Kohathites

The Kohathites were one of the four main divisions among the Levites in Biblical times. The Bible claims that the Kohathites were all descended from the eponymous Kohath, a son of Levi, although some biblical scholars regard this as a postdictional metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the clan to others in the Israelite confederation; according to some Jewish scholars, Levite was originally just a job title, deriving from the Minaean word lawi'u meaning priest, rather than having been the name of a tribe. Although the Aaronids are described as part of the Kohathites, the text strongly differentiates between the Aaronids and the other Kohathites.