A priest, having any uncleanness, must not eat of the holy things, Leviticus 22:1. No priest must eat that which dies of itself, or is torn, Leviticus 22:8; Leviticus 22:9. No stranger must eat of holy things, Leviticus 22:10. Of them that do it ignorantly, Leviticus 22:14. Sacrifices must be witho... [ Continue Reading ]
The foregoing rules relate to the personal qualifications of priests: here follow several cautions relating to the privileges which they and their families had of eating their share of the sacrifices, from Lev 22:1 to Leviticus 22:17, which cautions served to remind them of that reverence and moral... [ Continue Reading ]
_That they separate themselves_ When any uncleanness is upon them, as appears from Leviticus 22:3. _From the holy things_ This is the first caution. No priest, or other person, was to presume to eat any part of a consecrated victim, while he was under any degree of legal uncleanness. Neither were th... [ Continue Reading ]
_Goeth unto the holy things_ To eat them, or to touch them; for if the touch of one of the people having his uncleanness upon him defiled the thing he touched, much more was it so in the priest. _Cut off_ From my ordinances by excommunication: he shall be excluded both from the administration and fr... [ Continue Reading ]
_His food_ His portion, the means of his subsistence. This may be added, to signify why there was no greater nor longer a penalty put upon the priests than upon the people in the same case, because his necessity craved some mitigation: though otherwise the priests, being more sacred persons, deserve... [ Continue Reading ]
_Lest they bear sin_ Incur guilt and punishment. _For it_ For the neglect or violation of it.... [ Continue Reading ]
_There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing_ By holy thing here is meant, that portion of the sacrifices which belonged to the priests. And by _stranger_ is not meant one of another nation, in distinction from a native Jew, but one who was not of the priest's own family, whether Jew, or Gentile p... [ Continue Reading ]
_If the priest buy any soul_ Either one of the Jewish nation, obliged, through poverty, to sell himself, (Leviticus 25:39,) or of another nation, (v. 44, 45,) who being proselyted to the Jewish religion, became part of the priest's family, and so was permitted to eat of his consecrated meat.... [ Continue Reading ]
_If the priest's daughter be married to a stranger_ To one of another family, who is no priest. Yet the priest's wife, though of another family, might eat. The reason of which difference is, because the wife passeth into the name, state, and privileges of her husband, from whom the family is denomin... [ Continue Reading ]
_The fifth part unto it_ Over and above the principal, and besides the ram to be offered to God, Leviticus 5:15. _And shall give unto the priest the holy thing_ That is, the worth of it, which the priest was either to take to himself or to offer to God, as the nature of the thing was.... [ Continue Reading ]
_They_ The people; _shall not profane_ them, by eating them: or the priests shall not profane them, that is, suffer the people to profane them, without censure and punishment.... [ Continue Reading ]
_They_ That is, the priests; _shall not_ (the negative particle being understood out of the foregoing clause) _suffer them_ That is, the people; _to bear the iniquity of trespass_ That is, the punishment of their sin, which they might expect from God, and for the prevention whereof the priest was to... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Lord spake unto Moses_ The following laws relate to the qualifications required in any offering made either by the Israelites or proselytes. For such proselytes as had renounced idolatry, and were _proselytes of the gate_, termed, Leviticus 22:18, _strangers in Israel_ Though not circumcised, a... [ Continue Reading ]
_Ye shall offer it at your own will_ This is better rendered by the Seventy, the Arabic, and other versions, _In order to its being accepted ye shall offer a male._ And so we render the same word לרצון, _leratson_, in the next verse. _Males_ were required in burnt-offerings: but _females_ were accep... [ Continue Reading ]
_To accomplish a vow_ It was not unusual with them to make such a vow when they undertook a journey, went to sea, were sick, or in any danger. _It shall be perfect_ That sacrifice was accounted perfect which wanted none of its parts, nor had any defect in any of them; so that _perfect_ here is the s... [ Continue Reading ]
_That mayest thou offer_ The Hebrew here will bear a different translation, which, indeed, seems necessary to reconcile this with the twenty-first verse, namely, _Shouldest thou offer it for a free-will-offering or for a vow, it would not be accepted._... [ Continue Reading ]
_Neither from a stranger's hand_ From proselytes: even from those, such should not be accepted, much less from the Israelites. _The bread of your God_ That is, the sacrifices.... [ Continue Reading ]
The _cow or ewe_, _and her young, in one day_ This Maimonides considers as a precaution of humanity, lest the dam should be brought to the altar while she is yet mourning the loss of her young, slain perhaps before her eyes. And, indeed, there is a degree of cruelty in the very idea of imbruing the... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will be hallowed_ Or, _sanctified_, either _by you_, in keeping my holy commands, or _upon you_, in executing my holy and righteous judgments. I will manifest myself to be a holy God, that will not bear the transgression of my laws. _I am the Lord who hallow you_ Who have separated you to myself... [ Continue Reading ]