And
thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats: And thou shalt
anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister
unto me in the priest's office: for their anointing shall surely be an
everlasting priesthood, throughout their generations.
"Thus did Moses: according to all that the Lord commanded him, so did he."
It followed automatically that, with the creation of a great vested
interest centred in an hereditary caste of priests, the pecuniary burden
on the people was correspondingly increased and that thenceforward Moses
became nothing but the representative of that vested interest: as
reactionary and selfish as all such representatives must be. How selfish
and how reactionary may readily be estimated by glancing at Numbers XVIII,
where God's directions are given to Aaron touching what he was to claim
for himself, and what the Levites were to take as their wages for service.
It was indeed liberal compensation. A good deal more than much of the
congregation thought such services worth.
In the first place, Aaron and the Levites with him for their service "of
the tabernacle" were to have "all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance."
But this was a small part of their compensation. There were beside
perquisites, especially those connected with the sacrifices which the
people were constrained to make on the most trifling occasions; as, for
example, whenever they became _unclean_, through some accident, as
by touching a dead body:
"This shall be thine of the most holy things, reserved from the fire:
every oblation of their's, every meat offering of their's, and every sin
offering of their's, and every trespass offering of their's, which they
shall render unto me, shall be most holy for thee and thy sons.
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