Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Leviticus 22:1
And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,
CHAPTER XXII
Of the uncleanness of the priests, by which they were prevented
from ministering in holy things, 1-5.
How they should be cleansed, 6, 7.
The priest must not eat of any animal that had died of itself,
or was torn by wild beasts, but must keep God’s ordinances,
8, 9.
No stranger, sojourner, nor hired servant shall eat of the holy
things, 10.
A servant bought with money may eat of them, 11.
Who of the priest’s family may not eat of them, 12, 13.
Of improper persons who partake of the holy things unknowingly,
14-16.
Freewill-offerings, and sacrifices in general, must be without
blemish, 17-25.
The age at which different animals were to be offered to God,
26, 27.
No animal and its young shall be offered on the same day, 28.
How the sacrifice of thanks-giving was to be offered, 29, 30.
All God’s testimonies to be observed, and the reason, 31-33.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXII
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
And the Lord spake unto Moses,…. Immediately after he had spoken concerning blemishes in priests, and in a continued discourse signifying, that though priests that had blemishes might eat of the holy things, yet neither they, nor even such who had not any, if they were under legal impurity, might eat of them:
saying; as follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Reverence for Things Sanctified. – The law on this matter was, (1) that no priest who had become unclean was to touch or eat them (Lev 22:2-9), and (2) that no one was to eat them who was not a member of a priestly family (Lev 22:10-16).
Lev 22:2-3 Aaron and his sons were to keep away from the holy gifts of the children of Israel, which they consecrated to Jehovah, that they might not profane the holy name of Jehovah by defiling them with to keep away, separate one’s self from anything, i.e., not to regard or treat them as on a par with unconsecrated things. The words, “ which they sanctify to Me, ” are a supplementary apposition, added as a more precise definition of the “holy things of the children of Israel;” as the expression “holy things” was applied to the holy objects universally, including the furniture of the tabernacle. Here, however, the reference is solely to the holy offerings or gifts, which were not placed upon the altar, but presented to the Lord as heave-offerings and wave-offerings, and assigned by Him to the priests as the servants of His house, for their maintenance (Num 18:11-19, Num 18:26-29). None of the descendants of Aaron were to approach these gifts, which were set apart for them, – i.e., to touch them either for the purpose of eating, or making them ready for eating, – whilst any uncleanness was upon them, on pain of extermination.
Lev 22:4-5 No leper was to touch them (see Lev 13:2), or person with gonorrhaea (Lev 15:2), until he was clean; no one who had touched a person defiled by a corpse (Lev 19:28; Num 19:22), or whose seed had gone from him (Lev 15:16, Lev 15:18); and no one who had touched an unclean creeping animal, or an unclean man. , as in Lev 5:3, a closer definition of , “who is unclean to him with regard to (on account of) any uncleanness which he may have.”
Lev 22:6-7 “ A soul which touches it, ” i.e., any son of Aaron, who had touched either an unclean person or thing, was to be unclean till the evening, and then bathe his body; after sunset, i.e., when the day was over, he became clean, and could eat of the sanctified things, for they were his food.
Lev 22:8-9 In this connection the command given to all the Israelites, not to eat anything that had fallen down dead or been torn in pieces (Lev 17:15-16), is repeated with special reference to the priests. (On. Lev 22:9, see Lev 8:35; Lev 18:30, and Lev 19:17). , “because they have defiled it (the sanctified thing).”
Lev 22:10-16 No stranger was to eat a sanctified thing. is in general the non-priest, then any person who was not fully incorporated into a priestly family, e.g., a visitor or day-labourer (cf. Exo 12:49), who were neither of them members of his family.
Lev 22:11 On the other hand, slaves bought for money, or born in the house, became members of his family and lived upon his bread; they were therefore allowed to eat of that which was sanctified along with him, since the slaves were, in fact, formally incorporated into the nation by circumcision (Gen 17:12-13).
Lev 22:12-13 So again the daughter of a priest, if she became a widow, or was put away by her husband, and returned childless to her father’s house, and became a member of his family again, just as in the days of her youth, might eat of the holy things. But if she had any children, then after the death of her husband, or after her divorce, she formed with them a family of her own, which could not be incorporated into the priesthood, of course always supposing that her husband was not a priest.
Lev 22:14-16 But if any one (i.e., a layman) should eat unawares of that which was sanctified, he was to bring it, i.e., an equivalent for it, with the addition of a fifth as a compensation for the priest; like a man who had sinned by unfaithfulness in relation to that which was sanctified (Lev 5:16). – In the concluding exhortation in Lev 22:15 and Lev 22:16, the subject to (profane) and (bear) is indefinite, and the passage to be rendered thus: “ They are not to profane the sanctified gifts of the children of Israel, what they heave for the Lord (namely, by letting laymen eat of them), and are to cause them ( the laymen) who do this unawares to bear a trespass-sin (by imposing the compensation mentioned in Lev 22:14), if they eat their (the priests’) sanctified gifts.” Understood in this way, both verses furnish a fitting conclusion to the section Lev 22:10-14. On the other hand, according to the traditional interpretation of these verses, the priesthood is regarded as the subject of the first verb, and a negative supplied before the second. Both of these are arbitrary and quite indefensible, because Lev 22:10-14 do not refer to the priests but to laymen, and in the latter case we should expect (cf. Lev 22:9) instead of the unusual .
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Laws Concerning the Priests. | B. C. 1490. |
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the LORD. 3 Say unto them, Whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations, that goeth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the LORD. 4 What man soever of the seed of Aaron is a leper, or hath a running issue; he shall not eat of the holy things, until he be clean. And whoso toucheth any thing that is unclean by the dead, or a man whose seed goeth from him; 5 Or whosoever toucheth any creeping thing, whereby he may be made unclean, or a man of whom he may take uncleanness, whatsoever uncleanness he hath; 6 The soul which hath touched any such shall be unclean until even, and shall not eat of the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water. 7 And when the sun is down, he shall be clean, and shall afterward eat of the holy things; because it is his food. 8 That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall not eat to defile himself therewith: I am the LORD. 9 They shall therefore keep mine ordinance, lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, if they profane it: I the LORD do sanctify them.
Those that had a natural blemish, though they were forbidden to do the priests’ work, were yet allowed to eat of the holy things: and the Jewish writers say that “to keep them from idleness they were employed in the wood-room, to pick out that which was worm-eaten, that it might not be used in the fire upon the altar; they might also be employed in the judgment of leprosy:” but,
I. Those that were under any ceremonial uncleanness, which possibly they contracted by their own fault, might no so much as eat of the holy things while they continued in their pollution. 1. Some pollutions were permanent, as a leprosy or a running issue, v. 4. These separated the people from the sanctuary, and God would show that they were so far from being more excusable that really they were more abominable in a priest. 2. Others were more transient, as the touching of a dead body, or any thing else that was unclean, from which, after a certain time, a man was cleansed by bathing his flesh in water, v. 6. But whoever was thus defiled might not eat of the holy things, under pain of God’s highest displeasure, who said, and ratified the saying, That soul shall be cut off from my presence, v. 3. Our being in the presence of God, and attending upon him, will be so far from securing us that it will but the more expose us to God’s wrath, if we dare to draw nigh to him in our uncleanness. The destruction shall come from the presence of the Lord (2 Thess. i. 9), as the fire by which Nadab and Abihu died came from before the Lord. Thus those who profane the holy word of God will be cut off by that word which they make so light of; it shall condemn them. They are again warned of their danger if they eat the holy thing in their uncleanness (v. 9), lest they bear sin, and die therefore. Note, (1.) Those contract great guilt who profane sacred things, by touching them with unhallowed hands. Eating the holy things signified an interest in the atonement; but, if they ate of them in their uncleanness, they were so far from lessening their guilt that they increased it: They shall bear sin. (2.) Sin is a burden which, if infinite mercy prevent not, will certainly sink those that bear it: They shall die therefore. Even priests may be ruined by their pollutions and presumptions.
II. As to the design of this law we may observe, 1. This obliged the priests carefully to preserve their purity, and to dread every thing that would defile them. The holy things were their livelihood; if they might not eat of them, how must they subsist? The more we have to lose of comfort and honour by our defilement, the more careful we should be to preserve our purity. 2. This impressed the people with a reverence for the holy things, when they saw the priests themselves separated from them (as the expression is, v. 2) so long as they were in their uncleanness. He is doubtless a God of infinite purity who kept his immediate attendants under so strict a discipline. 3. This teaches us carefully to watch against all moral pollutions, because by them we are unfitted to receive the comfort of God’s sanctuary. Though we labour not under habitual deformities, yet actual defilements deprive us of the pleasure of communion with God; and therefore he that is washed needeth to wash his feet (John xiii. 10), to wash his hands, and so to compass the altar, Ps. xxvi. 6. Herein we have need to be jealous over ourselves, lest (as it is observably expressed here) we profane God’s holy name in those things which we hallow unto him, v. 2. If we affront God in those very performances wherein we pretend to honour him, and provoke him instead of pleasing him, we shall make up but a bad account shortly; yet thus we do if we profane God’s name, by doing that in our uncleanness which pretends to be hallowed to him.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
LEVITICUS- TWENTY TWO
Verses 1-9:
This Le continues the regulations governing the ceremonial qualifications of the priests, the descendants of Aaron. The text specifies that there are times when the priests unavoidably become unclean. During that time, they are to separate themselves from the holy things, verse 2.
Verses 4-6 list various forms of uncleanness which disqualified the priests from officiating in the tabernacle worship. Those conditions which produced such uncleanness are defined in Le 15. In most of these cases, the ceremonial uncleanness did not continue past sunset. But in the case of the leper, the defilement continued for a longer period, see Lev chapters 13 and 14.
The penalty for violating this provision: to be “cut off from (God’s) presence,” that is, to be permanently barred from the priestly office.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. And the Lord spake unto Moses. Moses here treats of the accidents whereby pollution is contracted, although a man may be by nature pure and sound. If any labored under natural defects, Moses prohibited them from exercising the sacerdotal office; now, if any extrinsic pollution may have affected a priest, he commands him to abstain from his duties until he shall have been purified. He had already commanded that any unclean person should be separated from the people lest their contagion should infect others; it may therefore seem superfluous to prescribe to the priests what had been universally enjoined. But since men placed in any position of honor are apt to abuse God’s favor as a pretext for sin, lest the sacerdotal dignity might be used as a covering for the indulgence or excuse of scandals, it was necessary to enact an express law, that the priests should not plead their privilege to eat in their uncleanness of the sacrifices which none but the clean might offer. And that their sacrilege might be the more detestable, he denounces death against any who should intrude their pollutions into the sacrifices; for it was necessary to arouse by the fear of punishment, and as it were to drive by violence to their duty those who would not have been otherwise restrained by any religious feeling from making God’s service contemptible. He then enumerates the particular kinds of pollution of which we have before spoken. Whence it appears, that the priests were brought into discipline by this law, lest they should think themselves more free than the rest of the people, thus might indulge themselves in security; and this is afterwards more clearly expressed where God admonishes them to “keep his ordinance,” (194) (Lev 22:9 🙂 i.e., diligently to observe whatever He commanded; and the greater dignity He had honored them with, that the greater should be their study to persevere in the exercises of piety; for he shews them that so far from their sacerdotal rights conducing to the alleviation of their sin, they were more strongly bound by them to keep the Law.
(194) Lat., “ Custodiant custodiam meam.” Ainsworth, “ Keep my charge.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Priestly Privileges Forfeited by Uncleanness
SUGGESTIVE READINGS
Lev. 22:1.Profane not My holy name in those things which they hallow unto Me. Holy things must not be touched with unclean hands. What God hallows should be revered. To treat heedlessly any sacred thing profanes that Name with which it has become associated. If this applied to the altar offerings of the ancient tabernacle, surely it applies to our holy thingsthe Scriptures, the Sanctuary, the Lords Day; for the Divine Name is linked to them, they are hallowed unto Him, and must not be profaned. More forcibly this requirement applies to lives hallowed in consecration to Christ; they must not be profaned by fellowship with evil, lest it lead to that holy name by which they are called being blasphemed.
Lev. 22:2.That soul shall be cut off from My presence. Did not the devouring fire consume Nadab and Abihu? Infliction of such severe penalties was a measure necessary in that age for the enforcement of duty, for inculcating correct ideas of Jehovahs sanctity and authority. Priests, by their privileged access to His presence, might lapse into incaution; and as their favours were special, so their warnings were emphatic. If we dwell in the light, how appalling the possibility of being thrust into outer darkness! Having preached to others, how fearful to think of becoming a castaway! Such possibilities should arouse privileged souls to take heed lest they fall.
Lev. 22:10.There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing. Hospitality is everywhere in Scripture commended; we should be careful to entertain strangers. But guests in our homes do not, on that account, become qualified to share the covenant privileges of religion, which are reserved to those who are Christs. Relation to God as a priest is a personal matter; and as a spiritual priest each believer is entitled to sit at the sacred tableyes, to feast in the very banqueting house of sovereign lovebut we have no authority to extend these divine favours to others who have no priestly relationship to God, even though they have domestic or friendly relationship to us. Courtesy or magnanimity may not obliterate the spiritual distinctions with which God separates men.
Lev. 22:11.But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat. So that when a soul becomes a priests possession, he shares the priests privileges. Its counterpart is in those we win to Christnot by money, but by the energies of Christian persuasion and influence; bound to us in the obligations of love. Our converts enter into our sacred enjoyments: Ye are all partakers of my grace (Php. 1:7).
Lev. 22:14.If a man eat of the holy thing unwittingly. Intruding where he ought not; taking advantages for which he had no qualification; enjoying sacred food for which he had done no sacred service. This is trespass (Lev. 22:16). Yet all assumption of religion without being in heart religious, all church offices and emoluments held by unchristian men for the sake more of gain than godlinessthis is profanation, and these bear the iniquity of trespass.
Lev. 22:17-24.Physical perfectness required in animals sacrificed. For they were suggestive of the perfect Christ, and must therefore have no defect; and they betokened the perfect life which believers are called to devote to God: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Lev. 22:25.Neither from a strangers hand, etc. Offerings must be faultless, and the offerer must be qualified. Precious gifts from unhallowed hands God cannot accept. Leave the gift on the altar, and enter first into sacred relationship with God through Christ. Our standing in Him is of supreme importance; until we are thus made nigh, we cannot acceptably draw nigh.
Lev. 22:32.I will be hallowed I am the Lord which hallow you. It is for that sublime end we are sanctified. Men seek their own salvation, God seeks their sanctity; because salvation is a selfish goal, while sanctity is testimony for God to men and angels. The work of divine grace in us is nor, merely for our gain, but to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour, to snow the holy character of God to those who take knowledge of us, and thus help to fulfilment the prayer, Hallowed be thy name.
HOMILIES ON CHAPTER 22
Topic: A SOLEMN REGARD FOR HALLOWED THINGS
That they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me (Lev. 22:2).
Religion is a sacred inward life. It consists not in outward things, such as symbols and ceremonies, which it uses and calls to its aid, but in the souls acceptance with God, in its homage of Him, and in its glad resignation to Him and service for Him.
Yet religion has its outward expression in material things which it hallows. It does this by their consecration to Gods service and honour. What in itself may be common and worldly becomes sacred when dedicated to religious purposes. And in this act of hallowing worldly things, religious men show their difference from the ungodly, who merely keep all earthly things for worldly and human ends, devoting none to God. But the children of God will have things which they hallow unto me.
I. MANS ABILITY TO RENDER THINGS HALLOWED.
1. Places: As sanctuaries devoted to Gods worship. Homes consecrated by piety and prayer. Select scenes of retirement, as some secret glen where a devout soul goes apart for meditation, etc., like Isaac at the well Lahai-roi. A lowly room or shed, used for gathering two or three in Christs name for reading and exhortation.
2. Seasons: As the Lords day; or appointed days, as holy days; or a fixed hour for bending the knee with some distant friend; or times in which to commemorate Gods work in history.
3. Possessions: As wealth set apart for Christ; or time deliberately determined to be spent in Christian work; or some particular object we dedicate to the Masters useas Peters boat, which he lent to Christ from which to preach to the multitudes on the shore.
4. Persons: Our own lives with all their talents and affections, they gave themselves unto the Lord; or a child, as Hannah dedicated Samuel; or a band of Christian workers sent forth on a specific mission.
II. MANS TENDENCY TO PROFANE THINGS HALLOWED.
1. As when regard for the sanctity of holy scenes ceases; the sanctuary fails to be in thought none other but the house of God and the gate of heaven; or home piety and prayer are discouraged by neglect.
2. Regard for the solemnity of sacred seasons declines; the Sabbath is not cherished as a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; prayer times are let slip disregarded.
3. Regard for the divine claim on our possessions abates; we keep back some part of the price; we recall from its dedicated purpose some consecrated object.
4. Regard for true spirituality in ourselves and others wanes; the first love waxes cold; the eagerness for our child or families to become Christian abates in the presence of their worldly interests and prospects.
III. MANS RESPONSIBILITY TO RESPECT THINGS HALLOWED.
1. They are no longer ours, either to recall from consecration or to divert to ourselves. Money was not Ananiass after he had professedly given it to Christ. And Ye are not your own. Vowed to the Lord, our appropriation of it, or diversion from its sacred purpose, is profanation.
2. Gods name becomes identified with things hallowed unto Him. What a dishonour and derision to God and religion if, e.g, a church should be debased and turned into a tavern or a theatre: if a Christian home be degraded into a habitation of libertines and revilers: if a sanctified life returns again to the vileness of iniquity. Scoffers then will blaspheme that holy name by which we are called.
3.When anything is hallowed it is a witness amid ungodliness for religion and the unseen. The tendency of man is to grow absorbed in material things, to attend merely to his physical and earthly interests. Things hallowed to God speak to men of what is divine, spiritual, eternal, and they cannot be removed from amongst us without danger of men sinking lower into dark materialism, and so forfeiting all the benefits which Christianity has brought into our national, social, and individual life.
(a) The Bible deserves to be cherished as a hallowed book, yet how many neglect it: how many deride it: how many read it only to disobey it.
(b) The cross is a symbol of a most pathetic, solemn, yet precious factthe death of Jesus. Yet to how many Protestants has it become a mere trinket for adornment: while to many Romanists it has become an object of idolatrous superstition.
(c) The bread and wine are tokens of a finished redemption and our fellowship with Christ by faith. Yet they may be eaten and drank unworthily, not discerning the Lords body, as if they had no solemn meaning: or they may be travestied on the altar of Ritualists, and in the Papal mass.
Then beware,
And make thyself all reverence and fear.
Speak, that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me.
Topic: DEFILING HOLY THINGS
Whosoever goeth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord (Lev. 22:3).
Caryl says, The very heathen had this notion, they would not admit any to their religious services unless they were prepared: therefore one cried out to the people when they came to sacrifice, All you that are unclean and profane go far away from these sacrifices. Not only the word of God but the very light of nature taught them not to meddle with holy things till they were themselves sanctified.
In proof of this stands that saying of neas to his father when he came from the war, In genitor, etc. Father, do you meddle with the sacrifices: but as for me it is a sinful thing to touch them till I have washed myself at the fountain.
Cicero teaches a noble reverence for things hallowed: Res sacros non modo manibus attingi, se ne cogitatione quidem violari fas fuit. Things sacred should not only not be touched with the hands, but not violated even in thought.
Yet there have been priests of our holy religionyes, ministers of the gospel of Christand men in sacred eminence, who have defamed Christianity by their levity and sacrilege, until verily
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires.POPE.
ADMONITORY INCIDENTS:
Belshazzar converted the consecrated vessels of the temple into instruments of luxury and intemperance, touching holy things while himself unclean; but the hand of indignant judgment wrote in flaming letters upon his banqueting hall his sentence of doom.
Herod polluted the sepulchres of the saints with a sacreligious search for treasures supposed to be hidden there, when God made fire rise from the earth to devour the infamous men who touched holy things with their uncleanness upon them.
Antiochus ransacked the very temple of God; Heliodorus emptied the treasures of their consecrated moneys; Pompey defiled the Sabbath and the sanctuary; Crassus despoiled the house of God of ten thousand talents; but their careers all tell the story of scathing judgment for defiling holy things, that ruin is ever the avenger of sacrilege.
Judas dared to touch with foul hands the sacred person of Christ, and sell Him for money; but the curse fell upon him, and he perished in his iniquity.
That soul shall be cut off from my presence; I am the Lord.
Topic: IRREVERENCE AMID SANCTITIES (Lev. 22:1-16)
The heathen hierarchy practised and exemplified the debasing vices of the idols they represented and professed to propitiate. Jehovah declared holiness indispensable to acceptable service in His presence. The Hebrews were taught by symbol, by ceremonies which appealed to their sensestruths concerning holiness which, under the gospel, are more fully enforced by the teachings of the Holy Ghost. In order that undue familiarity with holy things might be prevented
I. A LINE OF DEMARCATION WAS TO BE DRAWN BETWEEN SACRED AND SECULAR THINGS.
For the performance of sacred duties there were fixed places and set times; no priest was to officiate when physically, ceremonially, or morally impure. Speak unto Aaron and his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel. Why such strictness? (a) Because sacred things enshrined the name of the Lord. That they profane not my holy name. (b) Because sacred things honoured the nam f the Lord. These things which they hallow unto me. Still required that those who bear the vessels of the Lord shall be holy, and make a difference between sacred and secular things.
