Kohen Kohen (, ; , ، Arabic كاهن , Kahen) is the Hebrew word for "priest", used in reference to the Aaronic Priest#Judaism, priesthood, also called Aaronites or Aaronides. They are traditionally believed, and halakha, halakhically required, to ...

Eleazar Eleazar (; ) or Elazar was a priest in the Hebrew Bible, the second High Priest, succeeding his father Aaron after he died. He was a nephew of Moses. Biblical narrative Eleazar played a number of roles during the course of the Exodus, from ...

Aaron According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament ...

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

sons of Zadok The Sons of Zadok () or Zadokites is a lineage of priests (kohen, kohanim) descended from Zadok that is described in the prophecies of Ezekiel. Zadok himself was the first High Priest of Israel, high priest in Solomon's Temple (10th century BCE) ...

paganism Paganism (, later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism. In the time of the ...

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

Eleazar Eleazar (; ) or Elazar was a priest in the Hebrew Bible, the second High Priest, succeeding his father Aaron after he died. He was a nephew of Moses. Biblical narrative Eleazar played a number of roles during the course of the Exodus, from ...

the son of

Aaron According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament ...

the high priest. The lineage of Zadok is presented in the genealogy of Ezra (his descendant) as being of ninth generation of direct patrilineal descent from Phinehas the son of Eleazar. A certain Zadok had been one of those who joined David at

Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...

and helped him win the crown of all

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, his house then including twenty-two captains.

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

identifies this Zadok with the high priest of the same name. During the rebellion of Absalom, Zadok the priest is mentioned, as he and the Levites wished to accompany the fleeing David and bring along the

Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites. Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...

, but the king instructed Zadok to remain at

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, where he and Abiathar could do him better service, so that it actually happened that Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, along with Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, brought the fleeing king a life saving message. In all these passages Zadok is mentioned in precedence to Abiathar. Zadok was also chief officer over the Aaronites. The term high priest is not used in the Hebrew scriptures from the time of Joshua until the reign of Joash. Both Zadok and Abiathar functioned in tandem as priests at the time of David's hasty exit from Jerusalem. When David first set up his cabinet, Zadok and Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, were named as priests. On the suppression of the Absalom rebellion, King David sent Zadok and Abiathar to the elders of Judah, urging them to hasten to bring the monarch back. Subsequently, when Adonijah endeavored to secure the throne, Abiathar sided with him, leading king Solomon (David's son) to expel him from Jerusalem and reinforce the sole chief-priesthood of Zadok, who, along with Nathan the Prophet, supported King Solomon's accession to throne. In gratitude, Solomon appointed him sole high priest. Zadok also officiated at the

anointing Anointing is the ritual, ritual act of pouring aromatic oil over a person's head or entire body. By extension, the term is also applied to related acts of sprinkling, dousing, or smearing a person or object with any perfumed oil, milk, butter, ...

ceremony of Solomon as king. In Zadok is named as the leader of the priests who served "before the tabernacle of the Lord at the high place that was at Gibeon", although he is later recorded as working alongside Ahimelech devising a schedule of priestly service to support David's preparations for the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Zadok's sons were Ahimaaz and Azariah. His descendants who held the high priesthood up to the destruction of the First Temple and, following the building of the

second temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

, resumed the high priesthood, as per Joshua the High Priest (along with Ezra) being of Zadokite lineage.

The Zadokite dynasty

In rabbinic literature

According to the Bible,

Aaron According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Aaron ( or ) was an Israelite prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of Moses. Information about Aaron comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament ...

received a perpetual priestly covenant by which his descendants, and only his descendants, would be priests. According to some commentaries, the priesthood was further restricted to descendants of Aaron's son

Eleazar Eleazar (; ) or Elazar was a priest in the Hebrew Bible, the second High Priest, succeeding his father Aaron after he died. He was a nephew of Moses. Biblical narrative Eleazar played a number of roles during the course of the Exodus, from ...

after Eleazar inherited Aaron's priestly robes (), and further restricted to descendants of Eleazar's son Pinchas after Pinchas performed his act of zealotry. Nevertheless, later on the high priesthood was held by Eli, a descendant of Itamar (Eleazar's brother). Torah commentators attribute this to Pinchas' later sins. But upon the sin of Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, a "man of God" prophesied the extinction of their priesthood: This prophecy was fulfilled when Zadok, who was descended from Eleazar and Pinchas, was appointed as high priest.

