Leviticus 21-22 "The Holiness of the Priests"

For the last few weeks we have been looking at how God called Israel to be holy.

Today we will turn to the priests.

The land is holy-yet the there is a special holiness focused in the tabernacle.

Even so, the people are holy-yet there is a special holiness focused in the priests.

There are four parts to this section:

21:1-15 avoiding defilement

21:16-24 physical holiness

22:1-16 who may partake of the holy things

22:17-33 holy sacrifices

Each is prefaced with "And Yahweh said to Moses..."

The first two parts are concerned with maintaining the physical holiness of the priests.

21:1-15 speaks of the social practices of the priests.

Verses 1-6 insist that the priests shall not engage in traditional mourning for the dead.

A priest shall not "make himself unclean for the dead."

In other words, he may not touch their dead bodies,

or be involved in any way with the preparations for their burial.

The only exceptions are for the closest of his relatives,

Mother, father, son, daughter, brother or virgin sister.

The married sister was now a part of a different family,

so she was not included.

Verse four adds that he shall not make himself unclean "as a husband"

(other translations suggest that this has to do with persons related by marriage).

This seems to assume that he may also be unclean for the sake of his wife

(after all, if she died in bed, then he would be unclean),

but not for any of her kin.

But even in the rare cases when they were permitted to mourn,

they were not permitted to (verse 5).

These were pagan practices, forbidden to all Israelites (Lev 19:27-28),

but especially condemned among the priests.

Verse six explains why (read).

As those committed to the service of God,

and who served the covenant meals of Israel,

where God met with his people and communed with them,

they had to remain holy.

Without holy priests, the people could not long remain holy.

Verses 7-9 speak of the priests' marriage practices.

The priest was not to marry a prostitute, a defiled woman, or a divorced woman.

In other words, only a virgin or a widow was permissible to the priests.

After all, if holiness is in part a physical concept,

then defilement could come through the wife to the husband.

The reason again is given in verse eight that the priest is holy

because he offers the bread of your God.

This, then, warns the Israelites not to encourage a priest to marry

their defiled daughter, lest they bring pollution upon the whole people.

Verse nine points out the implications of this for the children of the priests.

A daughter who becomes a prostitute profanes her father,

and therefore must not only be punished with death

(something that would happen to any Israelite prostitute),

but after she is dead, her body must be burned with fire,

a punishment reserved for the worst offenders,

since it destroyed their body in fire,

a picture of what their souls also deserved.

The daughter of the priest is also holy, because she is her father's seed.

Verses 10-15 then turn to the high priest.

If the priests have a standard of holiness even higher than the ordinary Israelites,

the High Priest has a standard even higher.

He may not even mourn for his father or mother.

He may not engage in even the simplest of mourning rituals,

not even the tearing of his clothes.

Likewise, he must marry only a virgin from his people.

While the rest of the priests could marry a widow,

the High Priest could only marry an Israelite virgin.

Later Jewish tradition insisted that he could only marry within the priestly family,

but that was not a scriptural requirement (see also Ezek. 44:22).

(After all, in Aaron's day, such a requirement would have been to require incest!)

The concern again was for the purity and holiness of Israel.

If the high priest became defiled, then how could Israel be pure?

The second part of chapter 21 deals with physical defects in the priesthood (16-24).

Only those who were physically whole could approach the holy place.

If a descendent of Aaron had a defect, he could not minister before the Lord.

Blind, lame, disfigured, deformed, crippled, hunchbacked, dwarfed-

any defect that was outwardly visible,

was sufficient to remove a man from active service.

A priest must be a properly functioning specimen of the human race.

Notice that verse 22 allows him to partake of all the food,

whether the holy or the most holy,

so the defect does not remove him from the priestly family.

Rather, it prevents him from approaching the altar,

because nothing impure or deformed belongs in the presence of God.

Since the most holy food was to be eaten in the courtyard,

this makes it clear that he could be involved in much of the priestly service,

(so he would have been able to perform many duties),

but he could not serve at the altar.

Israel was to be holy.

Therefore their priests must also be holy.

To allow one who is impure and deformed to offer sacrifices to God,

would be to profane the sanctuary of God.

(It is worth noting that Jeremiah was of the priestly family,

but does not appear to have served as a priest,

and so perhaps had one of these defects?)

These social and physical characteristics emphasize the need for a high priest who will be pure,

a perfect representative of the human race.

And such is Jesus:

"For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest,

holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens."

(Heb. 7:26).

Jesus is the Holy one-the high priest who is himself holy and pure.

But what about his bride?

The priests were supposed to marry a virgin of Israel.

Jesus has taken as his bride a polluted and defiled people.

How could he do this?

Only through his sacrifice.

The earthly priests had to work hard to find pure virgins because in their day

the unclean could corrupt the clean,

the impure and profane would contaminate the holy.

But in Jesus, the holy purifies the profane.

