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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
And his seed after him.
Quest. What advantage had he by this promise, seeing the thing here promised was due to him by birth?
Answ. 1. The same blessing may be ofttimes promised, as the kingdom was to David; and the renewing of this promise might seem convenient here, To signify that bloodshed was so far from polluting him, and thereby casting him out of the priesthood, that it was a mean to confirm him in it.
2. This promise secured him and his against divers contingencies, which otherwise might have befallen him or them; as that he should live longer than his father, else he could not have been the high priest; that he should be preserved from those blemishes which might have rendered him incapable of the priesthood, which were many; that he should have a seed, and they such as were fit for that office.
An everlasting priesthood, i.e. to continue as long as the law and commonwealth of the Jews did.
Quest. How was this verified, seeing the priesthood went from Eleazar’s to Ithamar’s line in Eli and three or four of his successors? Answ. 1. This promise, as others of the like nature, was conditional, and therefore might be made void, and of none effect, by the miscarriages of Phinehas’s sons, as it seems it was; and thereupon a like promise was made to Eli of the line of Ithamar, that he and his should walk before the Lord, to wit, in the office of high priest, for ever, which also for his and their sins was made void, 1Sa_2:30.
Answ. 2. That was but a short interruption, and not considerable in so long a succession, for the priesthood returned to Phinehas’s line in the time of Solomon, 1Ki_2:26,27,35 1Ch_24:3; and continued in that line till the captivity of Babylon, as is evident, and afterward too, 1Ch_6:4 Ezr_7:1,5, even until Christ’s time, for any thing which appears to the contrary.