Commentary on Harmony of the Law Volume 1 Complete John Calvin (continued)
HARMONY OF THE LAW · VOLUME 1 were appropriated for the subsistence of the priests. Another reason is also expressed, why the honor assigned to the priests should be paid without grudging; viz., because God had appointed them to be the ministers of His service; but "the laborer is worthy of his hire."
3. And this shall be the priests' due. It is not only for the sake of the priests that God enumerates what He would have them receive, that they may obtain what is their own without murmuring or dispute; but He also has regard to the people, lest the priests should basely and greedily take more than their due; which sacred history relates to have been done by the sons of Eli, (1 Samuel 2:23,) for they had advanced to such a degree of licentiousness, that, like robbers, they seized violently on whatever their lust desired. Lest therefore they should give way to this gross covetousness, God prescribes to them certain limits, to which they were to confine themselves, so that if they transgressed them, it was easy for any of the people to convict them of avarice.
6. And if a Levite come. This third head more clearly explains what is elsewhere more obscurely declared; for God seemed to curtail from the Levites whatever He gave to the priests. But He now more distinctly places the priests in the first rank, yet so that they should admit the Levites on the score of their labor's to a share of the oblations. This is the sum of the law, that the Levites who remained at home, should be content with the tithes, and touch nothing of the other offerings; but that from whithersoever they should come to the sanctuary, they were to be accounted as ministers and take their proper place. By this law then, it was provided that none should be excluded on the ground of the intermission of their duties; and that the condition of those that dwelt elsewhere should not be worse than of those who lived at Jerusalem. For although they might reside in other cities, they did not altogether cease from their ministry, since they had other duties to perform besides that of sacrificing the victims. Yet those who entirely devoted themselves to the work of the sanctuary, were endowed by God with double honor; since it was by no means just that they should be defrauded of their maintenance, who bade adieu to domestic cares and labors, and occupied themselves totally in holy offices. That this distribution was not superfluous, will best appear from the narrative of Josephus, who relates that the 568 priests seized on the tithes by violence, and deprived the Levites of their subsistence by hostile measures.
About this time King Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ismael, who was the son of Fabi. And such was the impudence and boldness that had seized on the high priests, that they had the hardiness to send their servants into the threshing-floors, to take away those tithes that were due to the priests; insomuch that it so fell out that the poorer sort of the priests died for want." — Whiston's Josephus. Antiq. 20 ch. 8, sec. 8. See also ch. 9, sec. 2.