Michaelis, Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, sec. 52, Eng. transl.)