II. A LINE OF DEMARCATION WAS TO BE DRAWN BETWEEN PURITY AND IMPURITY FOCHARACTER.
No priest was to officiate at the altar in a state of unfitness, under penalty of excommunication. That soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord. This declares the priest to be fallible and frail; need for constant watchfulness lest the altar become polluted. Under the new dispensation a fountain full and free is open for sin and uncleanness. As kings and priests unto God, believers are expected to exhibit in their lives the fruits of the Spirit. Christianity has not relaxed the demands of the law for holiness of character, the standard is even higher, for If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.F.W.B.
Topic: THE BEST FOR THE HIGHEST (Lev. 22:17-30)
The sacrificenot the officiating priestwas the centre of the Levitical economy. He existed for the altar, not it for him. If absolutely necessary that priests should be holy, equally so that the offerings should be perfect, especially when regarded in the light of the epistle to the Hebrews as of typical import, as shadows of good things to come. Every offering was to be presented
I. WITH A WILLING MIND. Freewill offerings, which they will offer unto the Lord for a burnt offering. The authoritative commands of Jehovah did not interfere with free agency; the judgment and moral sense of offerers were appealed to, they were to choose what God had chosen. Unless voluntarily, there could have been no moral quality in the services they rendered. No virtue, where no possibility of vice, at least in a probationary state. At the erection of the Temple the same willingness was required. In the service of Christ we are to present ourselves willing, as well as living sacrifices.
II. WITH PERFECT OBEDIENCE. Whatsoever hath a blemish shall he not offer. No unwholesome or unsightly thing was to be laid on the altar. The Highest deserved, as He demanded, the best. Obedience in the offerer thus required to be complete; no withholding, or withdrawing. (a) That the holy harmony of the economy might not be broken. (b) That the spotless antitype might be clearly foreshadowed.
God still demands the best we can offer, the vigour and vivacity of youth; the most wakeful and valuable portions of our time; the choicest and richest fruits of our substance.
III. WITH A GRATEFUL HEART. Neither from a strangers hand shall ye offer the bread of your God. Offerings were to be presented by those who knew the Lord and would be actuated by devoted love. Acquaintance with God, reconciliation with Him, must precede offerings on His altar. The character of the giver, more than the nature of the gift, determines the divine estimate of offerings.
IV. WITH A LOYAL SPIRIT. The constant reiteration of the declaration, I am the Lord, rendered obvious that all ought to be done with the profoundest reverence for the divine majesty. The Hebrews were to acknowledge Jehovah as their sovereign king. Time has not altered these conditions of acceptable offering. Energy, time, means, etc., all to be cheerfully surrendered to Him who is our Prophet, Priest and King. We owe Him the best of everything; He sacrificed the bestHis lifefor us; how irresistible the words of the apostle, For ye are not your own, etc.F. W.B.
Topic: BLEMISHES IN OUR SACRIFICES
Whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer; for it shall not be acceptable for you (Lev. 22:20).
Reference is to sacrifices. All religious service is of the nature of sacrifice.
Whatsoever, etc. (Text).
J. Read this requirement of perfect sacrifices, and by it let us test our regard for the SABBATH SERVICES.
God has once, at least, read us a very solemn lesson of the manner in which He regards lost Sabbaths. Seventy Sabbatical years the Jews allowed to drop out of their calendar. Seventy years were spent by them in captivity. A fearful presage to us of what might be the national judgment, if, as a church and people, we went on to blot out from amongst us our day of rest. And yet, is that fear groundless? Are we not already gone far towards such a state of things? Is not the Sunday, to a fearful extent, an omitted day? The fourth commandment an omitted commandment? Such as the Sunday is, so is the week. It is the keystone of the arch of our secular life. The folly and sin of most men is, they begin by making the Sunday a blank day. And as a blank becomes intolerable, therefore the day proves to them listless, weary, worldly, profane. A taste for spiritual things needs to be cultivated and prayed for. A vague mind, a dull feeling, the sense of its being a long day each time the Sunday comes roundthese afford proof that to us heaven is still very far off, that the bright and beautiful world is not our own place. To pass a little more into detail, ordinarily everyone will agree that if the Sabbath be obligatory, then it is assuredly obligatory thus far
1. That there be regular attendance upon public service.
2. Of the other hours of the day, that a part be spent in private devotional exercises, a part in religious reading; that a higher and more sacred tone of conversation be maintained; that some work of piety and love be performed.
These are but some of the most obvious and necessary Sunday duties and Sunday enjoyments. How do many of us acquit ourselves in this matter? Has the sacrifice of the seventh portion of our time, which we profess to offer week by week, any blemish? An unoccupied day must prove an unpleasant day. We omit duty, therefore God omits blessing. Need we look further than our Sundays, idle, &c., for many a disappointment and discontent and bitterness of life?
II. By this test let us judge our SANCTUARY WORSHIP.
Examine ourselves in the house of God. Difficulty of keeping the mind collected and devout results from want of due preparation.
1. Something may be said respecting the posture of body we assume in the sanctuary. Position of body re-acts upon the mind. Indolence is associated with, and leads to, irreverence. Kneeling is required equally by the dignity of God and the weakness of our nature.
2. So with the voice. Difficult to over-estimate how much is lost (a) To the beauty of our services; (b) To the glory of God; (c) To our own souls, by the silence so many of us maintain, both in the responses and in the service of song. But there are more as blemishes in our sanctuary sacrifices than these. Where is
(1) The constant mental effort essential to true worship, and proper in the presence of God?
(2) The self-distrust due from such sinful creatures as we?
(4) The self-discipline to bring ourselves into responsiveness to Gods Spirit?
(3) The inward up-looking for divine light and grace?
(5) The frequent reminding ourselves of what we are and what God is
(6) The simple spirit of self-application?
(7) The faith to give wings to prayer?
Well might St. James say Ye have not because ye ask not, or ask amiss. Blemish on sacrifice drives the flame down again.
III. By this test let us examine our observance of THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORDS SUPPER.
A word in solemn affection to some. You never attend the sacrament to celebrate the Lords death at all. Others, if at all, so irregularly as almost to turn the attendance into a mockery. Do you consider that that with which you so deal is none other than the dying command of the Lord and Saviour: the highest and best of all the means of grace? And yet you habitually pass it by. Can there be any limit to the evil which such an omission may be entailing upon your soul? Your religion is barren of joy if your soul fails to realise peace; if your prayers work no effect; if your faith seems to rest on no reality; if you gain no sense of forgiveness. Well, there is a chain of cause and consequences here; we must divide its links. The souls losses all fasten themselves into the souls omissions. Note:
1. Happy for us that we can turn from all our poor blemished sacrifices to that pure and perfect sacrifice of Christ, which has been offered without blemish and without spot for us.
2. Only let us never forget that he who would safely trust in the power of that Sacrifice for his salvation, must take the spotlessness of that Sacrifice for his daily pattern.Anon.
Topic: UNQUESTIONING OBEDIENCE PEREMPTORILY ENFORCED (Lev. 22:31-33).
The pilgrimage of Israel through the wildernes was of a probationary character, affording a suggestive emblem of all human life. The natural tendency of the human will to rebellion required imperative commands to subdue and bend it to the obedience of the just. The minute and exacting requirements of the Mosaic ritual would train the people to humble obedience. Such peremptory statutes were based upon:
I. WHAT JEHOVAH WAS IN ISRAEL. I am the Lord. The Lord had perfect right to enjoin what obedience He chose upon His subjects. In the midst of Israel Jehovah was King, His word went forth with power. Let all the inhabitants of the earth stand in awe of Him, and obey His voice, for it is still universally true, The Lord reigneth.
II. WHAT JFHOVAH WAS TO ISRAEL. Your God. To carry out His wise and benevolent designs towards the race, God saw fit to make Israel His chosen people, custodians of His written word, channels of blessing to the whole world. Israel was under the most solemn obligations to obey divine statutes, to conform to the divine will. Under the new dispensation no stronger motive can prompt to Christian consecration and obedience than the declaration of the apostle to the Gentiles, Whose I am, and whom I serve.
III. WHAT JEHOVAH HAD DONE FOR ISRAEL. That brought you out of the land of Egypt. The Exodus had exhibited the goodness of the Lord. Wonders had been performed, unexpected channels of deliverance had been opened, abundant supplies had been vouchsafed to them. Obligations to obedience were many and weighty. The goodness of God calleth us to repentance. Redemption from the slavery of Satan and sin should constrain to obedience. Translated into the kingdom of Gods dear Son, this the becoming question of the soul, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
IV. WHAT JEHOVAH WOULD DO WITH ISRAEL. I am the Lord which hallow you. The Lords purpose in selecting Israel as His peculiar people, was not only that His name might be hallowed among them, but that their hearts might become sanctified by His presence. Holiness was the supreme end of the Mosaic ritual. Ceremonially and symbolically priests and people were made holy by (a) the rites they observed; (b) the sacrifices they offered; (c) the manifested presence of the Lord.F.W.B.
OUTLINES ON VERSES OF CHAPTER 22
Lev. 22:1-2.Theme: THE JEALOUSY OF JEHOVAH.
Human nature inherently prone to presumption and irreverence. Upon the priests was enjoined the most scrupulous care, lest in any way they disgraced themselves and dishonoured Jehovah. Small gifts were not excluded from the altar of the Lord, but all blemished offerings were, to teach Israel (a) The supremacy of the divine will. What He required, not what they might feel disposed to offer, must be presented. (b) The necessity of unquestioning obedience. I am the Lord. Enough for Israel to know that the Lord required it at their hands. The jealousy of Jehovah for His name and glory would inculcate the need of
I. CONSTANT CIRCUMSPECTION. Sacerdotal duties so intricate and various, the priests would require to exercise unrelaxing vigilance.
II. CAREFUL DISCRIMINATION. Offerings to be unmixed; in strict accordance with minutely prescribed directions.
III. COMPLETE CONSECRATION. Everything to be done to the full; no reserve, shortcoming, or withdrawal. No imperfection in servant or service tolerated in the tabernacle worship.
Inherited and unavoidable disabilities for public service form no barrier in the way of divine favour. A willing heart is accepted when the acomplishment of its sincere purpose is impossible. Willingness and ability characterise the service of the Upper Temple. Scrupulous care still to be exercised, that there be no profanation of Gods Name, Day, Book, House, Ordinances.F.W.B.
Lev. 22:10Theme: HOLT FEASTS FORBIDDEN TO STRANGERS.
There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing
Salvation is common, open to all; but privileges are special, reserved to consecrated souls. [See Suggestive Readings on the verse.]
These strangers in the priests house represent persons near the Kingdom of Grace but not within it.
I. FRIENDSHIP with the godly does not confer qualification for religious privileges. Not though we be guests in the home of a minister of Christs sanctuary; not though we enjoy Christian intimacy and affection, do we on that account become qualified to share the covenant blessings of religion.
Personal alliances and family intimacies with Gods people do not render us partakers of their grace.
II. Enjoyment of RELIGIOUS INTERCOURSE does not create qualification for sacred privileges.
Within the priests home there would be much religious converse, and acquaintance with the meaning of religious truths and duties; but knowledge of divine things, and the advantage of holy conversation, do not necessarily lead to spiritual life.
Having all knowledge and understanding all mysteries profit nothing if there be not inward life and personal love.
III. Residence in HOLY DWELLINGS does not confer qualifications for saintly privileges.
Though resident in the priests home, strangers might not partake of the priests food.
Attendance on the sanctuary; frequenting holy places; being continually near Gods servant in sacred scenes; all this may be without personal piety.
Being a doorkeeper in the house of God; a persistent attendant at sacred services; maintaining a constant connexion with the sanctuary; these do not ensure and guarantee a state of grace, a qualification for the privilege of sanctified souls.
Apply:
1.Better be strangers, near though not in the kingdom, than aliens far off from all the allurements and opportunities of religion.
2.Though strangers, the way is possible in the gospel for such to become partakers of the feasts of redemption and of grace. At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers, etc. (Eph. 2:12).
Nearness to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, and spiritually priests unto God, should help forward a religious life until those once strangers, yet guests, become welcomed to the feasts of sacred love. [See outline on Lev. 22:25, Holy Ministries refused from Strangers.]
Lev. 22:20.Theme: UNBLEMISHED SACRIFICES.
But whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer; for it shall not be acceptable for you.
Everything laid on the altar to be free from (a) bodily disease, (b) national deformity, (c) acquired defects. These defects, emblems of moral blemishes, which disqualify for service under the gospeldepraved passions, crookea conduct, deflection from duty, indulgence in any kind of sinwill render the most costly offering obnoxious to the divine mind.
Men present blemished sacrifices to the Lord
I. WHEN THEIR GIFTS ARE NOT PROPORTIONATE TO THEIR MEANS. Many profess to give to the utmost of their ability, when they only give a pitiable fraction from the abundance with which God has prospered them. Such blemished sacrifices God rejects.
II. WHEN THEIR GIFTS ARE NOT THE SYMBOLS OF SELF-SACRIFICE. No offering is accepted except presented in a willing and devout spirit; God expects living sacrifices, the wealth of human loveall the heart mind, soul, strength; then other gifts as evidences of complete self-consecration.
III. WHEN THEIR GIFTS ARE PRESENTED TO PROCURE SALVATION. Sensuous worship, ritualistic observances are valueless; only the merits of the one all-atoning sacrifice of Christ can render the most perfect gifts acceptable.
Let but the heart be wholly given to the Lord, then not the deceased or decayed, the refuse or leavings, the chaff or dregs, but the best, costliest, and brightest will be consecrated to the Lord.
These things read in the light of the New Testament teach(a) How completely the spotlessness of Christ fulfilled the rigid requirements for perfection in Jewish sacrifices. (b) How the material offerings of the tabernacle were adapted to prepare the way for the proclamation of what they foreshadowed. (c) How the constant demand for holiness in offerings and offerers reiterated the abiding facts, that Jehovah is spotlessly holy; and that without holiness no man can see the Lord.F.W.B.
Lev. 22:25.Theme: HOLY MINISTRIES REFUSED FROM STRANGERS.
If strangers might not eat the feast reserved for priestly souls (comp. on Lev. 22:10) so neither would God allow them to minister at the altar of His sanctuary,
This interdict demands
I. That MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL be themselves true-born sons of God.
II. That WORKERS IN THE CHURCH be chosen exclusively from those in spiritual fellowship with Gods people.
III. That SACRED OFFERINGS, gifts laid on the altar of religion, are only acceptable as the giver is a sincere Christian.
IV. That A SPIRITUAL STATE is the supremely precious thing in Gods esteem; not what we bring, but what we are ourselves who bring the offering.
NOTES:
1. God abhors hallowed services by unhallowed souls. They shall be not accepted for you.
2. A gracious relationship to God in Christ must precede all attempts to please Him by service or gifts.
3. From saintly souls every offering, however lowly, is a sacrifice well pleasing unto God, as a token of sonship and love.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
PRIESTLY SEPARATION FROM CEREMONIAL UNCLEANNESS 22:110
TEXT 22:110
1
And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying,
2
Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, which hallow unto me, and that they profane not my holy name: I am Jehovah.
3
Say unto them, Whosoever he be of all your seed throughout your generations, that approacheth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto Jehovah, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from before me: I am Jehovah.
4
What man soever of the seed of Aaron is a leper, or hath an issue; he shall not eat of the holy things, until he be clean. And whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead, or a man whose seed goeth from him;
5
or whosoever toucheth any creeping thing, whereby he may be made unclean, or a man of whom he may take uncleanness, whatsoever uncleanness he hath;
6
the soul that toucheth any such shall not eat of the holy things, unless he bathe his flesh in water.
7
And when the sun is down, he shall be clean; and afterward he shall eat of the holy things, because it is his bread.
8
That which dieth of itself, or is torn of beasts, he shall not eat, to defile himself therewith: I am Jehovah.
9
They shall therefore keep my charge, lest they hear sin for it, and die therein, if they profane it: I am Jehovah who sanctifieth them.
10
There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priests, or a hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing.
THOUGHT QUESTIONS 22:110
488.
How is it that the priests are here commanded to stay away from the very things dedicated for their use?
489.
Did the nation of Israel dedicate the sacrifices or the priests? Discuss.
490.
Lev. 22:2 explains Lev. 22:1. God has a purpose in this regulation. What is it?
491.
If leprosy wasnt contagious from where did it come?
492.
What is a discharge?
493.
Begin reading in Lev. 22:4 b and read through Lev. 22:6. Mention the three causes of uncleanness.
494.
If a priest touched the unclean in the morning he might become very hungry before sundown. Why?
495.
The manner and purpose of killing animals became very important. Why?
496.
What was the penalty of disobedience?
497.
Three persons were refused a place at the table. Who were they?
PARAPHRASE 22:110
The Lord said to Moses, Instruct Aaron and his sons to be very careful not to defile My holy name by desecrating the peoples sacred gifts; for I am Jehovah. From now on and forever, if a priest who is ceremonially defiled sacrifices the animals brought by the people or handles the gifts dedicated to Jehovah, he shall be discharged from the priesthood. For I am Jehovah! No priest who is a leper or who has a running sore may eat the holy sacrifices until healed. And any priest who touches a dead person, or who is defiled by a seminal emission, or who touches any reptile or other forbidden thing, or who touches anyone who is ceremonially defiled for any reasonthat priest shall be defiled until evening, and shall not eat of the holy sacrifices until after he has bathed that evening. When the sun is down, then he shall be purified again and may eat the holy food, for it is his source of life. He may not eat any animal that dies of itself or is torn by wild animals, for this will defile him. I am Jehovah. Warn the priests to follow these instructions carefully, lest they be declared guilty and die for violating these rules. I am the Lord who sanctifies them. No one may eat of the holy sacrifices unless he is a priest; no one visiting the priest, for instance, nor a hired servant, may eat this food.
COMMENT 22:110
Lev. 22:1-2 The last chapter discussed the persons who were not qualified to be priests; this chapter discusses the limitations of those who are qualified. A certain portion of the sacrifice belonged to the priest. Cf. Lev. 7:20-21. But the priest must remember that he cannot eat of this unless he is clean. Under penalty of death he must remember he must be clean before he eats of the holy things of God. Eating of the showbread in the holy place or handling the vessels of the sanctuary carried the same regulation Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord. Isa. 52:11. The purpose behind this was to teach the priests to sustain a holy respect for the services of God. The priest is to act as a priest at all times and not treat the holy as if it were common. We like the words of Bonar on these verses: Ministers may learn from this law to act for God at all times and in every place. Ministers of God must beware of letting their spirituality be injured by domestic occurrences. They must not let domestic comforts unhinge their soul, so as to lead them to speak of holy things too familiarly. Ministers are specially under Gods eye. He sees whether they walk in the steps of Jesus in their chambers and at their studies. They must be ever separated to the Lord.
Lev. 22:3-7 Lev. 22:3 contains a very strong word: shall be cut off from my presence. This seems to suggest that disobedience or neglect of this law would result in the same punishment suffered by Nadab and Abihu. At the least such a one would be excluded from the services of the tabernacle. This would surely prevent a priest from going into the holy place in a careless or thoughtless frame of mind. There is no greater need today than that of a tender sensitiveness or awareness of the presence of God as we minister for Him; whether it is in public, in private, or in our closet. What we say of the preacher we say of the people, for this very cause many are weak and sick and some have died. 1Co. 11:30. We refer to the casual attitude too often present in eating the Lords supper.
Lev. 22:4-7 Since the priest began his day with the morning sacrifices, he would be uncleanand also hungryall day, if he was unfit to offer the morning oblation. There were various forms of leprosy, so the priest needs to be constantly conscious of indications of this disease in his person. Cf. Lev. 13:3. The running issue has been described in Lev. 15:2. We have also commented on contact with the dead (Cf. Num. 19:11-14). Unclean creatures, however small, such as creeping things must be avoided. It is one thing to serve others on behalf of God; it is quite another to serve God on our own behalf. Thou therefore that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Cf. Rom. 2:21. These words of Paul carry the principle of constant self-evaluation in the light of what we share with others. Such is the same principle of this section of Leviticus.
Lev. 22:8-10 The ordinary Israelite would be unclean if he ate of a clean animal which had died in the wrong manner, i.e. was killed by accident. Cf. Lev. 17:15. However, the priest was not only unclean but unable to serve in the tabernacle.
The above laws were to be kept under penalty of death. The manner in which such a sentence is stated, i.e.: lest they bear sin for it, and die therein, if they profane it, seems to say that God would strike them dead as He did the two sons of Aaron.
