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Abiathar
[People]Abiathar was a priest in the days of Saul and David. The sole survivor of the massacre at Nob, he served David, but when Solomon came to the throne he was removed from the priesthood for having sided with Adonijah.
Jehoiada
[People]Jehoiada was a priest in the southern kingdom of Judah during the reigns of Athaliah and Joash. When Athaliah killed the royal family, he hid the young Joash, who had survived, in the temple and raised him there. He later made Joash king and renewed the covenant with the people.
Sceva
[People]Sceva was a Jewish priest (or high priest) mentioned in Acts 19. He is known for an incident in Ephesus in which his seven sons tried, and failed, to cast out evil spirits by invoking the name of Jesus whom Paul preached.
Hilkiah
[People]Hilkiah is the name of several people in the Old Testament. The best known is the high priest who found the Book of the Law in the temple during the reign of King Josiah of Judah. The priest of Anathoth who was the father of the prophet Jeremiah bore the same name.
Phinehas
[People]Phinehas was an Israelite priest, the grandson of Aaron and the son of Eleazar. Scripture records that he received a "covenant of peace" for turning away God's wrath during the incident at Baal-peor.
Zechariah (Son of Jehoiada)
[People]Zechariah, son of the priest Jehoiada, lived during the reign of Joash, king of Judah. He rebuked the people for idolatry and, at the king's command, was stoned to death in the court of the temple (2 Chronicles 24).
Jehozadak
[People]Jehozadak was a priest of the Babylonian exile, a descendant of the high-priestly line, and the father of Joshua, the first high priest after the return from exile. He was carried away when Nebuchadnezzar took Judah captive.
Ezra (Scribe)
[People]Ezra was a priest and scribe of Judah in the Persian period who returned from Babylon to Jerusalem and taught the law of Moses. He appears in Ezra 7–10, Nehemiah 8, and elsewhere.
Ithamar
[People]Ithamar was the fourth son of Aaron and served as a priest with his brother Eleazar during the wilderness period. When the tabernacle was transported, he supervised the work of the Gershonites and the Merarites.
Zechariah son of Jehoiada
[People]Zechariah son of Jehoiada was a member of a priestly family during the reign of King Joash of Judah. After rebuking the people for idolatry, he was stoned to death in the temple court at the king's command (2 Chronicles 24).
Meremoth
[People]Meremoth was a priest who served in Jerusalem after the return from exile. The son of Uriah and grandson of Hakkoz, he received the temple silver and gold that Ezra brought, and in Nehemiah's time he repaired two sections of the city wall.
Division of the Land of Canaan
[Bible]The division of the land of Canaan was the allotment of territory by lot to the twelve tribes, carried out by Joshua and Eleazar the priest after Israel entered Canaan. It is recorded chiefly in Joshua 13–21.
Eleazar
[People]Eleazar was the third son of Aaron and the biblical figure who succeeded his father as Israel's second high priest. Together with Joshua, he oversaw the distribution of the land of Canaan.
Abihu
[People]Abihu, the second son of the high priest Aaron in the Old Testament, was consecrated as a priest along with his older brother Nadab. He died by fire that came out from before the LORD after offering incense with "strange fire," which the LORD had not commanded.
Zephaniah (son of Maaseiah)
[People]Zephaniah son of Maaseiah was a priest who served as the second priest, ranking next to the high priest, during the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah. He was sent by the king as an envoy to Jeremiah and was executed at Riblah after the fall of Jerusalem.
Maccabean Revolt
[History]The Maccabean Revolt was a Jewish uprising begun in 167 BC by the priest Mattathias and his sons after Antiochus IV of the Seleucid dynasty outlawed the practice of Judaism. It led to the rededication of the Jerusalem temple and the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty.
Samuel
[People]Samuel was the last judge of Israel and a prophet whose life is recounted in 1 Samuel. Born in answer to Hannah's prayer and raised under the priest Eli, he anointed Saul and David and ushered in the era of the monarchy.
Micah (Ephraimite)
[People]Micah was a man from the hill country of Ephraim who appears in Judges 17–18. He kept a graven image and a shrine in his house and hired a Levite as his priest, but the migrating tribe of Dan took both the image and the priest from him.
Zechariah (son of Jeberechiah)
[People]Zechariah, the son of Jeberechiah, was one of the two "faithful witnesses," together with Uriah the priest, whom Isaiah took when, at God's command, he wrote the name "Maher-shalal-hash-baz" on a tablet (Isaiah 8:2).
Aaron's Rod That Budded
[Bible]An event recorded in Numbers 17 in which, of the rods belonging to the leaders of the twelve tribes, only Aaron's rod sprouted, blossomed, and bore fruit overnight. It is recorded as a sign confirming that God had chosen the house of Aaron for the priesthood.