Chapter Twenty-One

Exceptional holiness required from the priesthood; requirements that are religious-ceremonial and moral; freedom from physical defects

Leviticus 21:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: No one shall make himself unclean by a dead person among his people; Leviticus 21:2. Except for a relative of his own flesh: for a mother or father, for a son or daughter, for a brother, Leviticus 21:3. Or for a sister who is a virgin near to him because she has had no husband; to her he may make himself unclean; If the entire people of Israel, as chosen by God to be a priestly people, were to strictly observe all the prescriptions of the law concerning spiritual and physical purity and holiness, then all the more strict requirements in this regard were prescribed for the priests. The circle of what was permitted here for priests, and especially for the high priest, was more narrow and restricted. “The priest was bound to be a model of chastity, and that the family line remain pure, to give no cause for those plotting reproach to insult” (blessed Theodoret, question 30). The requirements for priests in respect to spiritual-physical purity are divided into 3 groups: 1) prohibition from becoming unclean by corpses and funeral mourning (Lev 21:1); 2) prohibition against marrying a widow, a woman who plays the harlot, one who is put away, or a foreigner (Lev 21:7-8); 3) prohibition of priesthood for people with bodily defects (Lev 21:17-23). As servants of the sanctuary of the Living God, priests were not to have attachment to the rites of death. Therefore, although burial of the dead was generally considered an indispensable duty of a Hebrew, priests could only bury and mourn their closest and co-dwelling relatives, contact with whom, and thus defilement (Num 5:2), was inevitable: mother, father, son, daughter, and an unmarried sister living with him. Nothing is said about a wife (as in Ezek 44:25). On the wife commentators see an indication (on the basis of the Targum of Jonathan) in the prohibition not to approach anyone among the people (see Ezek 24:16-18), although it is very doubtful that the performance of the last duty would have been forbidden to a priest with respect to a wife who, according to Gen 2:23-24, is one flesh with her husband (Vulg.: verse 4: nec in principe populi sui contaminatur; thus also Onkelos; but the context of the text says nothing about a “prince of his people”).

Leviticus 21:5. They shall not shave the crown of their head, nor shave off the edges of their beard, nor make gashes on their body. Leviticus 21:6. They shall be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God, for they offer the offerings to the Lord made by fire, the bread of their God, and therefore must be holy. Mutilation of the head, beard, and body in honor of the dead, forbidden to all Israelites generally (Lev 19:27), is thereby more strictly forbidden to servants of Jehovah, the Holy God, while the forbidden rites had a connection to pagan cults.

Leviticus 21:7. They shall not marry a woman who is a prostitute or who has been put away; for the priest is holy to his God. Leviticus 21:8. You shall treat him as holy, for he offers the bread [of the Lord] to your God: he shall be holy to you, for I the Lord, Who sanctify you, am holy. Leviticus 21:9. If a priest’s daughter becomes a prostitute, she profanes her father; she shall be burned to death. Regarding the marriage and family life of a priest, the following restrictions are given: he could not marry either a prostitute (Hebrew zonah: according to Jewish tradition—any woman who had had relations in one of the degrees forbidden by law), or one put away (according to tradition—born of a forbidden marriage, according to Josephus—a woman of questionable chastity, for instance, a maidservant or a captive woman) and one divorced by her husband (according to tradition—also a woman “who removed her sandal from the kinsman,” Deut 25:9). Guarding the dignity and reputation of the priestly family, the law prescribes a severe punishment—burning, probably preceded by stoning—for a priest’s daughter (according to the rabbis: one who was betrothed to someone) who fell into prostitution (see blessed Theodoret, question 30).

Leviticus 21:10. The high priest, who is greater than his brothers, upon whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been consecrated to wear the sacred vestments, shall not have the hair of his head hang loose, nor tear his vestments; Leviticus 21:11. He shall not approach any dead body and shall not defile himself even for his father and mother by touching a dead person; Leviticus 21:12. He shall not leave the sanctuary and shall not profane the sanctuary of his God, for the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him. I am the Lord. Leviticus 21:13. He shall take a wife in her virginity [from among his people]: Leviticus 21:14. A widow, or a woman who is put away, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry, but only a virgin from among his people shall he take as a wife; Leviticus 21:15. That he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord [God] Who sanctifies him. In both respects, the requirements for the high priest were even more strict. Regarding mourning, the high priest, who must always be clean, is forbidden lamentation for the dead—of course, only the outward, among the inhabitants of the East always turbulent and unrestrained manifestations of it (inner silent sorrow could not be forbidden)—even for his father and mother: any contact of the high priest with the dead would be a defilement of the sanctuary (according to the interpretation of Jewish authorities, however, if a high priest should meet an unburied corpse in a deserted place on the road, it was his duty to bury it). Regarding marriage, in comparison with the rules concerning priestly marriage (Lev 21:7), a new restriction was made for the high priest: he was commanded not to marry a widow (Lev 21:13-14); a widow, during cohabitation with her former husband, could have acquired tendencies not corresponding to the requirements of an irreproachable family life of the high priest. Such restrictions existed among the Romans regarding the pontiff, among the Athenians—regarding the king.

Leviticus 21:17. Say to Aaron: No one of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God; Leviticus 21:18. For anyone who has a blemish shall not approach—one who is blind or lame or has a disfigurement, Leviticus 21:19. Or anyone who has a broken foot or a broken hand, Leviticus 21:20. Or a humpback, or one who is too thin, or has a defect in his eye, or has a scaly disease, or has an oozing disease, or has damaged testicles; Leviticus 21:21. No one of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish on him shall come near to offer the offerings made by fire to the Lord; since he has a blemish on him, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God; Leviticus 21:22. He may eat the bread of his God, of both the holy things and the most holy things; Leviticus 21:23. Yet he shall not go behind the veil or come near the altar, because he has a blemish; that he may not profane My sanctuaries, for I am the Lord Who sanctifies them. The purity and holiness of the priesthood, conditioned by the holiness of its calling and ministry, required also physical integrity of those approaching the altar of Jehovah. Therefore those members of the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron who had any bodily defect—the biblical text, as an example of such defects, names 12 (Hebrew terms allow for different understanding, as is evident already from the comparison of the Church Slavonic and Russian translations in Lev 21:18), and the tradition counted more than 50—were thereby excluded from serving the altar (Lev 17:21); though, as not guilty of this unsuitability for priestly service, they were not considered unclean, and they were given the high honor of consuming portions of the sacrifices—“the most holy things and the holy things” (Lev 21:22; see Lev 7:27-28). The basis of this law provision blessed Theodoret (question 30) determines thus: “God, because of the murmuring of the Jews, forbids priestly service to those who have any bodily defect, but by the appearance of involuntary defects forbids voluntary ones; for blindness of eyes gives to understand a lack of knowledge; loss of an ear—disobedience; loss of a nose—loss of perception; severing of a hand—lack of activity.”