The three persons unqualified to eat of the priests portion should be clearly identified: (1) no strangerone who was not a descendant of Aaron, even if he were from Levihe was yet a stranger to the promise of communing with God in this particular sense. Cf. Lev. 7:30; (2) a sojournerthis could have been a Hebrew servant who chose to have his ear pierced and belong to the priest until the year of jubilee. Cf. Exo. 21:6. The priest would need to supply other food for him; (3) a hired servantthis was the Hebrew who was hired for six years and left free. Cf. Exo. 21:2. Neither of them was the property of the priest, though his labor belonged to him. As these Hebrew servants could not be bought with money like a heathen slave, they were treated like strangers, or non-Aaronites, and hence could not partake of the holy food. (ibid)
FACT QUESTIONS 22:110
503.
How does chapter 22 relate to chapter 21?
504.
What is the basic lesson of Lev. 22:1-10?
505.
There is a grand principle in this section for the minister of the gospel. What is it?
506.
What is meant by the phrase cut off from my presence?
507.
What is the great need today of those who minister? (and for the people to whom we minister?)
508.
To be unclean was also to be hungry. Explain. The priest was taught to serve God on his own behalf. How?
509.
Identify the three unqualified persons.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XXII.
(1) And the Lord spake unto Moses.In this chapter the laws regulating the conduct of the priests in their holy ministrations are continued. As the last chapter concluded with the permission to disqualified priests to eat of the sacrifices, this chapter opens with conditions under which even the legally qualified priests must not partake of the offerings.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
HOLINESS IN THE PRIESTS, Lev 21:1 to Lev 22:16.
Jehovah, having given general statutes to conserve the purity of Israel, now proceeds to legislate for the priests, whose character and conduct are so intimately connected with his declarative glory. The mass of men must very largely obtain their conception of the moral character of God from the moral character of those who minister at his altars and are supposed to be in his favour. A pure religion cannot be promulgated by an impure priesthood. Hence these words were ever ringing in the ears of the sons of Aaron: “Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.” Since a man’s family is in a sense a part of his personality, especially among the Hebrews, (Jos 7:24, note,) and reflects his character, the requirement of holiness extends to his wife and children, in which particular the offices of deacon and elder or bishop in the New Testament are strikingly similar to the Levitical priesthood. See 1 Timothy 3.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Chapter 22 Dealing With Holy Things.
This chapter is divided into sections. The priesthood are not to approach God while unclean (chapters 2-9), eligibility to partake of priestly food which is Holy but not Most Holy (chapters 10-16), nothing unblemished must be offered to Yahweh (chapters 17-25), and reference to the right use of Peace offerings (chapters 26-33).
Lev 22:1
‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,’
Once more we have confirmed that these are Yahweh’s word to Moses.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Lev 22:28 And whether it be cow or ewe, ye shall not kill it and her young both in one day.
Lev 22:28
[29] F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1963), 138.
Luk 6:36, “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”
Lev 22:29 And when ye will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the LORD, offer it at your own will.
Lev 22:29
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Lev 21:1 to Lev 22:33 Priestly Codes Lev 21:1 to Lev 22:33 gives priestly codes that deal with the issue of avoiding defilement. In order to carry out the duties of a priest, he must live a life of separation from activities that defile him. Such defilement would eliminate him from priestly duties.
Lev 21:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people:
Lev 21:1
Num 19:11, “He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.”
Num 19:14, “This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.”
Lev 21:5 They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
Lev 21:5
Lev 19:28, “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.”
1Th 4:13, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Warning Against Profanation of Hallowed Things
v. 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, v. 2. Speak unto Aaron and to his sons that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not My holy name in those things which they hallow unto Me. I am the Lord. v. 3. Say unto them, Whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations, v. 4. What man soever of the seed of Aaron is a leper, or hath a running issue, v. 5. or whosoever toucheth any creeping thing, whereby he may be made unclean, v. 6. the soul which hath touched any such shall be unclean until even, v. 7. And when the sun is down, v. 8. That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall not eat to defile himself therewith, v. 9. They shall therefore keep Mine ordinance, lest they bear sin for it and die there for, if they profane it. I, the Lord, do sanctify them. v. 10. There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing; a sojourner of the priest, v. 11. But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house; they shall eat of his meat. v. 12. If the priest’s daughter also be married unto a stranger, v. 13. But if the priest’s daughter be a widow or divorced, v. 14. And if a man eat of the holy thing unwittingly, v. 15. And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel which they offer unto the Lord, v. 16. or suffer them to bear the iniquity of trespass,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
This chapter, which is a continuation of Lev 21:1-24,
(1) commands that the ceremonially defiled priest shall not officiate or partake of the sacrificial offerings;
(2) declares who may and who may not partake of the priests’ portions of the sacrifices;
(3) orders that every sacrificial victim be unblemished.
Lev 22:1-9
In the previous chapter, the priests have been commanded to avoid occasions of ceremonial defilement, but there are times in which they must be unclean. At these times they are here instructed that they must abstain from their priestly functions, and not even eat of the priests’ portions until they have been cleansed. The command to Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, in Lev 22:2, must be read in the light of the following verses, and understood to mean that they are to separate themselves from the holy things when they are unclean. The different forms of uncleanness which are to produce this effect are enumerated in Lev 22:4-6. In most cases the uncleanness would not last beyond sunset on the day on which it was incurred, but occasionally, as when a priest became a leper, a permanent disqualification would be caused, or one that lasted for a considerable length of time. The law with respect to abstaining from holy things while unclean is to be of permanent obligation. Whoever disobeys it is to be cut off from God’s presence; that is, he is to be excluded from the sanctuary by being deprived of his priestly office. Lev 22:8 repeats the prohibition of eating flesh containing blood.
Lev 22:10-13
The previous paragraph having forbidden the priests to eat of the holy things while in a state of ceremonial uncleanness, naturally leads to the question, who has the right of eating them? The answer is, the priest’s family. The members of the priest’s family here specified are those only about whom any question might have arisen, namely, the slaves, who, as bring incorporated into the priest’s household, have a right of eating of the priestly food not enjoyed by lodgers in his house or by servants hired with his money; and married daughters who have returned to their father’s roof in consequence of the death of their husband, or of being divorced, without any children of their own. Under these circumstances, it is ruled that they become once more a part of the priest’s family, and able to exercise the privileges of that position. The priest’s wife and sons and unmarried daughters are not here mentioned, as no question arose about them.
Lev 22:14
As the sacrificial meals made a part of the stipends of the priestly body, any one who inadvertently took a share in them by eating of the holy thing unwittingly, when he had no right to do so, had to refund the value of the meat, with one fifth, that is, twenty percent, added to it. He thus acknowledged that he had “committed a trespass in the holy things of the Lord,” the case falling under the rule given in Lev 5:15, Lev 5:16, “And he shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing, and shall add the fifth part thereto, and give it unto the priest.” In the fifth chapter a trespass offering of a ram is also ordered, which, though not specified, is probably understood here also.
Lev 22:15, Lev 22:16
These verses present some difficulties of construction. The rendering of the Authorized Version is as follows: And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer unto the Lord; or suffer them to bear the iniquity of trespass, when they eat their holy things: for I the Lord do sanctify them. If this rendering is accepted, it would mean that the priests are not to profane the holy things by any irregularity on their part as to the eating of them, nor to suffer laymen to incur the guilt of a trespass by eating them. The marginal rendering, which is to be preferred, gives the passage as follows: And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer unto the Lord; or lade themselves with the iniquity of trespass in their eating. According to this translation, the meaning would be that laymen (who had been spoken of in the previous verse) should not profane the holy things, or become guilty of a trespass (as defined in Lev 22:15) by eating them. Technically and literally, David was guilty of this trespass in an aggravated form, when he and his followers ate the shewbread at Nob (1Sa 21:6), for the shewbread was not only holy, but most holy. But his act is excused by our Lord, on the plea of necessity (Mat 12:3, Mat 12:4), even though it was done on the sabbath day.
Lev 22:17-25
Just as the priests who offer to the Lord are to be ceremonially and morally holy, so the animals offered to him are to be physically perfect, in order
(1) to be types of a future perfect Victim,
(2) to symbolize the “perfect heart”which God requires to be given to him, and
(3) to teach the duty of offering to him of our best.
Whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer. The list of blemishes and malformations which exclude from the altar is given; they are such as deform the animal, and make it less valuable: blind, or broken, or maimed, or having a wen, or scurvy, or scabbed, ye shall not offer these unto the Lord, nor any animal that is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut, that is, castrated in any manner. The clause following the mention of castrationneither shall ye make any offering thereof in your landliterally translated, neither shall ye make in your land, probably forbids castration altogether, not merely the offering of castrated animals in sacrifice. The expression, Ye shall offer at your own will, should be understood, as before, for your acceptance (see note on Le Lev 2:1). Only one exception is made as to blemished offerings: an animal that hath any thing superfluous or lacking in his parts may be offered for a freewill offering, but not for a vow (for the distinction of these offerings, see note on Lev 2:1). These rules as to unblemished victims are to apply to the offerings of strangers as well as of Israelites.
Lev 22:26, Lev 22:27
Extreme youth is to be regarded as a blemish in an animal in the same way as other defects. During the young creature’s first week of existence it is not considered as having arrived at the perfection of its individual and separate life, and therefore only from the eighth day and thenceforth it shall be accepted for an offering made by fire unto the Lord. Up to what ago an animal might be offered is not stated. Gideon is narrated as offering a bullock of seven years old (Jdg 6:25).
Lev 22:28
A lesson of charity is added. A young animal and its mother are not to be killed (though reference is specially made to sacrifice, the general word, not the sacrificial term, for slaying is used) on the same day, just as the kid is not to be seethed in its mother’s milk (Exo 23:19; Deu 14:21), nor the mother bird be taken from the nest with the young (Deu 22:6). Thus we see that the feelings of the human heart arc not to be rudely shocked by an act of apparent cruelty, even when no harm is thereby done to the object of that act. Mercy is to be taught by forbidding anything which may blunt the sentiment of mercy in the human heart.
Lev 22:29, Lev 22:30
Two forms of peace offerings, the vowed and the voluntary offerings, having been mentioned in Lev 22:21, the law as to the third form, thanksgiving offerings, is repeated from Lev 7:15 (where see note).
Lev 22:31-33
These verses form the conclusion of the Section and of the Part, enjoining obedience to God’s commandments, reverence for his Name, and consequent holiness.
HOMILETICS
Lev 22:17-25
The perfection demanded in the sacrificial victims
contains a typical, a symbolical, and a moral lesson.
I. THEY MUST BE PERFECT, THAT THEY MAY BE TYPES OF CHRIST. The perfect Victim must not be represented by anything imperfect. There are but few points in which the perfection of Christ, both absolute and in relation to the work which as the appointed Victim he was to fulfil, could be foreshadowed by the animals offered in sacrifice, but this was onethat they should be without blemish and perfect of their kind. “The blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,” is the antitype, we are taught in the Epistle to the Hebrews, to “the blood of bulls, and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean,” which “sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh” (Heb 9:13, Heb 9:14). For “ye know,” says St. Peter, “that ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1Pe 1:18, 1Pe 1:19); “who did no sin” (1Pe 2:22); who “gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour” (Eph 5:2). The physical freedom from blemish on the part of the animal typifies the “spotlessness” of Christ.
II. THEY MUST BE PERFECT, THAT THEY MAY SYMBOLIZE THE PERFECT HEART WITH WHICH ALL SERVICE MUST BE DONE TO GOD. They symbolized the integrity of soul with which the offerer made his offering, and the purity of intention required of all who present themselves or anything that they do to God and his service. A gift to God is unacceptable, and not accepted, if there be in it anything superfluous, viz. self-display, or anything lacking, namely, the spirit of love. God chose those whom he afterwards called into his Church to “be holy and without blame (or blemish) before him in love” (Eph 1:4), “that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God” (Col 4:12), “that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (Jas 1:4). Imperfection must always mark man and his work, seeing that “the infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated” (Art. 9); but the Christian must not rest satisfied with aiming at anything but the highest. His purpose, however marred, must be to please God perfectly.
III. THEY MUST BE PERFECT, BECAUSE WHAT WE GIVE TO GOD MUST BE COSTLY TO US. “And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver (2Sa 24:24). “And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal 1:8). “But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in iris flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my Name is dreadful among the heathen” (Mal 1:14). The cost of our gifts to God need not be absolutely greatthe widow’s two mites, which make a farthing, may be more than all that the rich cast into the treasury (Mar 12:41-44). Whatever we give, it must be of our best, the best effort of our intellect, the best affections of our hearts. Whatever we are most attached to, that we must be prepared to give up, if God demands the sacrifice at our hands.
HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD
Lev 22:1-33
Holiness of priests and sacrifices.
While much that appertained only to a temporary dispensation, still great principles included in the formal regulations, as
I. RELIGION SANCTIFIES, preserves, and perfects the whole humanity of man.
1. It preserves the true orderGod first, the creature subject to the Creator.
2. It utilizes the central power of human nature, the moral and spiritual The mind is the man, and the mind is not mere intellect, but moral consciousness and aspiration after God.
3. It puts the individual and the social in their true relation to that which supports boththe positive and public worship of God. The temple at Jerusalem represented the center of the nation, Jehovah’s throne. Humanity can be, will be, developed into a true family of nations only round the house of God. All non-religious influences arc disintegrating to the nation and the world.
II. THE LIFE OF MAN IS THE SANCTIFICATION OF ALL OTHER LIFE ON THE EARTH. The lower natures depend on the higher. God has taught us by his Law not only to use them, but to reverence them and to hallow their instincts and the laws of nature as exhibited in them. Science may discover secrets, but it will not protect the weak. The reverence for that which is below us is even more a yielding up of our nature to the Spirit of God than the mere bowing prostrate before that which is above us. The selfishness and tyranny of the stronger over the weaker can only be cast out by religion.
III. ALL LAW IS CONSISTENT WITH FREE AGENCY. “At your own will.” The true service of God is that which the heart renders. We blend our will with God’s will in the acceptable life. At your will, but by the regulations of the Law. The mere capricious individualism of the present day is no true liberty, but becomes the most degrading bondage. The covenant relation of Jehovah with his people lay at the foundation of their obedience: “I hallow you,” therefore hallow my commandments and my Name. In that loving bond of sanctification all believers find their strength. They are not their own, they are bought with a price. Paul rejoiced to be a “slave of Jesus Christ.” The Jews made their Law unto death, not life, because they departed from its simplicity and forgot its spirituality, and “made the Word of God of none effect by their traditions,” forging their own fetters. The key-note of the Law is redemption. “I am the Lord which brought you out of Egypt,” etc. The key-note of redemption is love.R.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR
Lev 22:1-33
Priestly disqualifications.
cf. Mat 25:31-46. We saw that inherited infirmity, such as is mentioned in Mat 25:18-21 of last chapter, while it excludes from office, does not exclude from sustenance. We now come across a disqualification sufficient to exclude from both office and support, and this is contracted defilement. Any priest venturing before God with uncleanness upon him will be cut off from his presence. We are taught hereby
I. THAT IT IS CONTRACTED, NOT TRANSMITTED, DEFILEMENT WHICH NECESSITATES COMPLETE EXILE FROM JEHOVAH. The priest’s child providentially scarred or maimed, whose blemish has been from the womb, and in which he had no voluntary share, which excluded properly from office, is not excluded from sustenance from the altar; while, on the other hand, he who has through negligence or waywardness contracted defilement is, while it lasts, excluded altogether from the privileges of the priesthood.
The bearing of such an arrangement upon the question of original sin is plain on the least thought. The fact of original sin will not be questioned by any one who studies intelligently the question of heredity. Moreover, “representative responsibility,” as a principle of providence, shows how we are held responsible for acts of others in which we have had no conscious share. At the same time, it is consolatory to think that transmitted evil will not of itself condemn its possessor to perpetual exile from God. When an infant dies, who has never been sufficiently advanced to contract any conscious defilement, who has never added to original sin any actual transgression, it is comforting to think that the righteous Governor will not exclude any such from the privilege of approaching him, but will purge away their inheritance of evil, and fit them for his everlasting fellowship. We believe in the salvation of the great multitude who die before coming to the years of discretion.
II. CASUAL, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM PERMANENT, CONNECTION WITH THE PRIESTHOOD DISQUALIFIES A PERSON FROM PARTAKING OF THE THINGS OF THE ALTAR. No mere casual guest, or even a hired servant of a priest’s, was to eat of the holy things. If a servant had been purchased, and so became personally incorporated with the priestly family, he might eat of them. There is a corresponding casual and a corresponding permanent association with the Lord’s work. Only those who enter on it with whole hearts, who dedicate themselves to it, body, soul, and spirit, need expect to participate in its privileges; while the mere casual associate will find himself excluded in the end.
III. THE SACRIFICES WERE TO BE AS UNBLEMISHED AS THE OFFICIATING PRIESTS; ANY PHYSICAL DEFECT DISQUALIFIED THEM FROM ACCEPTANCE. The unblemished character of the sacrifices teaches the same truth which we have already considered. As the sacrifices were practically substitutions, their perfection was to teach man not only that his Substitute must be perfect if God would accept him, but that he himself must be perfected, if he is to serve God in the great hereafter in a priestly spirit. At the same time, man is encouraged in the present state to offer what he can, even though it be not perfect. God does not insist on the absolute perfection of the work of his people. If it is willing (Mat 25:23)if it is really a “freewill offering “then God will accept it in the spirit in which it is given. The perfection is to be kept steadily in view as the ideal to which we must always be struggling; meanwhile, we are to be doing all we can with willing minds, even though our work is often poor at best.
IV. INHUMAN ACTS DISQUALIFY SACRIFICES OTHERWISE ACCEPTABLE. Thus a bullock, sheep, or goat, would not be acceptable till after the eighth day. It would have been inhuman to have denied it its week with its dam. Moreover, may not the seven days with the dam, like the seven days before the man-child’s circumcision, represent a perfect period spent under parental care, and thus become an emblem of the providential use of the family institution?
Again, the dam and the young were not to be put to death on the same day. It has an inhuman appearance about it, like the seething of a kid in its mother’s milk; and God arranged that the terms of the fifth commandment should be illustrated by, and not transgressed, even among the lower animals.
While, therefore, sacrificial worship entailed much suffering on the part of the innocent victims, there was a humane element to run through the service of the priests, and inhumanity would disqualify them from sacrificially serving God.R.M.E.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Lev 22:3
The service of abstention.
There were certain bodily conditions which, under the Levitical institutions, were suggestive of spiritual impurity, and those who suffered from them were accounted ceremonially unclean. Priests thus affected were disqualified for the ministry of the tabernacle, and were deprived, for a time, of sacerdotal privileges: they might not “go unto the holy things.” Any priest who was disobedient to this precept would be “cut off from the presence of the Lord.” To those who were thus unfortunate there was one service left,the service of obedient abstention. They would be disappointed; they might feel somewhat humiliated; but there was left to them the opportunity of fulfilling the acceptable service of offering not or eating not “unto the Lord” (see Rom 14:6).
It often happens to us that by some misfortuneperhaps, as here, some bodily affliction we are disabled and detained from active service: it may be from
(1) Christian work, or
(2) public worship, or
(3) daily duty (business or household activities).
That which is unavoidable and for which we are not responsible may shut us out from many valued privileges. In this case we must render the service of abstention. We can
I. SUBMIT IN PATIENCE.
II. BELIEVE WITH CHEERFUL CONFIDENCE: have faith to accept the truth that “they also serve who only stand and wait;” that God is as well pleased with the passive service of those whom he desires to “be still,” as with those who
” at his bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest.”
III. WAIT IN HOPE. The hour will come, here or hereafter, sooner or later, when all bodily disabilities will have disappeared, and fullest access be given to the presence of the Lord.C.
Lev 22:10-15
The guilt of profanation.
That which had been offered in sacrifice was “holy unto the Lord;” these were “holy things” (Lev 22:10); “I the Lord do sanctify them” (Lev 22:16). They might only be partaken of by the priests and their families. Hence we have here a precise limitation of membership of the family; it included the returned daughter and the permanent servant, but did not include the hireling or the visitor, etc. We may note, in passing,
(1) the regard which God paid (and still pays) to the sanctity of family life, and our duty to guard it;
(2) the fact, on the other hand, that mere blood relationship does not suffice to secure the favour of God; witness Nadab and Abihu. The son of the holiest minister of Christ may be a servant of the evil one, and an enemy of God. But the lesson of the text is
I. THAT GOD WOULD HAVE US SEPARATE SOME THINGS FROM OTHERS WHICH WE MUST TREAT AS SACRED. “I the Lord do sanctify them” (Lev 22:16). That which is closely connected with himself is particularly “holy,”his Name, his truth, his worship; also our own spiritual and immortal nature; the world which is to come, etc.
