Priests of the Bible

My big writing project at the moment is researching and writing my next book: “Kings and Priests of the Bible”, a sequel to my book “Prophets of the Bible”. I want here to consider Priests.

I do so having already written a lot about individual kings. For example, “The life and times of David – the good, the bad and the ugly”, posted five weeks ago, covers the story of David presented in ten installments. After reading about the huge difference this chap had made in our family devotions, it was followed up with a post: “Jehoiada, a priest of the Bible and one who made a difference” two weeks ago. But now I turn my attention to priests, helped by a customary BibleGateway trawl on the word ‘priest’ (all 846 references). There is a lot more ground work to do to find out what priests did and were supposed to do, and the importance of the Tabernacle (later it was the Temple), and the Law of Moses, when carrying out their duties.

But I felt it would help to do a deep dive into the lives of priests in the Bible that were particularly significant and share what I found in what looks like being sixteen separate installments, mindful there were named priests that didn’t do anything special, unnamed priests, priests not of YHWH, like Joseph and Moses’ father in laws, an assortment of those who did not minister faithfully in the name of the Lord, priests who became prophets, like Ezekiel, and Jesus, prophet, priest and king, who Israel rejected. Except in the case of Melchizedek, those I discuss were “Aaronic” priests. Other than Zechariah and Caiaphas, all are found in the Old Testament. As well as the “Aaronic” priests, there were the specific and diverse roles of the Levites (types of priests), and other religious leaders.

1. Melchizedek
2. Aaron
3. Nadab
4. Eleazar
5. Phinehas
6. Eli
7. Abiathar
8. Zadok
9. Jehoiada
10. Azariah
11. Hilkiah
12. Joshua
13. Eliashib  
14. Ezra
15. Zechariah
16. Caiaphas