Hebrews 7:12-14 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For, or, wherefore, the priesthood On account of which the law was given; being changed, of necessity there must be a change also of the law As if he had said, Since there is such a near relation between the priesthood and the law, and since the whole administration of the law, as the rule of worship, depended absolutely on the Aaronical priesthood, therefore the one being changed, the other must be changed also. “Under the law the offices of the priesthood consisted in offering the sacrifices of beasts, and in performing various rites for purifying the bodies of the worshippers from ceremonial defilement, that they might be fit to join the congregation in the public worship of God. But when the priesthood was changed by raising up from another tribe a priest after the order of Melchisedec, whose services had for their object to purify the conscience of the worshippers, not by the sacrifice of beasts, but by the sacrifice of himself,” and to sanctify their souls by the influences of the Holy Spirit; “the whole law concerning the sacrifices of beasts, and the sanctifying of the flesh of the Israelites by washing, was of necessity entirely abolished.” For he of whom Or, to whom; these things are spoken That is, he to whom it was said, Thou art a priest for ever, &c., was of a different tribe, namely, that of Judah; of which no man gave attendance at the altar Or, was suffered by the law to minister there, so that the priesthood is manifestly changed from one order to another, and from one tribe to another. For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah “That the Messiah was to spring up from Judah is plain from the prophecies concerning his descent: and it is likewise plain that this part of his character was verified in our Lord, whose genealogy Matthew and Luke have traced up to King David from the public tables. For that such tables of their descent were kept by the Jews Josephus testifies, (section 1. of his Life, at the end,) saying, ‘I give you these successions of our family as I find them written in the public tables.' By these tables Paul knew himself to be of the tribe of Benjamin.”