II. THAT WE ARE UNDER SOME TEMPTATION TO DISREGARD HIS HOLY WILL. Forgetfulness, the spirit of levity and untimely humour, the contagiousness of human example, that tendency towards the formal and mechanical which belongs to our frail humanity,these things will account for it. The forms which this irreverence or profanation takes are manifold:
(1) taking in vain the holy Name of God, our Father, Saviour, Sanctifier;
(2) misuse of scriptural wordsthose especially which are of peculiar sacredness;
(3) irreverence in prayer or praise;
(4) the utterance of Divine truth by unhallowed, unappreciative lips;
(5) the partaking of the sacramental elements by those who are unreconciled to God;
(6) misappropriation of substance which has been dedicated to the service of Christ.
III. THAT MINISTERS OF CHRIST SHOULD BE SPECIALLY ON THEIR GUARD AGAINST THIS COMMON AND OFFENSIVE SIN. There are two reasons why those who minister in holy things should “watch and pray” against the commission of this wrong-doing.
1. They are under special temptation to commit it. Their very professional familiarity with the truth and service of God is likely to beget irreverence, utterance without feeling, action without inspiration.
2. Their example is more influential. Irreverence on the part of the minister is certain, in time if not immediately, to tell on the people. It will be communicated to them; or, at the very least, it will seriously lessen and lower the impression which would otherwise be made on their hearts and lives.C.
Lev 22:17-30
Characteristics of acceptable service.
The very fact that all the points here referred to have been fully brought out before lends strong emphasis to them as matters of vital importance in the estimation of God. If our worship and service are to be acceptable, there must be
I. SPONTANEITY OF SPIRIT. “Ye shall offer at your own will” (Lev 22:19); “when ye will offer offer it at your own will” (Lev 22:29). There is a wilfulness in worship which is blamable (Col 2:23); but there is a willingness, a “cheerfulness in giving,” which is peculiarly acceptable unto God. The service which is rendered of necessity, under strong constraint and against the inclination of the spirit, has the least virtue, if, indeed, it have any at all. That which proceeds from a heart in fullest sympathy with the act, delighting to do the will of God (Psa 40:8), is well pleasing unto him.
II. COMPARATIVE EXCELLENCY. “Ye shall offer a male without blemish. whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer: for it shall not be acceptable for you,” etc. (Lev 22:19-22). If the Hebrew worshipper brought that creature from flock or herd which, as being blemished, was least valuable, he did that which was offensive rather than acceptable. He put his Creator and Redeemer (Lev 22:33) in the second place, and his own material interests in the first place. He was to bring his best to the holiest. We, too, must avoid this fatal errormust rise to this spiritual height. We must not put off our Redeemer with that which we shall miss the leastin kind, in substance, in time; we must bring to his altar the sweetness, the strength, and the beauty of all that we have to bring; we must reserve the choice treasures for his hand of love. So far as may be in a world of imperfection, our offering to a Divine Saviour “shall be perfect to be accepted” (Lev 22:21).
III. REGARD FOR A SOLEMN PLEDGE. Absolute perfection, the positively whole and unblemished animal, might be difficult, or in some cases impossible, to secure. Hence some relaxation from the rule was allowed in the case of the free-will offering. But in the redemption of a vow no such departure was permitted (Lev 22:23). Any vow which was made unto God was considered to be in the last degree obligatory (Deu 23:21, Deu 23:22; Ecc 5:4, Ecc 5:5; Psa 76:11). When “God’s vows are upon us,” when we stand pledged before him
(1) to discharge certain functions, or
(2) to abstain from certain evils or perils,
we should feel that we are bound with peculiarly strong bonds to make our sacrifice, of whatever kind it be, in its fulness and integrity.
IV. ABSENCE OF IMPURITY. (Lev 22:20; see Le Lev 7:15-18.)
V. PREFERENCE OF THE DIVINE WILL TO HUMAN GRATIFICATION. “Strangers” might bring their offerings to the house of the Lord. It was a pleasing and gratifying firing to witness the stranger bringing his bountiful tribute to the altar of Jehovah. It gratified the national feeling. But nothing might be accepted from the foreigner which was not worthy to be laid on the altar of the Holy One of Israel. His will to receive only unblemished offerings must outweigh their readiness or eagerness to receive outside testimony to the excellency of their institutions. We may be too eager to welcome the tribute of the stranger; we must require of him that he worship in sincerity and purity. The honour and the will of God should be more to us than the passing gratification we gain from any source whatever. Whatever we lose, he must be honoured and obeyed.C.
Lev 22:27, Lev 22:28
The culture of kindness.
The words of the text remind us, by contrast, of two truths which are of value to us as disciples of Christ.
1. That the human spirit is never too young to be offered to God, whether
(1) in parental devotion or
(2) in self-dedication (Lev 22:27).
2. That two generations of the same family may offer themselves simultaneously to the service of God. Parent and child have not unfrequently made profession, in the same hour, of attachment to Christ, and have simultaneously “given themselves unto the Lord.” But the main lesson to be learnt is the culture of kindness. This was the end of the Divine precept. There would be an apparent ruthlessness in taking away the young immediately from its dam, and also in slaying mother and offspring together on the same day. Therefore these acts must be avoided. Everything should be done to foster kindness of heart, considerateness of feeling, as well as justice, purity, righteousness of life. The culture of kindness is an act of piety. It is well to consider
I. THE TWO SPHERES IN WHICH IT SHOULD BE EXHIBITED.
1. The human world: the home; the social circle; mankind at large.
2. The animal world. Everything that has life has feeling, and has a claim on our considerateness. We may add to its pleasure or may multiply its pain; may prolong or shorten life.
II. THE TWO MOTIVES BY WHICH WE SHOULD BE ACTUATED.
1. The inherent; excellency of kindness. Unkindness is a shameful, shocking, deteriorating thing; kindness is intrinsically beautiful, admirable.
2. The will of God. These his laws (and see Deu 22:6; Deu 25:4) are an indication of his will; and we may be sure it is the will of him who creates and sustains sentient life that his human children should be kind to the dumb creatures of his thought and skill.
III. THE TWO SOURCES OF CULTIVATION.
1. That of our own minds. We must impress on ourselves that it is no less a tyrannical and cruel thing to use our great power to oppress the feeble creatures at our feet than it would be for others of vastly superior size and strength to our own to oppress and injure us. We must remind ourselves of those obvious considerations which will foster kind feelings and. restrain from hurtful actions.
2. That of those who teach us. The parents and teachers of youth who do not inculcate kindness toward the feeble, whether of the animal or the human world, sadly neglect their duty to their charge. Young people may grow up ignorant of languages or sciences, and they may yet be admirable and useful men and women; but those who have not learnt to hate cruelly and to admire kindness will have a blot on their character which no attainments will hide.C.
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD
Lev 22:1-16
The eating of the holy things.
We have seen, in the preceding chapter, that blemishes which precluded a priest from ministering at the altar did not hinder him from eating of the holy things. The ordinary Israelite, therefore, would not, by similar blemishes, be debarred from the privileges of his religion. There are, however, other things which would disqualify. These are now brought under our notice, together with the provisions by which they might be removed. Consider
I. DISQUALIFICATIONS FOR EATING OF THE HOLY THINGS.
1. With respect to priests.
(1) A priest would be disqualified by any uncleanness in his flesh; thus, if he were a leper. The reason is that leprosy was a notable emblem of sin. Or if he had any running issue. Such things are in themselves loathsome, and evince a corrupt state of the body, and therefore fittingly represent moral corruption. This, under every dispensation, excludes men from that fellowship with God which was shadowed in the eating of the holy things.
(2) He would be disqualified by contact with a human corpse, or with the carcase of any unclean animal. The moral lesson here is that “evil communications corrupt good manners,” that the “friendship of the world is emnity against God.”
2. With respect to the families of priests.
(1) The stranger that sojourneth in Israel must become regularly proselyted to entitle him to the privileges of the Law. So those who would enjoy the corresponding spiritual privileges of the gospel must first become disciples of Jesus.
(2) The hired servant in the family of a priest is not sufficiently incorporated in the family to entitle him to eat of the holy things. And there are servants of the gospelpersons who take a commendable interest in its outward prosperitywho yet are not of the “household of faith,” and have no experience of its spiritual mysteries.
(3) The daughter of a priest, by marrying a stranger, forfeits her right to eat of the holy things. If now in her father’s house, she is simply a visitor, and has to be provided with common food. By yoking with the ungodly, the children of God forfeit his favour, and are only tolerated in the Church as visitors.
3. These laws may not be invaded with impunity.
(1) If by accident they were transgressed, there was mercy for the offender when he made reparation. This was the original value, with a fifth part added (Lev 22:14). Paul obtained mercy for his sin against the gospel of Christ, “because he did it ignorantly in unbelief.”
(2) For the wilful presumptuous transgression of the Law there was no mercy in its provisions. “That soul shall be cut off from my presence” (yen. 3). “They shall therefore keep mine ordinance, lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, if they profane it” (Lev 22:9). There is a law of extremity also under the gospel (Mat 12:1-50 :81, 82; Act 5:1-42 :l-11; Heb 6:4-6; Heb 10:26-29; 1Jn 5:16).
II. HOW THESE DISQUALIFICATIONS MAY BE REMOVED.
1. In some cases by statute.
(1) Thus the servant of the high priest, bought with his money, though formerly an alien, is now so incorporated into his family that he may freely eat of the holy things. Being purchased, he is permanently under the power of the priest, and has no option to leave his service. So we, being redeemed by the blood of Christ and by a thorough repentance and conversion, renouncing all freedom to act against his will, may claim the privileges of his service.
(2) Those born in the house of the priest, viz. to his slaves or permanent servants, are also reckoned as belonging to his family, and privileged to fare as his own children. This birth into the household expresses more than mere natural descent from a godly ancestry. The children of the covenant made with Abraham were not those naturally descended from him, but those who were also the children of his faith. Natural birth in a godly family now gives the initiation to goodness, but the privileges of the gospel can only be enjoyed by those who follow up their advantages.
(3) The daughter of a priest, as we have seen, by marrying a stranger, forfeited her right to eat of the holy things. She was the figure of a backslider. But if there were no issue of the marriage, and her husband were dead, and she return to the house of her father as in her youth, she may again partake of the holy things. This teaches us God’s mercy to the wanderer from Christ who returns to him with a true conversion (see Luk 15:11).
2. In some cases by ordinance.
(1) If a man contract pollution by contact, he “shall not eat of the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water” (Lev 22:4-6). As the baptism of water was necessary to qualify the ceremonially impure to eat of the holy things which were typical, so is the baptism of the Holy Ghost required to remove moral impurity, and give us the privilege of real fellowship with God (Heb 10:22).
(2) After this washing, “and when the sun is down, he shall be clean, and shall afterward eat of the holy things” (Lev 22:7). The natural or civil day began at sunrise; the holy day at sunset, viz. when nature is involved in the shadow of death. So it is in the turning from nature to grace that we enter into the privileges of fellowship with God.J.A.M.
Lev 22:17-33
Laws of the oblations.
These naturally follow those concerning the priests, which form the subject of the earlier portion of this chapter. They may be considered
I. WITH RESPECT TO THE SACRIFICES.
1. These must be the animals prescribed.
(1) Clean creatures. To offer swine upon God’s altar would be an outrageous insult to his purity. It would be figuratively equivalent to asking his acceptance and approval of passions and conduct the most filthy and loathsome. To attempt to foreshadow in the sacrifice of a hog the sacrifice of Christ would be against the most sacred propriety a horrible blasphemy.
(2) Clean creatures of kinds specially selected by God. These are “of the beeves, of the sheep, or of the goats” (Lev 22:19). The roebuck and the hart are clean creatures, but not of the kinds selected, so, however they may be fitted to represent saints, viewed under particular aspects, they were too wild and intractable to be made fit emblems of Christ.
2. They must be individuals without blemish.
(1) They must be free from disease. Therefore, if they have “scurvy,” or a “wen,” or a “running scab,” which are symptoms of a diseased state of the blood, they are pronounced unfit. For disease is generally taken as an emblem of sin, and in this sense the reason should be understood, “because their corruption is in them” (Lev 22:25).
(2) There must be no natural deformity, such as having any part too much extended, or, on the other hand, too much contracted. “We are shapen in iniquity.” From our birth we are marred with moral deformities. But not so Jesus. He was in his birth the “holy thing.”
(3) They must have no acquired blemishno blindness, lameness, fracture, or mutilation of any kind. By actual transgression we have fallen upon moral disasters. But Christ “fulfilled all righteousness,” and must not be foreshadowed by any imperfect creature.
(4) The same perfection was required in the sacrifice that was required in the priests. The best service and the best sacrifice should be given to the best Being (see Mal 1:8, Mal 1:12-14). The priest and the sacrifice were alike types of the same Lord Jesus, our Priest and Sacrifice.
(5) But who is to judge of the fitness of the victim? The Jews say the sagan, or suffragan high priest, had to determine this. Now, Annas sustained that office under Caiaphas, and he accordingly sent Jesus bound to Caiaphas, viz. as a Sacrifice fit to be offered (see Joh 18:12-14, Joh 18:24). The offerer also had to pass his judgment upon the creature he selects from his herd or flock. If Pilate be viewed as a representative person in this capacity, we hear him say,” I find no fault in this man.” But God himself is the ultimate Judge; and has he not emphatically approved of Christ? (See Mat 3:17; Mat 17:5; Joh 12:28.)
3. Blemished creatures may be given as free-will offerings.
(1) These were not prescribed in the Law, though permitted. They were things which piety might add to what was essential. They were not types of Christ, so they might be imperfect.
(2) Piety will give to God the most perfect thing she possesses when she would acknowledge his worthiness to be honoured. But she would also express with humility the imperfection of her best services, and this she might do most appropriately in the offering of a blemished oblation.
(3) But when the free-will offering is for a vow, then an imperfect thing will not be accepted. In this case the offering is prescribed in the Law because it is beyond the power of the offerer to retract (see Act 5:4). And the sacrifice for a vow was a figure of Christ, who is pledged in the covenant of our redemption (see Psa 22:25; Psa 40:6, Psa 40:7).
II. WITH RESPECT TO THEIR OFFERING.
1. They may not be offered till after the eighth day.
(1) For this there was a reason of humanity. The creature must remain “seven days under the dam.” The Laws of God are framed to inculcate kindliness and tenderness of heart.
(2) It has also a reason of health. For the animal is scarcely formed in the first week of its life. Its hair and its hook are not grown. It is not wholesome food.
(3) But the typical reasons are the more important. The “eighth day” was that upon which circumcision took place. The import of both rites, that of circumcision and that of sacrifice, is the same. Both represent the cutting off of the Holy Seed out of the land of the living, to secure the blessings of the covenant to men. The Jews say that the eighth day was specified so that a sabbath must be included, for that “the sabbath sanctifies all things.” No doubt, when the great sabbath of the eighth day arrives, which is that of the new heavens and earth, all things in that state will be sanctified. That state will be the consummation of the blessings of the covenant.
2. An animal and its young may not be killed the same day.
(1) This law respects fowls as well as larger creatures (see Deu 22:6). It inculcates tenderness of heart.
(2) But it has also a gospel import. It teaches that utter desolation is inconsistent with the idea of atonement. Life is spared because life is sacrificed. The death of Christ is vicarious; it is for the life of the world.
3. It should be eaten the same day on which it is killed.
(1) The moral here is that we must not delay to avail ourselves of the benefits of redemption in Christ. On the morrow (Lev 22:30) it may be too late.
(2) On the third day it will be certainly too late (see Le Lev 7:15; Lev 19:6, Lev 19:7). The third day, or age, is that of our resurrection (see Hos 6:2). If we neglect salvation until then, it cannot be realized. Let us improve the opportunities of our probation.
4. They should be offered devoutly.
(1) The Name of God must not be profaned. God’s Name is hallowed by keeping his commandments (Lev 22:31, Lev 22:32). The Name of God will be hallowed when his kingdom is come, for then his will shall be done upon earth as it is in heaven (Mat 6:9, Mat 6:10).
(2) He is to be recognized as our Redeemer. “I am the Lord which hallow you, that brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God.” That redemption was only a figure of the great redemption through which God hallows his people in truth, of which also the oblations of the Law were figures. This is never to be forgotten.J.A.M.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
B.KEEPING HOLY OF THE SACRIFICE, OR OF WHAT HAS BEEN HALLOWED.LANGE.
Lev 22:1-33
1And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the Lord. 3Say unto them, Whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations, that goeth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord. 4What man soever of the seed of Aaran is a leper, or hath a running issue; he shall not eat of the holy things, until he be clean. And whoso toucheth any thing that is unclean by the dead, or a man whose seed goeth from him; 5or whosoever toucheth any1 creeping thing, whereby he may be made unclean, or a man of whom he may take uncleanness,2 whatsoever uncleanness he hath; 6the soul which hath touched any such shall be unclean until even, and shall not eat of the holy things, unless he wash [bathe3] his flesh with water. 7And when the sun is down, he shall be clean, and shall afterward eat of the holy things; because it is his food. 8That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall not eat to defile himself therewith: I am the Lord. 9They shall therefore keep mine ordinance,4 lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, if they profane it: I the Lord do sanctify them.
10There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing. 11But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it, and Hebrews 5 that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat [food6]. 12If the priests daughter also be married unto a stranger, she may not eat of an offering of the holy things. 13But if the priests daughter be a widow, or divorced, and have no child, and is returned unto her fathers house, as7 in her youth, she shall eat of her fathers meat [food6]: but there shall no stranger eat thereof. 14And if a man eat of the holy thing unwittingly [inadvertently8], then he shall put the fifth part thereof unto it, and shall give it unto the priest with the holy thing. 15And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer9 unto the Lord; 16or suffer them to bear the iniquity of trespass, when they eat [or, lade themselves with the iniquity of trespass in their eating10] their holy things: for I the Lord do sanctify them.
17And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 18Speak unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel, and say unto them, Whatsoever he be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers11 in Israel, that will offer his oblation [offering12] for all [any of] his vows, and for all [any of] his free-will offerings, which they will offer unto the Lord for a burnt offering; 19ye shall offer at your own will [for your acceptance13] a male without blemish, of the beeves, of the sheep, or of the 20goats. But whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer: for it shall not be acceptable for you 21And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the Lord to accomplish his vow, or a freewill offering in beeves or sheep [of the flock14], it shall be perfect to be accepted: there shall be no blemish therein. 22Blind, or broken, or maimed,15 or having a wen [or ulcerous16], or scurvy, or scabbed, ye shall not offer these unto the Lord, nor make an offering by fire of them upon the altar unto the Lord. 23Either a bullock or a lamb [one of the flock17] that hath anything superfluous18 or lacking in his parts, that mayest thou offer for a freewill offering; but for a vow it shall not be accepted. 24Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut; neither shall ye make any offering thereof [make such19] in your land. 25Neither from a strangers20 hand shall ye offer the bread of your God of any of these; because their corruption is in them, and blemishes be in them: they shall not be accepted for you
26And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 27When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat, is brought forth, then it shall be seven days under the dam; and from the eighth day and thenceforth it shall be accepted for an offering made by fire unto 28the Lord. And whether it be cow or ewe [female of the flock21], ye shall not kill it and her young both in one day.
29And when ye will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the Lord, offer it at your own will [for your acceptance13]. 30On the same day it shall be eaten up; ye shall leave none of it until the morrow: I am the Lord.
31Therefore shall ye keep my commandments, and do them: I am the Lord. 32Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the Lord which hallow you, 33that brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Lev 22:5. The Sam. and LXX. supply the word unclean. According to the law, the creeping thing could only communicate uncleanness when dead.
Lev 22:5. Rosenmller translates: or a man who may be unclean on account of it, sc. the creeping thing. He refers the pronoun in to
Lev 22:6. . See Textual Note 30 on Lev 14:8.
Lev 22:9. The want of an appropriate verb and noun from the same root in English makes it impossible to give the full force of this phrase so often impressively repeated. See Gen 26:5; Lev 8:35; Num 3:7; Num 9:19. Lange uses a paraphrase: Und sie sollen beobachten, was gegen mich zu beobachten ist.
Lev 22:11. The Sam., LXX. and Chald. have the plural.
Lev 22:11. . See Com. on Lev 21:6. On the daghesh in the See Textual Note 10 on Lev 4:13.
Lev 22:13. Sixteen MSS. for the particle of comparison have .
Lev 22:14. . See Textual Note 1 on Lev 4:2.
Lev 22:15. , lit. which they heave or lift up; but evidently the reference is more general than to the heave-offerings, and the offer of the A. V. is by all means to be retained.
Lev 22:16. The sense of this verse is doubtful. The A. V., Patrick, Pool, Keil and others refer the pronouns them and they to the people, and understand the precept that the priests should prevent the people from eating of the holy things which it belonged to the priests to eat; on the other hand, the margin of the A. V., Calvin, Knobel, Zunz, Riggs and Lange understand it as meaning lade themselves with the iniquity of trespass in their eating. The latter is more in accordance with the general subject of the chapter, and is preferable. So the LXX. understood by the use of . So Houbigant.
