Leviticus 21:9

The Behaviour Of Priests' Daughters (Leviticus 21:9).

Leviticus 21:9

“And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the harlot, she profanes her father. She shall be burned with fire.”

The thought of the priest not marrying a prostitute leads on to the possible danger of a priest's daughter becoming a prostitute by virtue of her situation. As probably in the case of the worship of the golden calf (‘rose up to play' - Exodus 32:6) it is clear that many people, even those with priestly connections, were ever in danger of desiring to participate in sexual rites connected with idolatry, possibly revering them as a kind of religious expression. And they would see sexual union with a priest's daughter as the most desirable kind of such an expression. They had clearly had much contact with such sentiments and tended to revert to them. Such ideas had an understandable magnetic attraction. But they were forbidden to Israel, and especially to a priest's daughter.

If a priest's daughter was therefore encouraged by some to act in this way, and did so, she would be profaning her father, bringing shame on him and connecting him with worship that was both crude and unacceptable, and she must therefore be burned with fire. This punishment is on a par with that for a man marrying both mother and daughter at the same time (Leviticus 20:14), and for sinning in sacred things (Joshua 7:25). She would be being ‘devoted' to Yahweh because she had sinned in a sacred thing. A priest's family members were seen as holy, and must behave so.

In the New Testament also the failure of a child to live rightly always brings disrepute on its parents and makes them unfitted for ministry. See 1 Timothy 3:11; Titus 1:6. They are a reflection of their parents. Our children reveal what we are.