Hebrews 7:13 Commentary and Bible Study

Obviously these things are not spoken of Melchisedec, who was not descended from Abraham, and who did not belong to any of the twelve tribes of Israel; they are spoken of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 6:20). But Christ did not belong to the one tribe in Israel from which priests were allowed to serve under the law, the tribe of Levi. He was of the tribe of Judah, and under the Old Testament law, priests never came from Judah. No, not one, says verse 13. No man from Judah gave attendance at the altar. The law was very specific about this: only the tribe of Levi was cleansed from among the tribes, and only they could draw near the tabernacle and minister in it (Numbers 1:50; 8:6, 14, 24-26; Deuteronomy 10:8). For a member of another tribe to attempt to do so was forbidden on pain of death (Numbers 1:51; 3:10,38; 16:40; 18:7). And yet Christ was from the tribe of Judah. He was therefore excluded from being a priest under the law of Moses. Judah was the tribe of king David and it was necessary that Jesus Christ be descended from this tribe in order for other prophecies to be fulfilled. The two genealogies in the New Testament in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are given to show that in him Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled which said that he would be descended from Adam, from Abraham, and from David. Prophecy had foretold that he was to be Israel’s King, ruling on the throne of David (Isaiah 9:7; Luke 1:32). All of this had come to pass in order that he should be ‘the King of Israel’ (John 1:49). Yet according to Psalm 110 Christ was also a priest. In the Old Testament, the offices of priest and of king had been deliberately separated so that no king could serve as a priest, and no priest could be a king. But in Christ these two offices were brought together and the office of prophet also belonged to him (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). The question was, how could he be a legitimate priest if he came from the tribe of Judah? It isn’t a stumbling block to us as converted Gentiles, but it was a great stumbling block to converted Jews.