Lev 22:18. The Sam., 14 MSS, and all the ancient versions supply that sojourn.
Lev 22:18. . See Textual Note2 on Lev 2:1.
Lev 22:19. . See Textual Note5 on Lev 1:3. Comp. also Lev 22:21.
Lev 22:21. includes both sheep (A. V.) and goats (marg.). It is better therefore to use the ordinary comprehensive term.
Lev 22:22. On the precise sense of , the authorities differ. LXX. = having the tongue cut; Targ. Jon. = having the eyelids torn; Jerome, cicatricem habens. The A. V. has followed the Targ. Onk. in a sense which may be considered as sufficiently general to include all the others.
Lev 22:22. , adj. fem. from = to flow. It is . ., but there seems no doubt of its meaning.
Lev 22:23. is neither specifically a lamb (A. V.) nor a kid (marg.), but may be either. See Textual Note14 on Lev 22:21. Gesen.: a noun of unity corresponding to the collect. , a flock, sc. of sheep or goats.
Lev 22:23. is an animal which has an inequality between the corresponding parts, as the two legs, or two eyes, so that one of them is longer or larger than it should be; while , on the other hand, signifies one having such part smaller than its normally developed fellow.
Lev 22:24 According to all authorities the preceding clause refers to the four ways of castration practised among the ancients (see Aristot. hist. an. ix. 37, 3, and the other authorities cited by Knobel and Keil); the latter clause contains, incidentally, an absolute prohibition of such customs in the land, and has nothing to do with sacrifice, there being no word for offering in the Heb. Such is the interpretation of Josephus (Ant. iv. 8, 40) and of the Jewish authorities generally. So also the LXX., the Targs., and the Vulg. The sense of the A. V., however, is found in the Syr., and is sustained by Knobel and Lange, who says expressly: It is particularly to be noticed that castration of animals was not universally forbidden in Israel, only no castrated animals might be offered in sacrifice.
Lev 22:25. , a different word from the of Lev 22:10 and the of Lev 22:18, and probably referring to a foreigner, not even sojourning in the land.
Lev 22:28. See Note 17 on Lev 22:23. in masc. form; but Rosenmller notes that in regard to brute animals, the verbs, as well as the nouns and adjectives, take no note of sex.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The analysis of this chapter given by Keil is a very clear one. Lev 22:1-16. Reverence for things sanctified.The law on this matter was (1) that no priest who had become unclean was to touch or eat them (Lev 22:2-9), and (2) that no one was to eat of them who was not a member of the priestly family (Lev 22:10-16). Lev 22:17-33. Acceptable Sacrifices. Lange introduces the chapter thus: The keeping holy of the sacrifice was to correspond to the keeping holy of the priesthood, since this is indeed at the bottom an expression of keeping the priesthood holy. It was most strongly insisted upon. The centre, however, of the whole Levitical system is rather the sacrifice than the priest, and the priest is for the sake of the sacrifice, as is distinctly brought out in this chapter, rather than the reverse. Certainly the sacrifice was earlier, and the necessity for it more fundamental. The symbolical holiness of the priesthood must therefore be considered as an essential requirement in order to their offering of acceptable sacrifices. Lange thus analyzes the chapter: a. In relation to the conduct of the priest, Lev 22:3-9. b. In relation to the conduct of the laity, Lev 22:10-16. c. In relation to the condition of the sacrificial animals, and especially to the fact that everything defective was excluded, Lev 22:17-25; but also that every proper offering was to be offered to the Lord in the right way, or to be eaten as a thank-offering, Lev 22:26-33.
The chapter consists of three Divine communications, all given to Moses, the first (Lev 22:1-16) to be communicated to Aaron and his sons, prescribing under what conditions the priests are not to touch the offerings (19), and who beside the priests might partake of them (1016); the second (1725) is to be communicated not only to Aaron, but unto all the children of Israel, determining the quality of the victims; while the third (2633) is to Moses alone, prescribing certain conditions to be observed with all victims, and concluding the chapter.
Lev 22:1-9. For his view of the difficult passage in Lev 22:2, Lange refers to his translation, which runs thus: that they profane not my holy nameeven they, who have it in charge to keep holy for Me, thus referring the relative to the name. Other commentators refer it to the holy things of the children of Israel, as in the A. V., LXX. and Vulg. (Rosenmller, Knobel, Kalisch, Murphy, Keil, Clark, etc.). The sense of the whole verse is certainly that the priests should not profane the holy gifts of the people by approaching them when themselves in a condition unlawful for priestly ministrations. The expression separate themselves from the holy things is clearly to be understood as meaning under the circumstances mentioned below. with , to keep away, separate ones self from anything, i.e. not to regard or treat them as on a par with unconsecrated things. Keil. The Divine acceptance of the sacrifices was expressed by the priests eating certain parts of them as the representatives of God. These were allowed to be eaten by those who were permanently disqualified by physical defects from offering the sacrifices (Lev 21:22); but if consumed by those in a state of uncleanness, would be a profanation of the name of the Lord. The prohibition extends not only to the eating, but to the touching them at all. Lev 22:3. Shall be cut off from my presence is considered by Rosenmller and others as equivalent to the expression shall be cut off from the midst of his people. A better interpretation (Knobel, Clark) is that it means: shall be excluded from the sanctuarydeprived of his priestly office. Lange, however, interprets it that the penalty of death is pronounced upon every one of the priestly family who approaches the holy things in a state of uncleanness, whether it be to offer or to eat the priestly sacrificial food. But he afterwards adds: With the positive death penalty is connected at the same time a mysterious destiny of death, which Jehovah reserves to Himself. The legislation has as yet no idea of the ruder forms of desecration of the sacrifice in the future as e.g.1Sa 2:12 sqq. This was the penalty attached to the violation of any of the precepts in this paragraph. The uncleannesses mentioned in Lev 22:4-6 have already been treated in their appropriate places. They are only mentioned here as showing that they excluded the priest from contact with holy things. Lev 22:6-7, prescribe for the priest, as for the people in similar cases, the simplest forms of purification, and when these are observed, limit the time of the uncleanness to the going down of the sun. In accordance with the considerate character of the Divine legislation, it then allows him to eat of the sacrifice, because it is his food. In Lev 22:8 the eating of that which had not been properly slain, and was therefore still contaminated with the blood, is forbidden with especial emphasis to the priests whose office was to make atonement with the blood. This had already been forbidden to all the people (Lev 11:39-40) with but a slight penalty for transgression. Here the transgression for the priest comes under the heavier sentence of Lev 22:3. Calvin notes that such a special prohibition was needed lest the priests might think themselves, in virtue of their office, exempt from the laws binding upon the rest of the people. Lev 22:9. Lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, gives the penalty in general of a priestly neglect to keep Gods ordinance, but is not necessarily to be understood of the penalty for the breach of each particular precept mentioned. The command here, as everywhere, is made to rest upon the consideration, I the Lord do sanctify them.
Lev 22:10-16. This forms the second part of the first Divine communication, and prescribes who beside the priests themselves might or might not eat of the holy things. It has nothing to do with the most holy things which could be eaten only by the priests themselves. The is the stranger relatively; accordingly those who are not Israelites, not Levites, not relatives; here, those who are not priests. He might not eat of the holy food of the offerings, however near he might stand to the priest as a neighbor, or a day laborer; but on the other hand, the purchased slave, since he had become by circumcision an Israelite and one of the household of the priest, might certainly eat of it, together with those born in the priests house. And here again the house appears in its full theocratic significance. (Comp. Com. on Matt., p. 146.) It results from this, that the married daughter of a priest is excluded; she belonged to another house (if it were a priestly house she might of course eat there with them). Her right revives again, however, if she comes back to her fathers house as a childless widow or divorced; but if she had children, she formed with the children another house. If one who had no right ate of the holy things by mistake, he must make restitution to the priest for what he had eaten, and add a fifth part thereto. The verse refers only to something unimportant, for in the case of greater things he was commanded, moreover, to offer a trespass offering (Lev 5:15). Knobel. The difference is in this, that here the subject is the transgression of eating the priestly portion of the heave offering; there, of heedless injury done to the sanctuary in regard to the portion hallowed to Jehovah. [It seems more probable that the case here referred to is exactly included under that in Lev 5:15-16, and that the trespass offering is not expressly mentioned here because it is only necessary to show that this case comes under the category of those for which the trespass offering was required. Calvin well observes that this prohibition was necessary to prevent the holy things being regarded as common food.F. G.] Here too the law is led back to I the LORD do sanctify them. The history of David (1 Samuel 21) and the New Testament explanation of it (Mat 12:3) show that necessity provided exceptions to this rule. But the rule rests upon the truth that religion must be kept holy, in the strongest sense, even in its sacrifices, otherwise guilt will accumulate upon the people who profess the religion (Lev 22:16). When deceit is practised against Jehovah in any way, e.g. by feigned fasts, by asceticism, joined with secret sins, by fanatic faith joined with a life of plunder, the manliness itself of the natural man is buried more and more, and the intercourse of the people loses more and more of its saving salt of moral truthnot to speak of the refining fire of the spirit of the new birth.When they eat their holy things.That which as holy things belonged to them no longer. Lange. On the meaning of the last clause see Textual Note 10. The provision in regard to the purchased servant in Lev 22:11 is of importance as showing how completely such servants became identified with the house of their masters. The command was given only about a year after the Exodus when the tribes of Israel doubtless included a large number of the circumcised descendants of the servants of the patriarchs; but there can be no stronger identification than is here given in allowing the purchased servants of the priests from whatever nation, in contradistinction to a servant hired from any other family in Israel, to eat of the priestly portion of the holy things.
Lev 22:17-25. Moses is directed to convey this communication unto all the children of Israel, because it was important to have them all entirely familiar with the conditions necessary to an acceptable victim. They were to know all the laws; but their attention would naturally be more fixed upon those which were immediately addressed to them. The law in regard to the victims necessarily applies to all cases, whether they were offered by persons of the house of Israel, or of the strangers (Lev 22:18), because it prescribes what was required in the victim itself in order to its acceptance. The burnt offering is first treated of (Lev 22:18-20), and then the peace offering. Vow and free-will offerings might be made of either kind of sacrifice; but the regulations concerning the victim differed. If it was a burnt offering, it must be a male, as well as without blemish, according to the law of the burnt offering in Lev 1:3; Lev 1:10; if it was a peace offering, there was no law concerning the sex of the victim; but it was still required (Lev 22:21) there shall be no blemish therein. The rigidness of the law was, however, somewhat relaxed in case of the free-will offering (Lev 22:23), so that for this purpose a victim was allowed to have some thing superfluous or lacking in his parts. For the distinction between the vow and the free-will offering, see Com. on Lev 7:15. The other kind of peace offering, the thank offering, is not mentioned here; being the highest of all, it of course required the perfect victim. Among the Gentiles also a sense of natural fitness generally required that the victim should be integrus and . See abundant references in Rosenmller and Knobel here, in Outram L. I. c. 9, and Bochart Hieroz. I. L. II. c. 46. Lev 22:24 absolutely prohibits the offering in sacrifice of any castrated animals. See Textual Note. Lange: The minute, precise definition of this defect requires the perfect fitness for breeding in the male animals, without which it lost in a great degree its signification of a worthy resignation. In Lev 22:25 the priests are forbidden to accept even from a strangers hand victims marked with any of the defects that have been enumerated, because their corruption is in them,i.e. because these defects render them unfit for sacrifice. The bread of your God must be derived from a perfect victim to represent that which is acceptable to God, which in moral things is perfect righteousness. Murphy.
Lev 22:26-33. The final communication made to Moses alone. Lange: Even in the case of sacrificial animals without blemish, there yet appear particular conditions of acceptableness for the offerers. First, the victim must be eight days old; it must be kept seven days under the dam to enjoy the full pleasure of existence. See the same law in Exo 22:30 in regard to firstlings. The reason for this was, that the young animal had not attained to a mature and self-sustained life during the first week of its existence. Keil. It is noticeable that the age at which the animal became admissible for sacrifice is the same as that at which man was received into covenant relation by circumcision. At this age, too, the animal first began to be eatable, and this fact doubtless had its significance in the laws for the symbolical food of Jehovah. Similar restrictions of age were in use among the Romans, Pliny Nat. Hist. viii. 77. The prohibition in Lev 22:28 of killing both dam and offspring on the same day is analogous to the thrice repeated precept: Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mothers milk (Exo 23:19; Exo 34:26; Deu 14:21), and rests upon the same principle as the prohibition to take from a birds nest the mother together with the young (Deu 22:6-7). All these precepts were of an educational character and imposed upon the Israelites the duty of keeping sacred, even among the lower animals, the relation which God has established between parent and offspring. The law could not have been for the sake of the brute, but was altogether for mans sake; he must not allow himself to violate the finer susceptibilities implanted in his nature, even when mere utilitarian reasoning could see no use in the command. The Targ. Jon. prefaces the command with the words: As our Father is merciful in heaven, so be ye merciful on earth. The connection here applies the precept especially to killing for sacrifice; but it is noticeable that the word used is the more general , as if the command was meant to apply to all killing whatever. In Lev 22:30 the law for eating the thank offering on the same day on which it is presented is repeated from Lev 7:15. Such repetitions, if not of necessity, are yet at least highly desirable in a lengthened code of laws. The conclusion, Lev 22:31-33, is like that of chapters 18 and 19, and rests upon the fact that He who gives the commands is JehovahJehovah who sanctifies them, and who has brought them up out of the land of Egypt. Lange: I am Jehovah is said again to seal this command, and the following explanation shows plainly the educational view: that Jehovah seeks to bring them up to be a holy people of God by means of these fixed directions. The educational idea is negative: only certainly no kind of dishonor, or deceit, or faithlessness is allowable in matters of religion.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
I. The symbolical and definite thought of the whole chapter has the highest meaning for every form of religion, but particularly for the Christian Church. It seeks a faultless, normal priesthood, a priesthood which does not darken, but glorifies religion, the service of God. When we think of the sad fact that priests have often altogether, or in a great degree, corrupted their religious community, or are now corrupting it, that so many spiritual and hierarchical cripples of every kind darken and disfigure so many congregations, the contents of our section will give us a strong witness against a laxity and untruth which is guilty especially of the corruption of the religious life. The church training was to be before all things self-training, the ladder of the churchly life. How many reflections in regard to the choice of the theological profession, the tests, the ordinations, and the ecclesiastical visitations belong to this chapter. Also the family circumstances of spiritual persons are here estimated according to their significance. Lange.
II. The relation of the priests to the people is here again distinctly brought out. They were under precisely the same laws as others, became unclean from the same causes, and were to be purified in the same way; in short, they were fully citizens of the commonwealth of Israel. But inasmuch as they had also special duties toward God, they were incapacitated for their performance by this uncleanness.
III. The identification of the household with its head, always strongly marked in the Hebrew polity, appears in the case of the priest with especial clearness. The family is the unit of the Hebrew commonwealth and the basis of the Mosaic legislation. On this see Maines Ancient Law.
IV. The law of the conditions of the acceptable victim was precisely the same for the Israelite and the stranger. The law thus intimates not obscurely that in their approach to God all men stand on precisely the same footing. There is no distinction of persons.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Lange: Chap. 22 is concerned with the pure conduct of the priests face to face with the sacrifice of the congregation; observances of cleanness of the most varied kind, and especially of sacrifices according to their spiritual meaning.
As symbolical cleanness was required of those who partook of the sacrifices which typified the death of Christ, so is spiritual cleanness necessary in those who feed upon the memorial of the same. See 1Co 11:28, etc. Wordsworth. The whole house of the priest was sanctified through him to partake of the holy things; so is the whole house of the Great High Priest sanctified through Him, even His body, the blessed company of all faithful people.
But to be partakers of the table of this Great High Priest men must not be merely sojourners in His house, or serving Him as hired servants for gain, but truly identified with Him, and forming an actual part of His household. Wordsworth.
Again and again the law insists that the victim for the acceptable sacrifice must be without blemish. Whatever is offered to God must be of the best; especially must the offering of the heart be perfect and complete. Christ Himself is described as having offered Himself without spot, and the Church which He presents unto Himself must be holy and without blemish. Eph 5:27.
By forbidding the Israelites to kill on the same day the dam and its offspring God taught them, and through them the church in all ages, to be merciful; not only merciful to those who can understand and appreciate it, but to exercise this virtue for its own saketo be merciful always and everywhere, even as our Father in heaven is merciful.
Calvin draws from the often repeated and here extended precept that the sacrifice must be perfect and without blemish, this lesson: that whatever we offer to God must be whole-hearted and true. We cannot serve God and mammon. He applies this to prayers in which the heart is not engaged, and a multitude of other things in which man may undertake to offer an imperfect and divided, and therefore unacceptable service.
Footnotes:
[1]Lev 22:5. The Sam. and LXX. supply the word unclean. According to the law, the creeping thing could only communicate uncleanness when dead.
[2]Lev 22:5. Rosenmller translates: or a man who may be unclean on account of it, sc. the creeping thing. He refers the pronoun in to
[3]Lev 22:6. . See Textual Note 30 on Lev 14:8.
[4]Lev 22:9. The want of an appropriate verb and noun from the same root in English makes it impossible to give the full force of this phrase so often impressively repeated. See Gen 26:5; Lev 8:35; Num 3:7; Num 9:19. Lange uses a paraphrase: Und sie sollen beobachten, was gegen mich zu beobachten ist.
[5]Lev 22:11. The Sam., LXX. and Chald. have the plural.
[6]Lev 22:11. . See Com. on Lev 21:6. On the daghesh in the See Textual Note 10 on Lev 4:13.
[7]Lev 22:13. Sixteen MSS. for the particle of comparison have .
[8]Lev 22:14. . See Textual Note 1 on Lev 4:2.
[9]Lev 22:15. , lit. which they heave or lift up; but evidently the reference is more general than to the heave-offerings, and the offer of the A. V. is by all means to be retained.
[10]Lev 22:16. The sense of this verse is doubtful. The A. V., Patrick, Pool, Keil and others refer the pronouns them and they to the people, and understand the precept that the priests should prevent the people from eating of the holy things which it belonged to the priests to eat; on the other hand, the margin of the A. V., Calvin, Knobel, Zunz, Riggs and Lange understand it as meaning lade themselves with the iniquity of trespass in their eating. The latter is more in accordance with the general subject of the chapter, and is preferable. So the LXX. understood by the use of . So Houbigant.
[11]Lev 22:18. The Sam., 14 MSS, and all the ancient versions supply that sojourn.
[12]Lev 22:18. . See Textual Note2 on Lev 2:1.
[13]Lev 22:19. . See Textual Note5 on Lev 1:3. Comp. also Lev 22:21.
[14]Lev 22:21. includes both sheep (A. V.) and goats (marg.). It is better therefore to use the ordinary comprehensive term.
[15]Lev 22:22. On the precise sense of , the authorities differ. LXX. = having the tongue cut; Targ. Jon. = having the eyelids torn; Jerome, cicatricem habens. The A. V. has followed the Targ. Onk. in a sense which may be considered as sufficiently general to include all the others.
[16]Lev 22:22. , adj. fem. from = to flow. It is . ., but there seems no doubt of its meaning.
[17]Lev 22:23. is neither specifically a lamb (A. V.) nor a kid (marg.), but may be either. See Textual Note14 on Lev 22:21. Gesen.: a noun of unity corresponding to the collect. , a flock, sc. of sheep or goats.
[18]Lev 22:23. is an animal which has an inequality between the corresponding parts, as the two legs, or two eyes, so that one of them is longer or larger than it should be; while , on the other hand, signifies one having such part smaller than its normally developed fellow.
[19]Lev 22:24 According to all authorities the preceding clause refers to the four ways of castration practised among the ancients (see Aristot. hist. an. ix. 37, 3, and the other authorities cited by Knobel and Keil); the latter clause contains, incidentally, an absolute prohibition of such customs in the land, and has nothing to do with sacrifice, there being no word for offering in the Heb. Such is the interpretation of Josephus (Ant. iv. 8, 40) and of the Jewish authorities generally. So also the LXX., the Targs., and the Vulg. The sense of the A. V., however, is found in the Syr., and is sustained by Knobel and Lange, who says expressly: It is particularly to be noticed that castration of animals was not universally forbidden in Israel, only no castrated animals might be offered in sacrifice.
[20]Lev 22:25. , a different word from the of Lev 22:10 and the of Lev 22:18, and probably referring to a foreigner, not even sojourning in the land.
