It will happen that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and will say, “Please put me into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread.”’”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 36. Bread; like the poorest sort of people. Menochius.—Being degraded, they shall ask the other priests to offer sacrifice for them. Hebrew “shall bend before him for a piece of silver, and for a morsel of bread.” He shall humbly intreat to be employed as a priest, in order to get a livelihood.—The piece of silver. Hebrew agorath, probably denotes the gerah, the smallest coin, or what was given for a day’s wages. Agor means to hire, in Chal. Syr. and so forth Hence the Greek, αγοραζω, “I purchase.”—Office. The priests served in their turns; (1 Chronicles 24) so that the descendants of Heli must have been entitled to a subsistence. But whether God punished them, by requiring that they should ask the high priest for this, as for a favour, or this was required of all the inferior priests before they could be employed, or whether, in fine, the descendants of Abiathar were reduced to the condition of Levites, or wholly degraded, we know not. See 4 Kennicott. 23:9. Ezekiel 44:10. Calmet.—They may petition for a part of the victims which fell to the share of the priests, ( Menochius.) and might be eaten by any that was not defiled. Bible.