And Jesus will not marry a polluted and defiled bride.

He purifies and sanctifies us before taking us as his own.

While there is a sense in which we are already the bride of Christ (Eph 5),

there is also a sense in which we are not yet married.

The wedding supper of the Lamb is designed as the consummation of that marriage.

(The already/not yet theme is seen in all the benefits of redemption:

we are sons, but we await the adoption of our bodies;

we are sanctified, but we are still being sanctified;

we are justified, but we still await our final vindication, etc.)

While chapter 21 deals with the social and physical holiness of the priests,

chapter 22 deals with the holiness of the sacrifices.

22:1-16 speaks of the priest's handling of the offerings

Since they dealt with holy things every day,

they had to be reminded that such familiarity should not breed contempt!

They must respect the holy things of the sacrifices.

Any priest who approached the holy things while unclean

must be cut off from the presence of the LORD.

Given the consistent usage of "cut off" to refer to death,

it appears that he was to be put to death.

Verses 4-9 give us a bit more detail.

Echoing the language of chapters 11-15,

Leviticus makes it clear that an unclean priest

may not serve in the sanctuary.

The priest who fails to maintain ceremonial cleanness will profane the sanctuary,

and therefore will die.

Verse nine makes it clear that the priest who profanes the sanctuary deserves death.

It is not merely a matter of being excluded from the priesthood,

but excluded from life itself.

Verses 10-16 then brings warnings to the laity as well.

The people are not to eat of a holy thing

-neither are the hired servants or foreign guests of a priest.

BUT, a slave may eat of the holy things,

because he belongs to the household of the priest.

On the same principle,

if the daughter of a priest marries an ordinary Israelite,

she may no longer partake of the holy things;

but if she is widowed or divorced (and has no child),

then she may return to her father's house.

Of course, if she has a child, then she still belongs to her husband's family.

Understandably, it would quite possible to err by accident in these matters,

in which case the one who ate of a holy thing unintentionally

could make restitution, adding a fifth of its value.

The rationale once again is that Yahweh is the one who sanctifies them,

therefore they must not profane the holy things of Yahweh.

22:17-33 speaks of the character of Israel's offerings.

As the priest's body must be holy and unblemished, so also the sacrifices.

Anything that approaches the altar-the holy place-must itself be holy.

It must be properly functioning.

Verses 17-25 explain that any defect in an animal renders it unfit for sacrifice.

There is one exception.

A bull or lamb whose limb is either too long or too short may be offered

for a freewill offering-but not in any other case.

Since this offering is not required,

a slight defect is acceptable.

But in none of the prescribed sacrifices is the slightest defect acceptable.

You are to bring only the perfect and pure sacrifices.

Verses 26-30 then point out that no animal shall be brought as a sacrifice

until it is eight days old.

A male child is to be circumcised on the eighth day.

That circumcision includes the shedding of blood,

and is designed to set apart the child for the service of Yahweh.

Likewise, the priests are consecrated for service for seven days,

and only enter the holy service of Yahweh on the eighth day.

So also the sacrifice must be eight days old before it is suitable.

There is a connection between the male child, the priest, and the sacrifice.

(Right about now your brain should be saying, "JESUS!!!!")

Further, a mother and its child should not be sacrificed on the same day.

That would mingle their blood and their bones,

a most inappropriate mixture!

Finally Moses exhorts the priests: (read 31-33)

The priests are to treat God as holy,

so that all of Israel will sanctify his holy name.

Why?

Because I am Yahweh, who sanctifies you.

Indeed, I am Yahweh who brought you out of Egypt to be your God.

I am Yahweh.

The priests are be holy because God is holy,

and because he is the one who make Israel holy through the holy sacrifices

performed in the holy place by the holy priesthood

on behalf of the holy people.

For centuries this system of sacrifices was maintained.

The priests carefully and conscientiously performed the prescribed sacrifices.

Perhaps now we are ready to look at Psalm 51.

Read 51:16-17.

This has often been taken to mean that David had come to understand that the sacrifices

were not enough by themselves-

that the sacrifices were mere ritual performances.

But then how do you make sense of verse 19?

No, David says that God would not delight in sacrifice or burnt offering

because he has been guilty of adultery and murder.

And no blood sacrifice can satisfy for those sins.

David knows that he deserves death for his sins,

and so he prays that God will be merciful and deliver him from bloodguilt.

David does understand that there must be something beyond the ordinary sacrifices,

because he hopes for the forgiveness of his sins.

There must be some way to deal with intentional sins--

something the law does not provide.

In Christ we have now a high priest who deals with all sins.

Hebrews 9:11-14.

This is why we speak of a new covenant.

The old covenant had no way of dealing with intentional sins (9:7).

We now have a new sacrifice, a new priest, a new temple, and a new people of God.

How can you call it anything else but a new covenant,

of which the old covenant was the shadow and picture.