Leviticus 22 - Introduction

Leviticus 21, 22. Regulations for Priests and for Matters in which Priests are specially Responsible. The Chapter s offer distinct points of comparison with P, and also with Ezek., which will be noticed below. All point to the superiority, in point of time, of H to P; the relation to Ezekiel is dubious (see Introd.). They are best explained as rising, like Ezekiel's provisions, in a state of transition, when several minds, possessed by the same leading ideas, and probably in oral though not written communication with each other, were working independently towards what later became P.

Leviticus 21. Priests, their Mourning, Marriage, Consecration and Inabilities. The special holiness of priests follows from the fact that they were in specially close contact with Yahweh. Holiness was at once negative what was safe elsewhere would be dangerous in such close proximity to Yahweh; and positive a special state of fitness was something inconvenient for ordinary laymen, though it might be conferred upon them (Ezekiel 44:19). Ritual taboos surround priests and kings (who regularly perform priestly functions) in ethnic religions. For the later law of consecration, see Leviticus 8 f. The distinction between priests and Levites is not here mentioned, nor are Levites referred to in H, save in Leviticus 25:32 ff. Ezekiel also speaks of the priests and Levites as if they were synonymous, while he emphasizes the distinction (absent from H) between the country and the Jerusalem (or Zadokite) priesthood (Ezekiel 44:10; Ezekiel 44:15). In P, the Levites are the subordinate clergy (Numbers 4:2 ff., etc.).