and said to them: “You heads of the levitical houses, sanctify yourselves along with your brothers to bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place which I have prepared for it.
But since the sons of Eleazar were found to be more numerous by male heads than those of Ithamar, the former were divided into sixteen groups, and the latter into eight groups, each under its family heads.
In the time of Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua, the heads of ancestral houses of the priests were written down in the Book of Chronicles, up until the reign of Darius the Persian.