Chú giải Kinh Thánh

Leviticus 22:1. 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 Leviticus 22:1 to Leviticus 22:17, which cautions served to remind them of that reverence and moral purity wherewith their worship ought to be paid to God.

Leviticus 22:2. That they separate themselves — When any uncleanness is upon them, as appears from Leviticus 22:3-4. 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 they, in that state, to eat of the first-fruits, which were also consecrated to God, Numbers 18:12. But they might eat of the tithes, which were allowed for their constant maintenance. That they profane not what they — The children of Israel; hallow — It ill became the priests to profane or pollute what the people hallowed.

Leviticus 22:3. 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 from the participation of them. Le Clerc takes it for cutting off by death.

Leviticus 22:7. 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, deserved a greater punishment.

Leviticus 22:9. Lest they bear sin — Incur guilt and punishment. For it — For the neglect or violation of it.

Leviticus 22:10. 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 proselyte. A sojourner — One that came to his house, and abode there for a season, and ate at his table, was not to eat of it. There is one exception, however, to this rule, in the next verse.

Leviticus 22:11. 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.

Leviticus 22:12. 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 denominated.