[21]Lev 22:28. See Note 17 on Lev 22:23. in masc. form; but Rosenmller notes that in regard to brute animals, the verbs, as well as the nouns and adjectives, take no note of sex.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
This chapter is but a continuation of the former. Here is the law for the observance of the priests, carried on in relation to themselves, and their household; together with a precept at the conclusion of it, respecting the unblemished nature of things offered in sacrifice.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The sanctity required in all that approached GOD, evidently pointed out his priesthood, who only is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. Heb 7:26 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
VII
THE LAW OF HOLINESS
Leviticus 17-22
This chapter covers Leviticus 17-22. The theme is the law of holiness. I will treat it catechetically.
1. Where must animals for food be brought and slain and why?
Ans. In such a camp as the Israelites camp, with 3,000,000 of people, the question of food was a grave question. The law required that every bullock, every sheep, every beef, every goat, that was to be eaten, be brought to one place to be slain, and that one place was the gate, or the door, of the tabernacle, the outer court of the tabernacle; and the reason for the law was that the priest had to inspect and approve of the method of slaughtering animals, for both sanitary and spiritual reasons. The first part, the sanitary reason, is employed today in the city regulations concerning slaughterhouses. The wisest precautions must be adopted with reference to cleanliness, to avoid the breeding of pests or pestilences.
The second and most important reason was that the priest should see that the law concerning blood was observed. They were expressly forbidden to eat any animal food from which the blood had not been drained, and this applied to animals where they killed them in the wilderness, as deer and those animals used for food; they must draw the blood off; as soon as the animal was killed, the blood must be drawn.
2. Give Old Testament and New Testament law prohibiting the eating of blood, and why is it now binding?
Ans. The Old Testament law commences with the law of Noah, when he represented the whole race. While they were given permission in that law to eat every moving, living
thing, immediately after (Gen 9:4 ) there is this express stipulation, viz.: that the blood must be drawn out of the body, or it could not be eaten. It was a sin to eat blood when the law applied to the whole world. Now when we come to the New Testament (Act 15 ) we have this law. In the great council that was held in Jerusalem, James in closing that council says in his speech: “Wherefore my judgment is that we trouble not them who from among the Gentiles are turned to God; but that we write unto them to abstain from what is strangled, and from blood.” Now in drawing up the decree later in the same chapter, you have this: “We lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, that ye abstain from blood, and from things strangled.” That is addressed to the Gentiles and says, “Fornications, from blood and things strangled.”
In Rev 2 , our Lord calls attention to this law, and states that one of the things that he has against one of the seven churches in Asia is that they violate that law. So my decision is that the reason for prohibiting the use of blood for food is not a mere Jewish regulation. We find it binding on the race before there was a Jew, and we find it binding after the kingdom of God was passed to the Gentiles. Two reasons are given, one is that the blood is the life; and another reason is that because it is the life, it is the blood with which expiation for sin is made. Outside of the regulation concerning eating, just described, and which is set forth in chapter 17, we now enlarge the law of holiness with a new question.
3. What is incest?
Ans. That comes in the first part of Lev 18 , and goes down to Lev 18:18 . In this we have a number of things that are classed as incest. I am not going to discuss that on account of the delicacy of the matter. I will say, in general terms, that any offense that violates the law concerning nearness of kindred, comes under the head of incest, no matter what it is. There are many cases of incest mentioned in the Bible.
4. What is the purpose of this law prohibiting incest?
Ans. The purpose of the law is to enforce the sanctity of the family and its relation; and the common sense as well as the common interpretation of all denominations regards that law as binding now, because it does not arise from any particular condition of the Jews, but arises from the nature of the family institution, and is just as applicable to one people as another, and to one time as another. There is nothing temporary in it. We have laws regulating this also: for instance, that a man should not marry his own sister, his own aunt, or his niece, anything that violates the law of kindred. Now incest in that chapter stops with Lev 18:18 .
5. What law prevailed in England to prohibit a man’s marrying his wife’s sister, even after his wife was dead?
Ans. I don’t know that the law is abrogated now, but I know it did prevail. If a man married into a large family, and the wife died, then he could not marry the sister of his wife. Is that law properly derivable from Lev 18:18 ? I will quote it. My judgment is that they misinterpret the Levitical law in embodying any of the law into the common law of England. A great many romances have been written on this subject. Lev 18:18 simply says this: “Thou shalt not take a wife to be a rival of her sister in her lifetime.” Now you see that does not forbid the marrying of the wife’s sister after the wife dies. Yet the English law prohibited it, and not only prohibited it, but counted it as not marriage.
6. What is sodomy?
Ans. You can read that answer to yourself. That is a sin against the law of holiness, and is just as binding now as it ever was. That is, for a man to treat another man as if he were a woman, or a woman to treat another woman as if she were a man; that is sodomy. That was the sin that brought about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it derives its name from Sodom.
7. What is bestiality?
Ans. From beast we get bestiality, that is, a man treating a beast as if the beast were a woman, and a woman treating a beast as if it were a man.
8. Have we in our statute books any laws against bestiality?
Ans. We certainly have, and with a very sharp penalty. I have known of some convictions under that law, and it left a lasting shame upon the one who committed the offense, besides the punishment by the state. Now that ends everything relating to sodomy, incest, and bestiality. The next question of the law of holiness is embodied in these words, upon which I ask a question: “Thou shall not cause thy seed to pass through the fire to Molech.”
9. What is meant by causing the seed to pass through the fire to Molech?
Ans. The answer is, the offering of one of your own children as a sacrifice to be burned with fire upon the altar of the heathen god, Molech. There is some difference of opinion yet as to whether these children were burned alive or slain before they were burned. The Carthaginians practiced this, and a great many heathen nations with which the Jews had to do practiced this. You find a number of cases of it in the Bible. Now I will give you an old-time description of it. A man would be in great trouble about something, and he felt that an ordinary sacrifice would not remove the curse from him. He would vow to offer his own offspring as a burnt offering to the god, Molech, in order to appease that deity, and remove the curse from his house. A furnace, shaped something like a man, but a most hideous and monstrous man, was built representing Molech, built of iron; it had arms held out, a huge, gigantic image of Molech, and under that furnace was a place for the fire, and that would heat that iron image red-hot, and then they would take the naked babe, and place it in the red-hot arms of the idol; and in order to drown the sounds of its screams of agony, the priests would beat their tom-toms, or huge drums, and the parents, disregarding the screams of the child, would go away believing that they were absolved from the curse that had come upon them.
10. What is the meaning and application of “Thou shalt not build a city in the blood of thy first-born”?
Ans. That originated from the curse pronounced upon the men who should attempt to rebuild Jericho after it had been destroyed. The law was: “Whoever shall rebuild that city shall lose his first-born.” Then comes the great direction “Thou shalt not build the city in the blood of thy first-born.” From that I once deduced a prohibition speech, in the case where the city demanded the retention of the liquor traffic to promote commercial interest. “Thou shalt not build a city in the blood of thy first-born,” I quoted, saying, “You seek to promote commercial prosperity through the liquor traffic. Maybe your son will be the first to perish, maybe your daughter will become the wife of a drunkard, and your grandchild inherit a drunkard’s habits, and you are building a city in the blood of your children.”
11. What is meant by enchantments, and why forbidden?
Ans. The law says, “Thou shalt not use any enchantments.” It means, thou shalt not have recourse to any forms of seeking information or avoiding trouble that bring relief from any source but God. When I was a little boy, I knew an old Negro ninety years old who used enchantments. She would go out and gather herbs on the dark of the moon; she would catch a lizard or a snake, maybe get the eye of a newt, and put them in a pot with the herbs and boil them, compounding the enchantment, and if she could mingle a few drops of that in the water people would drink, she would “hoodoo” them. Those of you who have read Shakespeare’s Macbeth remember how the witch would take the eye of a mole, the toe of a frog, the blind worm’s sting, and boil them in order to concoct the enchantment. A great many Negroes up to the present day carry a rabbit’s foot in their pockets, or hang a horseshoe over the door of a house newly built, to keep off enchantments. The simplest form of enchantment is taking a cup of coffee before it is settled, and pour off the coffee and leave the grounds in the cup; then turning the cup over, the grounds left on the inside of the cup run down, and they forecast what is going to happen from the coffee grounds.
12. The next question is similar to this: What is meant by familiar spirits, and why forbidden?
Ans. This beats the coffee grounds and the enchantments. It has retained its hold over the human mind with more persons, perhaps, than any other sin except fleshly sins. Lots of people in Texas now believe it. “Having a familiar spirit” (Lev 19:31 ) means this: a certain person is a medium; a medium has the power to call up certain spirits from the dead, and obtain from these spirits information, and this information is sometimes conveyed by rapping on the table, one rap meaning “yes,” two raps “no”; then spelling out, one rap A, two raps B, and getting information that way. It has always been a horrible sin; it is just as much a sin today as it ever was. And the main point of the sin is expressed by Isaiah the prophet. In referring to it, he says, “Why seek ye to wizards, that chirp and mutter, and why should the living seek unto the dead? Seek unto me, saith the Lord.”
The sin of it consists, then, in disregarding God’s revelation, and endeavoring to obtain from the spirits of the dead, or from demons, information that God either has not given or withholds. He gives all the information that we need in his Book of Revelation. Sometimes this spiritualism or spirit rapping, or spirit slate-writing, or whatever the form of it, sweeps the country like an epidemic, and the most cultured people, some as a mere matter of curiosity or experiment, some for graver reasons, will go to this medium and endeavor to obtain from the spirits of the dead the messages of the dead, from the husband who has departed, or the child who has departed.
Now you may put this down as settled that if ever you want to do anything for anybody, you must do it while you are living, and while that person is living, and if you wait till the person dies you cannot ameliorate his condition. If you wait until you die, the opportunity to help the other person in any way is gone forever. Our Lord in Luk 16 settles that and many other questions. A rich -man who entered hell wanted the soul of Lazarus to go back and carry the message to his brothers in the other world, and it was forbidden; the rich man wanted the soul of Lazarus to bring him, on the tip of his finger, a drop of water in hell, and it was forbidden. Between the spirits of the righteous and the wicked after death a deep and impassable chasm yawns. One cannot pass to the other. Those are fundamental doctrines.
You can count this as a settled thing that there is no clear case in the Bible where the soul of one who was dead was ever permitted to come back to this earth with a message of any kind. And there are only two cases that have ever been quoted; the most notable one is what seems to have taken place when Saul sought to get information from Samuel through the witch of Endor, and when we come to that case, I will expound it in such a way that you will see that it is no exception. The other is that of Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. They appeared unto Christ, but they brought no message to any person on earth. On the contrary, the word to the apostles was: “Hear ye him.” You cannot get anything from Moses and Elijah. That belongs to Christ. The message is: “Revealed things belong to us and our children, but hidden things belong to God.”
13. This question covers Lev 20 : What are the respective penalties for these offenses?
Ans. You have Lev 20 to read, and I want you to answer it as you see it. How many punishable by death, and how many by excommunication that is, cut off from the people? Now we take them as we come to them: Incest, sodomy, bestiality, enchantments, seeking those that have familiar spirits; and from Lev 20 you must answer what the penalties are in each case, and in giving the penalties show how many of the death penalty, and how many of the penalty of being cut off from the people.
14. This covers Leviticus 21-22. These two chapters give the law of holiness as binding on the priesthood. Now these chapters are added, giving the law to the priest, and the question is, What difference in the application to priests, that is, the law of incest, sodomy, and the law of enchantments, seeking this and that from familiar spirits? In other words, what difference do you find between the application of these laws to priests, and to the common people?
Ans. The difference is that the penalty is harder on the priest and the law more stringent. The law is more stringent for a preacher, if he commit a crime; while what he does is the same to him as it is to any other man, yet by virtue of his office the sin is greater. Because of his high rank, he has brought more shame upon the cause of God than if the offense had been committed by a common person. That is the reason for it. Now there is in Leviticus 19 a great variety of special statutes, all of them important, but it is like taking each one of them as a text. It would mean as many texts as there are verses, but I will ask on Lev 19 two questions.
15. Of what are the special statutes in Lev 19 developments?
Ans. They are developments of the Ten Commandments.
16. State in your judgment the most striking of these statutes.
Ans. Read the Lev 19 , and you will see a great variety, and some of them will impress you more than others. I will leave this to you because I want to train your mind to decide some things for yourselves. For instance you will find this: “Thou shall rise up before the hoary head,” and you may just put it down that no man is a gentleman who does not respect an old man or an old woman. He simply isn’t a gentleman, in any consideration. I have seen boys in a streetcar hold a seat, with a tottering old grandmother standing up, holding to a strap. Now a Jew would be an outcast if he did such a thing, and he never does it among his own people. Sometime ago, a distinguished Japanese brought his family to America, and travelled across the continent from New York to San Francisco. He had been here before and knew the difference, but his little boy and girl did not know, and they were perfectly horrified at the irreverence shown in America to parents and old people. It was a most astounding thing to them. I knew of a Jew who lost a trade of great value rather than wake up his old father, who was taking a nap and had the key to the desk in his pocket. He said, “My father is old and his afternoon nap is precious. I will not disturb his afternoon nap in order to make a trade.” And to this day the Jews are ahead of the Americans in deference to the aged. And the Japanese are above us in that; far below us in many things, but ahead of us in that.
17. What is the formal introduction to this law of holiness that I have been discussing?
Ans. The formal introduction is found in the first five verses of Lev 18:1-5 “And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am Jehovah your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do; and after the doings in the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do; neither shall ye walk in their statutes, ye shall do my judgments and keep my ordinances, to walk therein; I am the Lord your God. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments; which if a man do, he shall live in them; I am Jehovah.” That is the formal introduction, that answers the question.
18. What is the application to Israel at this time?
Ans. They had just come out of Egypt. They were just going into Canaan, and they were in covenant with Jehovah. The land they lived in was full of idolatry. The land they were just about to enter reeked with infamy, and the cry of its crimes went up to heaven. God said, “Their cup of iniquity is almost full,” and when it was full he said that he would spew them out of his mouth. Now he wanted his people not to be like them, and he said, “if you do as the Canaanites do, I will blot you out of the land.” And he did.
19. What deductions from these laws?
Ans. While there are many deductions, I call your attention to two:
(1) God holds the nation responsible just as he holds the individual, no matter what the form of government in that nation, an absolute or limited monarchy, aristocracy, or theocracy, or democracy. The government that violates the laws of God, that nation shall not go down to perdition as a whole, but its duration is limited, for Jehovah he is King of kings, and Lord of lords, and the government of the whole world is upon his shoulder, and no nation can long violate the laws of morality, truth and honesty, and survive. Upon the high walls of the city of ancient times was written: “Therefore, saith the Lord, their days are numbered,” and that city, no matter how regal, no matter how high its walls, how great its brazen gates, how strong its fortifications, the “Thus saith the Lord” came upon it on account of the iniquities, crumbled its walls to dust and made the site of that city the habitation of beasts, animals, and birds. As it was said of Babylon, “the lion shall whelp in thy palace.” God governs the nations. It is a great theme, one of the greatest of all. Beecher one time preached a great sermon on the government of God, and a young man asked him how long he was preparing that sermon. He said. “Forty years.”
(2) Now the second deduction: “As righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” It may be an English-speaking nation, it may be an Oriental nation, it may be an Arctic nation, no matter where the people are congregated into nations, righteousness exalteth that nation, and sin is a reproach to that people.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Leviticus Chapter 22
CHAPTER 15.
PRIESTLY PRIVILEGE AND RESPONSIBILITY.
Lev 22:1-16 .
This chapter continues, as in the preceding, the like strain of imperative sanctification in the priestly family to Jehovah. Here it is not indelible disqualifications, as in the last section, but passing defilements. But no defilement was to be treated as a light thing. Reverence was due to Him who is a consuming fire. His will and word ruled all, and especially such as drew near to Him.
” 1 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 2 Speak to Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name [in] what they hallow to me: I [am] Jehovah. 3 Say to them, Whosoever of all your seed among your generations that goeth unto the holy things which the children of Israel hallow to Jehovah, having his uncleanness upon him, that person shall be cut off from my presence: I [am] Jehovah. 4 Whatsoever man of the seed of Aaron [is] a leper, or hath a running of the reins, shall not eat of the holy things, until he be clean; and whosoever toucheth anything unclean of the dead, or a man whose seed passeth from him; 5 or whosoever toucheth any reptile whereby he may be made unclean, or a man from whom he may take uncleanness whatsoever uncleanness he hath; 6 the person that hath touched any such shall be unclean until even, and shall not eat of the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water. 7 And when the sun is down, he shall be clean, and shall afterward eat of the holy things, because it [is] his food. 8 That which dieth of itself, or is torn, he shall not eat to defile himself with it: I [am] Jehovah. 9 They shall therefore keep mine ordinance lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, if they profane it: I Jehovah sanctify them. 10 No stranger shall eat the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or a hired servant shall not eat the holy thing. 11 But if the priest buy a person with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house; they shall eat of his meat. 12 If the priest’s daughter also belong to a strange man, she may not eat of an offering of the holy things. 13 But if the priest’s daughter be a widow, or divorced, and have no child, and is returned to her father’s house, as in her youth, she shall eat of her fattier’s meat; but no stranger shall eat of it. 14 And if a man eat the holy thing unwittingly, then he shall put the fifth thereof to it, and shall offer [it] to the priest with the holy thing. 15 And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer to Jehovah; 16 or suffer them to bear the iniquity of trespass when they eat their holy things; for I Jehovah sanctify them” (Lev 22:1-16 ).
The care with which Moses was charged by Jehovah, and the sons of Aaron through him, is most impressive (1, 2). Compromise in divine things is hateful to God. It is the boast of men, and especially in these days where liberalism is the popular idol, in opposition to the old idol of man’s tradition and sacerdotalism, which theoretically is unbending but in practice accommodating enough for a tariff of sin. The priests of Jehovah were bound under the strictest obligation not to profane His holy name in the holy things of Israel.
There might be uncleanness from day to day known only to each priest himself. Conscience was thus tested, and the fear of God. He might easily hide his uncleanness from his fellows, and from the children of Israel; but he could only do so at the peril of being cut off from Jehovah’s presence (3). His being of Aaron’s seed gave him no sanctuary shelter; but the contrary, whether he suffered from leprosy, or an issue from the reins, or even from the touch of the dead, or of one under an unclean infirmity, or of a defiling reptile, or the like. The variety or the degree might differ; but Jehovah tolerates no uncleanness in those that draw nigh. He must at least be unclean till evening, and not eat of the holy things till he wash his flesh with water. After that he was free to eat of them; for the Holy One is merciful and gracious (4-8).
Jehovah is the living God. Death is sin’s wages; not all indeed, for judgment remains as every Christian should know, Christ revealing the whole truth. Hence the touch of death defiled anyone; much more the priest. No Israelite was free to eat even what was torn of beasts of the field, but called to cast it to the dogs (Exo 22:31 ). “I [am] Jehovah” debarred the sons of Aaron beyond all. They were therefore to keep His ordinance, lest they should bear sin and die in their profanation. He sanctified them pre-eminently (9).
But the inverse was equally binding and expressed. No stranger was to eat the holy thing. He who separated Israel to Himself separated the priest by a closer severance. A sojourner of the priest even had no licence, nor a hired servant however at home or valued. But one that belonged to the priest, bought or born in his house, was allowed that privilege: they might eat of his meat (10, 11).
Then we have modified cases distinctly provided for. Were the priest’s daughter married to a strange man (i.e. outside the Aaronic family), she forfeited for the while her title to eat of an offering of the holy things. But if she became a widow, or divorced, without a child, back in her father’s house as in her youth, she resumed her title, and might eat of her father’s meat; she was no longer a forbidden stranger (12, 13).
Again (14), a man might eat the holy thing unwittingly, and in this case he was enjoined to add the fifth of it, and to give it to the priest with the holy thing, as a double tithe of trespass. There was no superstition or human exaggeration. The true God must of necessity be a jealous God; yet He weighed all considerately.
But as we began with the responsibility attached to the priests, so this section ends. They in particular were not to profane the holy things of the children of Israel which they offered to Jehovah, nor to lade themselves with the iniquity of trespass in eating their holy things, remembering that Jehovah it was that sanctified. Alas! it was just here they failed, not only as we have seen before their consecration was complete, but more and more till they became leaders, not only in profanation but in the grossest impurity (1Sa 2:12-22 ). And the prophetic word through a man of God game, that the high priest’s sons should both die in one day, and that Jehovah would raise up a faithful priest to do according to what was in His heart and in His mind, for whom He would build a sure house, Himself as King before His anointed for ever. Messiah is the only full answer to both Priest and King.
We as Christians know Him in a still more glorious position, not only in heaven but at the right hand of God on His throne. And we know Him as the Eternal Son, not merely as His Son in time, and as Son of man crowned with glory and honour. It is not, it is true, the many diadems of, the world to come, but the chaplet of a deeper and higher victory than those to be achieved and displayed in that day when the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah as the waters cover the sea. For it is ours to approach with boldness to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy, and find grace for seasonable help (Heb 4:16 ).
” Having therefore, brethren, boldness for entering the holies in virtue of the blood of Jesus, a new and living way which he dedicated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh, and [having] a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having been sprinkled as to our hearts from a wicked conscience, and washed as to the body with pure water” (Heb 10:19-22 ).
