Exodus 29:37

most holy a technical term of the priestly phraseology, applied to many different things brought specially near to God, e.g. to the altar of burnt-offering, here and Exodus 40:10; to the altar of incense, Exodus 30:10; to the Tent of Meeting and vessels belonging to it, Exodus 30:26-29; to the meal-offering, Leviticus 2:3, &c. (see a complete list in Danielin the Camb. Bible, p. 137; also in Di."s note on Leviticus 21:22, where its distinction from holyis explained).

shall become holy i.e. become sacred to Jehovah, implying that, if it be a thing (-whatsoever"), it will be forfeited to the sanctuary (cf. Numbers 16:37-38, where the censers which had rashly been made -holy," are retained in the service of the sanctuary, and made into beaten plates for the altar; Deuteronomy 22:9; Leviticus 27:10; Joshua 6:19 a, compared with 19b), and, if it be a person (- whosoever," the more prob. rendering), not already properly consecrated, and so able to touch sacred things with impunity, that he is given over to the Deity to be dealt with by Him as He pleases. So Exodus 30:29; Leviticus 6:18 b, Leviticus 6:27; cf. Ezekiel 46:20 b, where -sanctify" is to be similarly explained. We have here, as in the passages quoted, a survival of primitive ideas of -holiness." Holiness, i.e. consecration to a deity, is a contagious quality: thus the altar or the incense is holy, and whatever touches it becomes holy. What is holy must further be kept from profane use, and not touched, without due precaution, or by unfit persons; a person touching it in heedlessness or curiosity becomes thereby -holy" himself, and may be dealt with by he Deity as He pleases, even to the extent of having to pay for his imprudence with his life: cf. 2 Samuel 6:6 f.; Numbers 4:15; Numbers 4:20; Numbers 16:37 end, 38a [read as RVm.]. See Dr Gray's luminous note, Numbers, pp. 209 211, with the passages cited by him from Frazer's Golden Bough, e.g. i. 321 (Exodus 2), -In New Zealand the dread of the sanctity of chiefs was at least as great as in Tonga. Their ghostly power, derived from an ancestral spirit or atua, diffused itself by contagion over everything they touched, and could strike dead all who rashly or unwittingly meddled with it"; Rel. Sem.pp. 142 f., 427 ff. (Exodus 2, pp. 152 f., 446 ff.); DB.iv. 826 f.