as late as the VIIIth century B.C., yet the state of
things there represented would apply also to an earlier
date. The Hebrew priest, in short, had the same duties as a
large proportion of the priesthood in Chaldae and Egypt.

As in Egypt, the correct offering of the Jewish sacrifices was beset
with considerable difficulties, and the risk of marring their efficacy
by the slightest inadvertence necessitated the employment of men who
were thoroughly instructed in the divinely appointed practices and
formulae. The victims had to be certified as perfect, while the offerers
themselves had to be ceremonially pure; and, indeed, those only who had
been specially trained were able to master the difficulties connected
with the minutiae of legal purity. The means by which the future was
made known necessitated the intervention of skilful interpreters of the
Divine will. We know that in Egypt the statues of the gods were supposed
to answer the questions put to them by movements of the head or arms,
sometimes even by the living voice; but the Hebrews do not appear to
have been influenced by any such recollections in the use of their
sacred oracles. We are ignorant, however, of the manner in which the
ephod was consulted, and we know merely that the art of interrogating
the Divine will by it demanded a long noviciate.* The benefits derived
by those initiated into these mysteries were such as to cause them to
desire the privileges to be perpetuated to their children. Gathered
round the ancient sanctuaries were certain families who, from father
to son, were devoted to the performance of the sacred rites, as, for
instance, that of Eli at Shiloh, and that of Jonathan-ben-Gershom at
Dan, near the sources of the Jordan; but in addition to these, the text
mentions functionaries analogous to those found among the Canaanites,
diviners, seers--_roe_--who had means of discovering that which was
hidden from the vulgar, even to the finding of lost objects, but
whose powers sometimes rose to a higher level when they were suddenly
possessed by the prophetic spirit and enabled to reveal coming events.
Besides these, again, were the prophets--_nabi_**--who lived either
alone or in communities, and attained, by means of a strict training, to
a vision of the future.

* An example of the consulting of the ephod will be found in
1 Sam. xxx. 7, 8, where David desires to know if he shall
pursue the Amalekites.

** 1 S