History of Zadokites

Historical data show that the high-priesthood remained in the progeny of the Zadokites from the time of Zadok up until the rise of the Hasmoneans, in about 167 BCE. The descendants of Zadok increased in rank and influence, so that his son Azariah was one of the princes of Solomon () and Ahimaaz, who married a daughter of Solomon, was probably another of Zadok's sons (). Either Zadok himself or his grandson was the ruler of the Aaronite priests (), and Jerusha, the mother of Jotham, is apparently termed the daughter of Zadok to emphasize her noble lineage, since her father may have been a descendant of the first Zadok (; ). The house of Zadok occupied the high priesthood through much of the

Second Temple period The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...

, from Jehoshua ben Jehozadak after the Exile, down to Simon II (Simon the Just, much praised in Ben Sira 50), his eldest son Onias III, and his usurping second son Jason, who introduced the programme of Hellenisation that eventually led to the Maccabean Revolt. Josephus records that Onias IV went to Leontopolis in the Egyptian nome of Heliopolis with a significant following, and for lending military support to the Ptolemaic

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

was given land to build a rival temple to the one in Jerusalem (although

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

also ascribes this to Onias III, while dating the project so as to suggest Onias II). It has been suggested that Onias or members of his Zadokite house may have also founded the community at

Qumran Qumran (; ; ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, about south of the historic city of Jericho, and adjac ...

.

Other theories about Zadok

Cornelis de Vos - The Anointing of Solomon

Some have speculated that as Zadok does not appear in the text of Samuel until after the conquest of

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, he was actually a Jebusite priest co-opted into the

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

state religion. Harvard Divinity School Professor

Frank Moore Cross Frank Moore Cross Jr. (July 13, 1921 – October 16, 2012) was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 '' magnum opus'' ''Ca ...

refers to this theory as the "Jebusite Hypothesis", criticising it extensively, although he terms it the dominant view among contemporary scholars. Elsewhere in the Bible, the

Jebusites The Jebusites (; ) were, according to the Book of Joshua and Books of Samuel from the Hebrew Bible, a Canaanite tribe that inhabited Jerusalem, called Jebus () before the conquest initiated by Joshua (, ) and completed by David (). According to s ...

are described in a manner that suggests that they worshipped the same God ( El Elyon) as the Israelites, in the case of

Melchizedek In the Hebrew Bible, Melchizedek was the king of Salem and priest of (often translated as 'most high God'). He is first mentioned in Genesis 14:18–20, where he brings out bread and wine and then blesses Abraham, and El Elyon or "the Lord, Go ...

. Further support for this theory comes from the fact that other Jebusites or residents of pre-

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

Jerusalem bore names invoking the principle or god Zedek (''Tzedek'') (see, for example, the names Melchizedek and Adonizedek). Under this theory the Aaronic lineage ascribed to Zadok is a later, anachronistic interpolation.

Other Zadoks

Abraham Geiger was of the opinion that the

Sadducee The Sadducees (; ) were a sect of Jews active in Judea during the Second Temple period, from the second century BCE to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Sadducees are described in contemporary literary sources in contrast to ...

("Tzadoki" in

Mishna The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

ic pronunciation) sect of Judaism drew their name from Zadok, with the leaders of the sect proposed as the sons of Zadok. However, Rabbinic sources describe the Sadducee and

Boethusian The Boethusians () were a Jewish sect closely related to, if not a development of, the Sadducees. Origins according to the Talmud The post- Talmudic work '' Avot of Rabbi Natan'' gives the following origin of the schism between the Pharisees and ...

groups have originated at the same time, with their founders, ''Zadok'' and ''Boethus'', both being students of

Antigonus of Sokho Antigonus of Sokho () was one of the first scholars of whom Jewish tradition has preserved not only the name but also an important theological doctrine. He flourished in the first decades of the second century BCE. According to the Mishnah, he ...

(roughly 3rd century BCE). A Rabbi Zadok, one of the tannaim, is mentioned as saved in

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

in connection with the destruction of the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

.Talmud Bavli Gittin 56b

Patrilineal ancestry

As per 1 Chronicles chapter 6:

References

{{Authority control 10th-century BCE high priests of Israel People from the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy) Jebusites Books of Kings people

Hebrew Bible

The Zadokite dynasty

In rabbinic literature

History of Zadokites

Other theories about Zadok

Other Zadoks

Patrilineal ancestry

See also

References