CHAPTER 16.
SANCTIFICATION REQUIRED OF PRIESTS AND PEOPLE:.
Lev 22:17-25 .
These verses join the sons of Aaron with the children of Israel in the injunctions of Jehovah the Mediator.
” 17 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 18 Speak to Aaron and to his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and say to them, If there be any man of the house of Israel, or of the sojourners in Israel, that presenteth his gift (corbon) for any of his voluntary offerings which they present to Jehovah as a burnt offering, 19 it shall be accepted for you without blemish, a male of the oxen, of the sheep, and of the goats. 20 Whatsoever hath a blemish shall ye not offer, for it shall not be acceptable for you. 21 And when a man offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings to Jehovah as a vow or an offering of the herds or of the Hocks, it shall be without blemish to be accepted: no defect shall be therein. 22 Blind or broken. or maimed or ulcerous or scurvy or scabbed, ye shall not offer these to Jehovah; and a fire offering shall ye not make of these on the altar to Jehovah. 23 A bullock and a sheep (or goat) that hath any limb superfluous or lacking that mayest thou offer as a voluntary offering; but as a vow it shall not be accepted. 24 That which is bruised or crushed or broken or cut shall ye not present to Jehovah; neither in your land shall ye do (so). 25 And from a stranger’s hand shall ye not offer the bread of your God from any of these; because their corruption [is] in them; a blemish [is] in them: they shall not be accepted for you” (vers. 17-25).
We can readily understand how prone the people were to forget His honour and all-seeing eye in presenting as an offering for His altar what was damaged or defective; and how disposed the priest would be to wink at such artifices. It was really a heinous transgression, and in effect denied His being the living God. Was the God of Israel such a one as His selfish and professed worshippers? This is indeed what sin implies; and especially in divine things.
But let us remember how much more wicked it is in a Christian whose very profession is to walk in the light as God is in the light. The true light already shines. Though not under law like Israel, we, once darkness, are made light in the Lord and are called to appear luminaries in a squalid world, holding forth the word of life. Surely we ought not to be in our relationship less careful than a Jew in his: the least that became either was to be honest before God and man. If not, the less we speak of grace, the better; nothing condemns looseness 80 much as the true grace of God.
Yet even the law tolerated a lower note in a voluntary peace offering, because man was there allowed an unusual place. Leavened bread, besides the unleavened cakes mingled with oil, was presented with the sacrifice of his peace offering of thanksgiving. But for a vow it was forbidden, as being strictly to Jehovah. Yet neither in wilderness nor in promised land was any thing abnormal permissible for acceptance. An unblemished male was imperative, as representing the Holy one of God. And a stranger had no more licence than an Israelite.
How plain that in every way perfection was not in, nor by, the Levitical priesthood. It was given of God provisionally for an earthly people, a dying priesthood for a dying people; for the people had the law given based upon it. If there had been perfection thereby, what need still that a different priest should arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be named according to the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there cometh to pass of necessity a change also of the law. . . . And it is yet more abundantly manifest, if according to the likeness of Melchizedek a different priest ariseth who hath not been constituted according to a law of fleshly commandment but according to power of indissoluble life. For he is testified, Thou [art] priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek. For there cometh to pass a disannulling of foregoing commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness (for the law made nothing perfect), and an inbringing of a better hope through which we draw near to God. Heb 7 .
CHAPTER 17.
ISRAEL’S SANCTIFICATION.
Lev 22:26-33 .
These are communications of Jehovah with a supplement of a general kind, and therefore spoken to Moses simply, not to the sons of Aaron as well as Aaron as in 1-16, and to Aaron and his sons, as well as to the sons of Israel as in 17-25. High priest and priests must beware of uncleanness on them in approaching to the holy things, on pain of being cut off from before Jehovah, for He it is that hallows them. But the offerers of any offering, vow or voluntary, must beware of defect in what they present. It is wholly unacceptable. To these rules is now added a final word.
” 26 And Jehovah spake to Moses, saying, 27 An ox, or a sheep, or a goat, when it is brought forth, shall be seven days under its dam; and from the eighth day and thenceforth it shall be accepted as a fire offering to Jehovah. 28 A cow or sheep – it and its young – shall ye not slaughter in one day. 29 And when ye sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to Jehovah, ye shall sacrifice for your acceptance. 30 On that day shall it be eaten; ye shall leave none of it until morning: I [am] Jehovah. 31 And ye shall observe my commandments and do them: I [am] Jehovah. 32 And ye shall not profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I [am] Jehovah that hallow you, 33 that brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I [am] Jehovah” (vers. 26-33).
” To everything is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens.” Man, Israelite, Christian, is apt to mistake. Besides, his true place is subjection and obedience. God Himself has an aim before Him which He puts before us. He would glorify the Second man whom the first is so prone to forget, even when be intends to honour God, who alone can judge infallibly of what pleases Him, and graciously lets us know it for our acquiescence.
Here the animal, when brought forth, must be seven days under its dam. It was otherwise in nature. The Jews say a sabbath must pass over it. Jehovah says from the eighth day and thenceforth it shall be accepted. It is not the test of creation or of the law which is the grand point, important as both are, but the witness of the all-important resurrection day, when He rose who is the Beginning, not the first but the Last Adam, Firstborn from among the dead, that He might have in all things the foremost place. Is it not His due?
Another injunction follows: ”a cow or a sheep – it, and its young – shall ye not slaughter in one day.” Jehovah cultivates seemliness in His people. If He commanded sacrifice strictly and reverently, it was both to make guilt and self-will felt and confessed, and yet more the One Saviour and only sacrifice of efficacy for sin before Him. But He also would have delicacy of feeling, even when a dumb or dead beast was concerned, as when He forbade seething a kid in the milk of its dam. All scripture is against the coarse brutality habitual to the heathen who knew not the true God.
Further, a sacrifice of thanksgiving, as involving right feelings and human sympathy, must be eaten on the same day; it must not be longer severed from the altar, and offering up, and Jehovah Himself: “I am Jehovah.” It is the salt that keeps pure. There must be faith, yet more than feeling which is human and at best evanescent.
How solemn, too, the repeated seal impressed on observing and doing His commands, “I am Jehovah.” Obedience is thus demanded, as profaning His holy name is quite forbidden, that He might be hallowed in His people. For indeed it was Jehovah hallowing them, He that brought them out of the land of Egypt to be their God: I am Jehovah. Such was their place as His people here below on the earth, a witness to the nations. Can any thing indeed be more empty from the nature of the case than the profession of God’s name without habitual reference to His word and obeying His will? Even an earthly law has its sanction if infringed, and what people call passive resistance is active evil and folly. Can men who profess the true God forget the solemnity of an everlasting judgment, not for ungodly deeds only but for ungodly words, as if they were independent of God, and their tongues or aught else were their own? If they walk in the ways of their defiled and defiling heart, and in the sight of their eyes which turn from the word of God, is it not indisputably just that for all these things God should bring men into judgment? How much more for despising His saving grace in Christ, which has appeared to all men, and enjoins men, that they all everywhere should repent and believe the glad tidings!
But Oh the love to us who through mercy believe already! Our place is deliverance out of this present evil age for association with Christ, not merely to reign with Him, but to be with Him where He is in the Father’s house. It is heavenly. We are not of the world as Christ is not.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
spake. See note on Lev 5:14.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 22
Now in the twenty-second chapter he deals with the priests and the things that they could eat. You see the things that were brought in sacrifice; a portion of them became meat for the priest. So the qualifications now are the rules regarding the sacrifices that he ate, only the priest and his family could eat them. They were not to give them out to strangers, or if he had company, he wasn’t to offer to the company the food that had been offered as a sacrifice to God, that was his portion as a priest. If he had a daughter who was divorced from her husband, and had moved back home, then she could eat it. Yet, it was only to be eaten by him and his immediate family. If he hired a servant, the hired servants couldn’t eat that food. But if he had purchased a slave, the purchased slave being a part of the household could eat then that food. So the various persons that could eat the food that belonged to the priest, as his part from the sacrifices that were made.
Then in verse seventeen, God is talking now about when you make a sacrifice unto the Lord. And when you give something unto God, that what you give is, first of all again, of your own free will, but you’re not to offer unto God any kind of animal that has a blemish. In other words, you weren’t to take your animals that were of no value and give them to God. God didn’t want the cast-offs. “Well, we don’t know what to do with it. We might as well give it to God.” God didn’t want it.
In years of ministry we have received just a lot of interesting kinds of things that people didn’t find any use for anymore. But they didn’t want to throw it away, and so we had one ugly, old rocking chair in the parsonage in Tucson. These people didn’t want it in their home because it was so old and ugly, but they didn’t want to throw it away because it was grandma’s rocking chair. She rocked all the kids in that chair before she died, and so it had a lot of sentimental value. So they gave it to the church, but we can’t give it away because it was grandma’s. You know it’s got to be out there, and it’s a mess to try to deal with those kinds of things. God didn’t want to be bothered, want the priest to hassle with those kinds of things, He said, “Look if it’s broken, if it’s blemished, don’t give it to God.” I think that’s a good rule. I think it’s sort of an affront to God to give Him something that has really no value to us.
In fact, you remember when David wanted to buy the threshing floor of Ornan in order to offer a sacrifice, and he wanted to buy the ox that was there. Ornan said, “Hey I’ll give it to you David.” David said, “Oh no, I won’t sacrifice to God that which cost me nothing.” David had very strong feelings about that. “I’m not gonna give to God something that didn’t cost me anything.” So God here declares that, “when you offer to God a burnt offering and all, it shall be without blemish”.
And whatever has a blemish you’re not to offer it, for it will not be accepted by God. It shall be perfect [verse twenty-one] to be accepted; there shall be no blemish therein. Therefore if you have an old blind lamb, or broken down ox, or maimed, or if it has a disease, or scurvy, or scabbed, don’t offer those to the Lord to make an offering by fire. Or any bullock or lamb that has any thing superfluous or lacking in his parts, [That is, if it was born a freak kind of an animal with two heads or something like that, you weren’t to offer it to God.] now you may offer it for a freewill offering if you want, but not for a vow because God won’t accept the vow. So ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised, crushed, broken, or cut; neither shall you make any offering thereof in your land. Neither from a stranger’s hand ( Lev 22:20-25 )
In other words, God just isn’t interested in broken down, scurried things to be offered to Him.
I read a story one time of a farmer who came into his wife all excited, and as he sat down, he said, “Well, a cow calved this morning and they’re twins. I’m just so excited I decided to give one of them to the Lord. So we’ll raise them together, and when they get old enough or big enough to sell, then one of them is the Lord’s, and whatever comes from it we’ll just give to the Lord.” So she said, “Oh that’s fine, honey. I think that’s a wonderful idea.” So she went out and looked at them, and she said, “Oh that’s great, now which one’s the Lord’s?” He said, “Oh, it really doesn’t make any difference.” So a few months went on, and he came in one morning. He wasn’t looking so good, she said, “What’s wrong?” He said, “Oh, the Lord’s calf died.”
I’m afraid that quite often we are like that with the Lord. We want to give of our surplus. You remember how Jesus was standing with His disciples one day, watching the people as they dropped their money in the treasury. The wealthy people were coming in and making their big ostentatious donations. In the crowd a little woman, widow woman came with a mite. Now there are ten mites to a penny. She dropped a mite into the treasury. Jesus turned to His disciples, and said, “She just put in the biggest gift of all.” “What do you mean Lord?” He said, “The rest of them were giving out of their abundance”, in other words it didn’t cost them anything to give, “but this woman has given of her very sustenance.”
So God doesn’t really measure your gift by the amount of what you have given. The measure that God puts on your giving is, “What did it cost you to give to God? What did it cost you?” That’s what God is looking at. Not at the amount of the gift. That’s never a consideration with God. Therefore some of the poorest of you will have the greatest rewards in heaven, who have given to God out of your very sustenance. Some of those who have made these large, great contributions to God will hardly be noticed in heaven. Because it didn’t hurt them, didn’t cost them, they just gave out of their abundance. It wasn’t costing them anything. In fact, it was a good tax write-off. So in giving to God, free will always, of his own will always. But then giving God the best, not the cast-offs, not that which you can’t use anymore, not that which really has no value to you, “Let’s give it to God” kind of a thing. But honoring God, showing our love to God, giving God the best that we have. It’s important indeed.
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Instructions already given are now repeated with greater detail and wider application. Not only must the priest himself be free from blemish and defilement, he must see to it that all that which he offered was to be of h e same character. Yet again, he was not to exercise hospitality toward those who were unclean or strangers to the covenant of the things which pertained to the House of his God.
These stringent instructions closed with a reaffirmation of the reason, which had been given in other connections, “I am Jehovah . . . I will be hallowed among the children of Israel.” Thus these people were never allowed to lose sight of the fact that the deepest purpose of their existence was the manifestation of the truth concerning God. All the degradation existing among the nations was due to the false ideas of God which characterized their life and worship. Jehovah is the God of holiness because He is essentially the God of love. These are the profoundest things that nations can learn. A people created for their manifestation must share in that holiness and in that love. Hence the absolute necessity for entire loyalty in personal life and relative conduct of the men who are to interpret to the surrounding nations the truth concerning God.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 22
1. Care to be exercised in holy things (Lev 22:1-16)
2. Care in the enforcement of the law of offerings (Lev 22:17-33)
Uncleanness such as mentioned in the first part of the chapter prohibited the partaking of holy things. Strangers who did not belong to the priestly house and even the married daughter of the priest, not living in the priestly household, were not permitted to eat of the offering of the holy things. Holy things have to be used in a reverent and holy way. The same principle holds good in the New Testament. We may well think here of the Lords table. Read 1Co 11:23-31. Coming to the Lords table to remember Him requires self-judgment.
The instruction concerning sacrifices, their unblemished character and what constitutes an acceptable offering are all of great interest with many spiritual lessons. But space forbids our enlarging upon them.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Reciprocal: Lev 5:15 – in the
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Lev 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 Lev 22:1 to Lev 22:17, which cautions served to remind them of that reverence and moral purity wherewith their worship ought to be paid to God.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Lev 22:4. Unclean. The injunctions in this and the following verses, though not literally binding on christians, yet the holy law from whence they emanate is not to be disregarded. Every infirmity which kept a Jew from the synagogue, does not debar a christian from the church. With regard also to bodily purity, the christian law requires every one to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour.
Lev 22:10. No stranger shall eat of holy things. Nor were they allowed to make any offerings to the Lord, as in Lev 22:25. These regulations placed the uncircumcised in a very humiliating situation. Some have endeavoured to qualify the law, by restricting the prohibition of not eating, to the priests portion; but without sufficient reason.
REFLECTIONS.
In the 7th, 13th, and 15th chapters of this book, the impurities which excluded people from the sacred altar were considered. The impurities of a priest are here considered again, that he might observe the precepts of the Lord, and not profane his worship, lest God, excusing sins of ignorance in another, should strike the priest with death. The ministers of religion should be very exact in their obedience to the divine precepts, because the Lord particularly requires, and the people expect them to be models of righteousness.
No alien could eat of the meat-offerings, though he were a hired servant of the priest; no, nor even his daughter, if married to a stranger. But a servant bought with money, or born in his house, and in covenant with God, might eat. And we being all aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, may learn hence the necessity of becoming regenerate and adopted into the family of God, before we can have claims to his covenant, and a right to the blessings of his house.
The strangers, and even the priests daughters when married to strangers, being thus excluded from eating of holy things, may farther teach us the awful state of the heathen world, and of all the infidels who despise the grace of the gospel. They are broken off from God, and have no right to the benefits of redemption; and though the Lord most assuredly will make allowance for their ignorance; yet those who live in places where they cannot be ignorant of the glory and grace of the gospel, seem not only excluded from holy things by figurative language, but are by a cloud of declarations cut off from the hope of Israel.
It is once more repeated here, that God required the best of the flock, and free from every blemish, to be offered in sacrifice. And as the heathen attended to this precept, we may conclude that it was given to the holy patriarchs. And what do we learn from it, but to be sincere in all we do for God. The want of this would be a blemish of the foulest kind. If the Lord required the best of the flocks and herds, the better to presignify the immaculate glory of Christ; surely he requires us to love him with all our heart and mind, and soul and strength. Let us obey his voice, for he is the Lord; that our persons and our works may be pleasing in his sight.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Leviticus 21 – 22
These chapters unfold, with great minuteness of detail, the divine requirements in reference to those who were privileged to draw near as priests to “offer the bread of their God.” In this, as in the preceding section, we have conduct as the result, not the procuring cause of the relationship. This should be carefully borne in mind. The sons of Aaron were, in virtue of their birth, priests unto God. They all stood in this relationship, one as well as another. It was not a matter of attainment, a question of progress, something which one had, and another had not. All the sons of Aaron were priests. They were born into a priestly place. Their capacity to understand and enjoy their position and its attendant privileges was, obviously, a different thing altogether. One might be a babe; and another might have reached the point of mature and vigorous manhood. The former would, of necessity, be unable to eat of the priestly food, being a babe for whom “milk” and not” strong meat” was adapted: but he was as truly a member of the priestly house as the man who could tread, with firm step, the courts of the Lord’s house, and feed upon “the wave breast” and “heave shoulder” of the sacrifice.
This distinction is easily understood in the case of the sons of Aaron, and, hence, it will serve to illustrate, in a very simple manner, the truth as to the members of the true priestly house over which our Great High Priest presides, and to which all true believers belong. (Heb. 3: 6) Every child of God is a priest. He is enrolled as a member of Christ’s priestly house. He may be very ignorant; but his position, as a priest, is not founded upon knowledge, but upon life. His experience may be very shallow; but his place as a priest does not depend upon experience, but upon life. His capacity may be very limited; but his relationship as a priest does not rest upon an enlarged capacity, but upon life. He was born into the position and relationship of a priest. He did not work himself thereinto. It was not by any efforts of his own that he became a priest. He became a priest by birth. The spiritual priesthood, together with all the spiritual functions attaching thereunto, is the necessary appendage to spiritual birth. The capacity to enjoy the privileges and to discharge the functions of a position must not be confounded with the position itself. They must ever be kept distinct. relationship is one thing; capacity is quite another.
Furthermore, in looking at the family of Aaron, we see that nothing could break the relationship between him and his sons. There were many things which would interfere with the full enjoyment of the privileges attaching to the relationship, A son of Aaron might “defile himself by the dead.” He might defile himself by forming an unholy alliance. He might have some bodily “blemish.” He might be “blind or lame.”‘ He might be “a dwarf.” Any of these things would have interfered, very materially, with his enjoyment of the privileges, and his discharge of the functions pertaining to his relationship, as we read, “No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish: he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and the holy; only he shall not go in unto the veil, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the Lord do sanctify them.” (Lev. 21: 21-23) But none of these things could possibly touch the fact of a relationship founded upon the established principles of human nature. Though a son of Aaron were a dwarf, that dwarf was a son of Aaron. True, he was, as a dwarf, shorn of many precious privileges and lofty dignities pertaining to the priesthood; but he was a son of Aaron all the while. He could neither enjoy the same measure or character of communion, nor yet discharge the same elevated functions of priestly Service, as one who had reached to manhood’s appointed stature; but he was a member of the priestly house, and, as such, permitted to “eat the bread of his God.” The relationship was genuine, though the development was so defective.
The spiritual application of all this is as simple as it is practical. To be a child of God, is one thing; to be in the enjoyment of priestly communion and priestly worship, is quite another. The latter is, alas! interfered with by many things. Circumstances and associations are allowed to act upon us by their defiling influence. We are not to suppose that all Christians enjoy the same elevation of walk, the same intimacy of fellowship, the same felt nearness to Christ. Alas! alas! they do not. Many of us have to mourn over our spiritual defects. There is lameness of walk, defective vision, stunted growth; or we show ourselves to be defiled by contact with evil, and to be weakened and hindered by unhallowed associations. In a word, as the sons of Aaron, though being priests by birth, were, nevertheless, deprived of many privileges through ceremonial defilement and physical defects; so we, though being priests unto God, by spiritual birth, are deprived of many of the high and holy privileges of our position, by moral defilement and spiritual defects. We are shorn of many of our dignities through defective spiritual development. We lack; singleness of eye, spiritual vigour, whole-hearted devotedness. Saved we are, through the free grace of God, on the ground of Christ’s perfect sacrifice. “We are all the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus;” but, then, salvation is one thing; communion is quite another. Sonship is one thing; obedience is quite another.
