Now these are the divisions of the sons of Aaron. The sons of Aaron; Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.
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Bede
AD 735
If you of the brotherhood would take delight in hearing who that Abijah was from whose priestly division it is said that Zechariah derived his rank, he was the high priest during the time of King David. By the Lord’s order, Aaron was the first single high priest appointed by Moses under the law; after his death his son, Eleazar, received the gift of the high priesthood. When he too had died, his son, Phinehas, became his successor as high priest. Thus up to the time of King David, over a period of about 470 years, one after the other became heir of the high priesthood. When David, burning with great zeal for religion, wanted to fashion a temple for the Lord, the Lord willed this to be carried out by his son Solomon instead. David himself nevertheless was concerned carefully to make ready everything that pertained to the future construction and reverent ceremonies of this temple. He also arranged for singers to chant the psalms daily at the time of sacrifice, to the tune of musical instruments. This was to arouse the minds of the people in attendance to remembrance and love of heavenly matters, not only by the sublimity of the words that were sung, but also by the sweetness of the sounds by which they were sung. Desiring that, as the worship and magnificence of the temple increased, the graceful exercise of the ministry and the assembly of those ministering might also increase, David called together all the descendants of the sons of Aaron, those descending from the stock of Eleazar and those from the stock of Ithamar, and he divided them into twenty-four sections, choosing individuals from each section as high priests; the rest, who were in the sections of the lower priesthood (which is now called that of priest), he ordered to exercise their offices with this provision, namely, that when any one of the high priests departed this life, whoever was considered the best in his section should succeed him in the high priesthood.
David set up these sections in such a way that the individual high priests, along with the priests who were under them, should minister for eight successive days, that is, from sabbath to sabbath. And although all in the priestly class were equal, yet one of them who seemed to be more worthy of special reverence and more outstanding and in power was to have the name of “high priest.” As to the order that was to be observed among these sections, it was determined by the casting of lots in the presence of King David and the leading persons of the priestly and Levitical families. In this distribution of lots, it is found that Abijah, from whose priestly division and generation Zechariah sprang, occupied the eighth place. It was fitting that the herald of the new covenant, in which the glory of the resurrection was declared to the world, was born in the place of the eighth lot, both because our Lord rose from the dead on the day after the sabbath, which is the eighth day following the seven days of creation, and because we are promised at the end of time an eighth age of everlasting resurrection, following the six ages of this world and a seventh of tranquility for souls, which comes in the next life.
