<p>7:8 <i>And here mortal men receive tithes; but there one received them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives</i>- The argument here might appear somewhat forced, but it was all legitimate within the style of Rabbinic midrash. Melchizedek &quot;lives&quot; in that there is no record of his death; we noted on :3 the Rabbinic principle that &quot;what is not in the text, is not&quot;. And Paul goes on to reason that the priesthood of Melchizedek continues still, in that Messiah was to have this priesthood eternally. &quot;That he lives&quot; can also be understood as meaning that Melzhizedek had a lifelong priesthood, that was not replaced by others because he had reached a certain age. McKnight observes that the Greek verb <i>ze¯ </i>here is not in the present, but the imperfect of the indicative, and he translates &quot;that he lives&quot; as &quot; lived, a priest all his life, in contradistinction from those who ceased to be priests at a certain age&quot;.</p>