These things should be carefully distinguished. The section before us illustrates the distinction with great force and clearness. If one of the sons of Aaron happened to be “broken-footed, or broken-handed,” was he deprived of his sonship? Assuredly not. Was he deprived of his priestly position? By no means. It was distinctly declared, “He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy.” What, then, did he lose by his physical blemish? He was forbidden to tread some of the higher walks of priestly service and worship. “Only he shall not go in unto the veil, nor come nigh unto the altar.” These were very serious privations; and though it may be objected that a man could not help many of these physical defects, that did not alter the matter. Jehovah could not have a blemished priest at His altar, or a blemished sacrifice thereon. Both the priest and the sacrifice should be perfect. “No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire.” (Lev. 21: 22) “But whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer; for it shall not be acceptable for you.” (Lev. 22: 20)
Now, we have both the perfect priest, and the perfect sacrifice, in the Person of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. He, having “offered himself without spot to God,” passed into the heavens, as our great High Priest, where He ever liveth to make intercession for us. The Epistle to the Hebrews dwells elaborately upon these two points. It throws into vivid contrast the sacrifice and priesthood of the Mosaic system and the Sacrifice and Priesthood of Christ. In Him we have divine perfectness, whether as the Victim or as the Priest. We have all that God could require, and all that man could need. His precious blood has put away all our sins; and His all-prevailing intercession ever maintains us in all the perfectness of the place into which His blood has introduced us. “We are complete in him;” (Col. 2); and yet, so feeble and so faltering are we in ourselves; so full of failure and infirmity; so prone to err and stumble in our onward way, that we could not stand for a moment, were it not that “He ever lives to make intercession for us.” These things have been dwelt upon in the earlier chapters of this volume; and it is, therefore, needless to enter further upon them here. Those who have anything like correct apprehensions of the grand foundation truths of Christianity, and any measure of experience in the Christian life, will be able to understand how it is that, though “complete in him who is the head of all principality and power, they, nevertheless, need, while down here amid the infirmities, conflicts, and buffetings of earth, the powerful advocacy of their adorable and divine High Priest. The believer is “washed, sanctified, and justified. (1 Cor. 6) He is “accepted in the beloved.” (Eph. 1. 6) He can never come into judgement, as regards his person. (See John 5: 24, where the word is krisin and not katakrisin) Death and judgement are behind him, because he is united to Christ who has passed through them both, on his behalf and in his stead. All these things are divinely true of the very weakest, most unlettered, and inexperienced member of the family of God; but yet, inasmuch as he caries about with him a nature so incorrigibly bad, and so irremediably ruined, that no discipline can correct it, and no medicine cure it, inasmuch as he is the tenant of a body of sin and death – as he is surrounded, on all sides, by hostile influences – as he is called to cope, perpetually, with the combined forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil – he could never keep his ground, much less make progress, were he not upheld by the all-prevailing intercession of his great High Priest, who bears the names of His people upon His breast and upon His shoulder.
Some, I am aware, have found great difficulty in reconciling the idea of the believer’s perfect standing in Christ with the need of priesthood. “If,” it is argued, “he is perfect, what need has he of a priest?” The two things are as distinctly taught in the word as they are compatible one with another, and understood in the experience of every rightly-instructed Christian. It is of the very last importance to apprehend, with clearness and accuracy, the perfect harmony between these two points. The believer is perfect in Christ; but, in himself, he is a poor feeble creature, ever liable to fall. Hence, the unspeakable blessedness of having One who can manage all his affairs for him, at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens – One who upholds him continually by the right hand of His righteousness – One who will never let him go – One who is able to save to the uttermost – One who is “the same yesterday, today, and for ever” – One who will bear him triumphantly through all the difficulties and dangers which surround him; and, finally, “present him faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” Blessed for ever be the grace that has made such ample provision for all our need in the blood of a Spotless Victim and the intercession of a divine High Priest!
Dear christian reader, let it be our care so to walk, so to “keep ourselves unspotted from the world,” so to stand apart from all unhallowed associations, that we may enjoy the highest privileges and discharge the most elevated functions of our position as members of the priestly house of which Christ is the Head. We have “boldness to enter into the holiest, through the blood of Jesus” – “we have a great High Priest over the house of God.” (Heb. 10) Nothing can ever rob us of these privileges. But, then, our communion may be marred – our worship may be hindered – our holy functions may remain undischarged. Those ceremonial matters against which the sons of Aaron were warned, in the section before us, have their antitypes in the Christian economy. Had they to be warned against unholy contact? So have we. Had they to be warned against unholy alliance? So have we. Had they to be warned against all manner of ceremonial uncleanness? So have we to be warned against “all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” (1 Cor. 7) Were they shorn of many of their loftiest priestly privileges by bodily blemish and imperfect natural growth! So are we, by moral blemish, and imperfect spiritual growth.
Will any one venture to call in question the practical importance of such principles as these? Is it not obvious that the more highly we estimate the blessings which attach to that priestly house of which we have been constituted members, in virtue of our spiritual birth, the more carefully shall we guard against everything which might tend in any wise, to rob us of their enjoyment? Undoubtedly. And this it is which renders the close study of our section so pre-eminently practical. May we feel its power, through the application of God the Holy Ghost! Then shall we enjoy our priestly place. Then shall we faithfully discharge our priestly functions. We shall be able “to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.” (Rom. 12: 1) We shall be able to “offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.” (Heb. 13: 15) We shall be able, as members of the “spiritual house” and the “holy priesthood,” to “offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2: 5) We shall be able, in some small degree, to anticipate that blissful time when, from a redeemed creation, the hallelujahs of intelligent and fervent praise shall ascend to the throne of God and the Lamb throughout the everlasting ages.
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Lev 22:1-8. Further Restrictions as to the priests use of holy things, i.e. objects sacrificed or vowed. Temporary uncleanness, touching a corpse (Num 5:2*) or an unclean object, as distinct from bodily defects, prevents priests from eating these things, while it lasts. This rule applies to leprosy, which is also (Leviticus 14) temporary. Animals which have died naturally or been killed by other animals are not to be eaten at all by the priests (cf. on Lev 17:15, also Lev 7:24). The rule is found also in Eze 44:31.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
NO PROFANING OF SEPARATED THINGS (vv. 1-16)
Aaron and his sons were always in close proximity to those things that had been separated for sacred purposes. They were therefore to be careful as to their contact with these things, lest they should profane the name of the Lord. If one had contacted any uncleanness, he must be cleansed from this before touching the holy things. A number of things are listed as to what would make one unclean.
This was only ceremonial uncleanness, but is, as we have seen before, symbolical of moral or spiritual uncleanness. Cleansing would not be complete until evening. In cases of leprosy, the time was longer, with offerings being made (Lev 14:1-57). But in all cases one was to bathe and wash his clothes, as we find elsewhere (Lev 15:1-33), and in some cases the time for cleansing was longer than in others.
Often now a person may intuitively realize that his moral or spiritual condition is such that he ought to avoid any handling of spiritual things. If we are in an unclean moral state, how much better is this avoidance than any hypocritical pretense of religious observance! At least the person will realize the need of being cleansed.
If an animal died or was killed by beasts, it was not to be eaten (v. 8). In this case it had not been offered before the Lord. Also, only the priests and their families were to eat of the holy things. No hired servant was allowed to eat (v. 10). Yet if the priest bought a person, that person was privileged to eat the priest’s fare. A hired servant is one who serves for wages, while the one bought is fully the possession of his master, as true believers today belong fully to the Lord. They do not serve for gain, but because they are His.
If a priest’s daughter was married to one who was not of the priestly family, she could no longer eat of the holy things (v. 12), yet if she was widowed or divorced, having no children, and returned to live with her father, she would be allowed to eat her father’s food (v. 13).
If one should eat holy food, being unaware that it was holy, then afterward he must restore the same amount as an offering for the priest and add the fifth part to it (v. 14).
All of these things should press upon us the importance of Heb 10:22 : Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. To give God His place of supreme honor, a place of pure holiness and sanctification, is a matter we must not dare to overlook. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts (1Pe 4:15).
UNBLEMISHED SACRIFICES (vv. 17-25)
The Lord now instructs Moses to address Aaron and his sons and all the children of Israel, to insist that even free will burnt offerings must be free from blemishes. For some might think that, though the compulsory offerings for sin and trespass must be without defect, yet this might not be required if the offering was giving voluntarily. But the burnt offering was offered primarily for God’s glory, and no defect was to be allowed (vv. 18-20).
The peace offering might be offered to fulfill a vow, or as a free will offering. No defect was to be allowed in such cases either, except that a bull or a lamb that had a limb too long or too short could be allowed for a free will offering, but not for a vow (vv. 21-23). But no animal that had been bruised or crushed or torn or cut was acceptable for any sacrifice. The same law must be applied to a foreigner who desired to offer anything to God (v. 25).
FURTHER CONDITIONS OF ACCEPTABLE OFFERINGS (vv. 26-32)
The Lord adds conditions that are interesting as regards the acceptability of any offering. When a bull, sheep or a goat was born it must be allowed seven days with its mother before being used as an offering. Also, the mother was not to be killed on the same day as her offspring (vv. 26-28). No doubt it will take spiritual discernment to understand the spiritual significance of these things.
The peace offering of a thanksgiving is singled out also (vv. 29-30), to insist that it was to be offered entirely voluntarily and eaten the same day it was offered, with nothing allowed to remain over night. This is repeated from Lev 7:15. Just as God’s mercies are new every morning (Lam 3:22-23), so our occasions of thanksgiving should be always new and fresh.
Therefore, even what seemed to be the least of God’s commandments were to be carefully observed, that God’s name should not be profaned, but hallowed by His people, for He had brought them out of Egypt (vv. 31-33).
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
3. The third list of regulations for priests ch. 22
The previous section (Lev 21:16-24) named physical impediments that prohibited some priests from offering sacrifices. This one identifies the circumstances under which priests could neither officiate at the sacrifices nor eat priestly food. Twenty-eight selected laws (7 x 4) compose this section.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Things that profane a priest 22:1-9
A selection of seven laws appears between a brief introduction (Lev 22:1-2) and a conclusion (Lev 22:9). The priests could, of course, become defiled like any other Israelites, but no priest who had become ceremonially unclean was to touch or eat the holy things (the tabernacle furniture, sacrifices, etc.).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE LAW OF PRIESTLY HOLINESS
Lev 21:1-24; Lev 22:1-33
THE conception of Israel as a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, was concretely represented in a threefold division of the people, -the congregation, the priesthood, and the high priest. This corresponded to the threefold division of the tabernacle into the outer court, the holy place, and the holy of holies, each in succession more sacred than the place preceding. So while all Israel was called to be a priestly nation, holy to Jehovah in life and service, this sanctity was to be represented in degrees successively higher in each of these three divisions of the people, culminating in the person of the high priest, who, in token of this fact, wore upon his forehead the inscription, “HOLINESS TO JEHOVAH.”
Up to this point the law of holiness has dealt only with such obligations as bore upon all the priestly nation alike; in these two chapters we now have the special requirements of this law in its yet higher demands upon, first, the priests, and, secondly, the high priest.
Abolished as to the letter, this part of the law still holds good as to the principle which it expresses, namely that special spiritual privilege and honour places him to whom it is given under special obligations to holiness of life. As contrasted with the world without, it is not then enough that Christians should be equally correct and moral in life with the best men of the world; though too many seem to be living under that impression. They must be more than this; they must be holy: God will wink at things in others which He will not deal lightly with in them. And, so, again, within the Church, those who occupy various positions of dignity as teachers and rulers of Gods flock are just in that degree laid under the more stringent obligation to holiness of life and walk. This most momentous lesson confronts us at the very opening of this new section of the law, addressed specifically to “the priests, the sons of Aaron.” How much it is needed is sufficiently and most sadly evident from the condition of baptized Christendom today. Who is there that will heed it?
Priestly holiness was to be manifested, first (Lev 21:1-15), in regard to earthly relations of kindred and friendship. This is illustrated under three particulars, namely, in mourning for the dead (Lev 21:1-6), in marriage (Lev 21:7-8), and (Lev 21:9) in the maintenance of purity in the priests family. With regard to the first point, it is ordered that there shall be no defilement for the dead, except in the case of the priests own family, -father, mother, brother, unmarried sister, son, or daughter. That is, with the exception of these cases, the priest, though he may mourn in his heart, is to take no part in any of those last offices which others render to the dead. This were “to profane himself.” And while the above exceptions are allowed in the case of members of his immediate household, even in these cases he is specially charged (Lev 21:5) to remember, what was indeed elsewhere forbidden to every Israelite, that such excessive demonstrations of grief as shaving the head, cutting the flesh, etc., were most unseemly in a priest. These restrictions are expressly based upon the fact that he is “a chief man among his people,” that he is holy unto God, appointed to offer “the bread of God, the offerings made by fire.” And inasmuch as the high priest, in the highest degree of all, represents the priestly idea, and is thus admitted into a peculiar and exclusive intimacy of relation with God, having on him “the crown of the anointing oil of his God,” and having been consecrated to put on the “garments for glory and for beauty,” worn by none other in Israel, with him the prohibition of all public acts of mourning is made absolute (Lev 21:10-12). He may not defile himself, for instance, by even entering the house where lies the dead body of a father or a mother!
These regulations, at first thought, to many will seem hard and unnatural. Yet this law of holiness elsewhere magnifies and guards with most jealous care the family relation, and commands that even the neighbour we shall love as ourselves. Hence it is certain that these regulations cannot have been intended to condemn the natural feelings of grief at the loss of friends, but only to place them under certain restrictions. They were given, not to depreciate the earthly relationships of friendship and kindred, but only to magnify the more the dignity and significance of the priestly relation to God, as far transcending even the most sacred relations of earth. As priest, the son of Aaron was the servant of the Eternal God, of God the Holy and the Living One, appointed to mediate from Him the grace of pardon and life to those condemned to die. Hence he must never forget this himself, nor allow others to forget it. Hence he must maintain a special, visible separation from death, as everywhere the sign of the presence and operation of sin and unholiness; and while he is not forbidden to mourn, he must mourn with a visible moderation; the more so that if his priesthood had any significance, it meant that death for the believing and obedient Israelite was death in hope. And then, besides all this, God had declared that He Himself would be the portion and inheritance of the priests. For the priest therefore to mourn, as if in losing even those nearest and dearest on earth he had lost all, were in outward appearance to fail in witness to the faithfulness of God to His promises, and His all-sufficiency as his portion.
Standing here, will we but listen, we can now hear the echo of this same law of priestly holiness from the New Testament, in such words as these, addressed to the whole priesthood of believers: “He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me”; “Let those that have wives be as though they had none, and those that weep as though they wept not”; “Concerning them that fall asleep sorrow not, even as the rest, which have no hope.” As Christians we are not forbidden to mourn; but because a royal priesthood to the God of life, who raised up the Lord Jesus, and ourselves looking also for the resurrection, ever with moderation and self-restraint. Extravagant demonstrations of sorrow, whether in dress or in prolonged separation from the sanctuary and active service of God, as the manner of many is, are all as contrary to the New Testament law of holiness as to that of the Old. When bereaved, we are to call to mind the blessed fact of our priestly relation to God, and in this we shall find a restraint and a remedy for excessive and despairing grief. We are to remember that the law for the High Priest is the law for all His priestly house; like Him, they must all be perfected for the priesthood by sufferings; so that, in that they themselves suffer, being tried, they may be able the better to succour others that are tried in like manner. {2Co 1:4 Heb 2:18} We are also to remember that as priests to God, this God of eternal life and love is Himself our satisfying portion, and with holy care take heed that by no immoderate display of grief we even seem before men to traduce His faithfulness and belie to unbelievers His glorious all-sufficiency.
The holiness of the priesthood was also to be represented visibly in the marriage relation. A priest must marry no woman to whose fair fame attaches the slightest possibility of suspicion, -no harlot, or fallen woman, or a woman divorced (Lev 21:7); such an alliance were manifestly most unseemly in one “holy to his God.” As in the former instance, the high priest is still further restricted; he may not marry a widow, but only “a virgin of his own people” (Lev 21:14); for virginity is always in Holy Scripture the peculiar type of holiness. As a reason it is added that this were to “profane his seed among his people”; that is, it would be inevitable that by neglect of this care the people would come to regard his seed with a diminished reverence as the separated priests of the holy God. From observing the practice of many who profess to be Christians, one would naturally infer that they can never have suspected that there was anything in this part of the law which concerns the New Testament priesthood of believers. How often we see a young man or a young woman professing to be a disciple of Christ, a member of Christs royal priesthood, entering into marriage alliance with a confessed unbeliever in Him. And yet the law is laid down as explicitly in the New Testament as in the Old, {1Co 7:39} that marriage shall be only “in the Lord”; so that one principle rules in both dispensations. The priestly line must, as far as possible, be kept pure; the holy man must have a holy wife. Many, indeed, feel this deeply and marry accordingly; but the apparent thoughtlessness on the matter of many more is truly astonishing, and almost incomprehensible.
And the household of the priest were to remember the holy standing of their father. The sin of the child of a priest was to be punished more severely than that of the children of others; a single illustration is given (Lev 21:9): “The daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the harlot, shall be burnt with fire.” And the severity of the penalty is justified by this, that by her sin “she profaneth her father.” From which it appears that, as a principle of the Divine judgment, if the children of believers sin, their guilt will be judged more heavy than that of others: and that justly, because to their sin this is added, over like sin of others, that they thereby cast dishonour on their believing parents, and in them soil and defame the honor of God. How little is this remembered by many in these days of increasing insubordination even in Christian families!
The priestly holiness was to be manifested, in the second place, in physical, bodily perfection. It is written (Lev 21:17): “Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed throughout their generations that hath a blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.”
And then follows (Lev 21:18-20) a list of various cases in illustration of this law, with the proviso (Lev 21:21-23) that while such a person might not perform any priestly function, he should not be debarred from the use of the priestly portion, whether of things “holy” or “most holy,” as his daily food. The material and bodily is ever the type and symbol of the spiritual; hence, in this case, the spiritual purity and perfection required of him who would draw near to God in the priests office must be visibly signified by his physical perfection; else the sanctity of the tabernacle were profaned. Moreover, the reverence due from the people toward Jehovahs sanctuary could not well be maintained where a dwarf, for instance, or a humpback, were ministering at the altar. And yet the Lord has for such a heart of kindness; in kindly compassion He will not exclude them from His table. Like Mephibosheth at the table of David, the deformed priest may still eat at the table of God.
There is a thought here which bears on the administration of the affairs of Gods house even now. We are reminded that there are those who, while undoubtedly members of the universal Christian priesthood, and thus lawfully entitled to come to the table of the Lord, may yet be properly regarded as disabled and debarred by various circumstances, for which, in many cases, they may not be responsible, from any eminent position in the Church.
In the almost unrestrained insistence of many in this day for “equality,” there are indications not a few of a contempt for the holy offices ordained by Christ for His Church, which would admit an equal right on the part of almost any who may desire it, to be allowed to minister in the Church in holy things. But as there were dwarfed and blinded sons of Aaron, so are there not a few Christians who-evidently, at least to all but themselves – are spiritually dwarfs or deformed; subject to ineradicable and obtrusive constitutional infirmities, such as utterly disqualify, and should preclude, them from holding any office in the holy Church of Christ. The presence of such in her ministry can only now, as of old, profane the sanctuaries of the Lord.
The next section of the law of holiness for the priests {Lev 22:1-16} requires that the priests, as holy unto Jehovah, treat with most careful reverence all those holy things which are their lawful portion. If, in any way, any priest have incurred ceremonial defilement, -as, for instance, by an issue, or by the dead, -he is not to eat until he is clean (Lev 21:2-7). On no account must he defile himself by eating of that which is unclean, such as that which has died of itself, or has been torn by beasts (Lev 21:8), which indeed was forbidden even to the ordinary Israelite. Furthermore, the priests are charged that they preserve the sanctity of Gods house by carefully excluding all from participation in the priests portion who are not of the priestly order. The stranger or sojourner in the priests house, or a hired servant, must not be fed from this “bread of God”; not even a daughter, when, having married, she has left the fathers home to form a family of her own, can be allowed to partake of it (Lev 21:12). If, however (Lev 21:13), she be parted from her husband by death or divorce, and have no child, and return to her fathers house, she then becomes again a member of the priestly family, and resumes the privileges of her virginity.
All this may seem, at first, remote from any present use; and yet it takes little thought to see that, in principle, the New Testament law of holiness requires, under a changed form, even the same reverent use of Gods gifts, and especially of the holy Supper of the Lord, from every member of the Christian priesthood. It is true that in some parts of the Church a superstitious dread is felt with regard to approach to the Lords Table, as if only the conscious attainment of a very high degree of holiness could warrant one in coming. But, however such a feeling is to be deprecated, it is certain that it is a less serious wrong, and argues not so ill as to the spiritual condition of a man as the easy carelessness with which multitudes partake of the Lords Supper, nothing disturbed, apparently, by the recollection that they are living in the habitual practice of known sin, unconfessed, unforsaken, and therefore unforgiven. As it was forbidden to the priest to eat of those holy things which were his rightful portion, with his defilement or uncleanness on him, till he should first be cleansed, no less is it now a violation of the law of holiness for the Christian to come to the Holy Supper having on his conscience unconfessed and unforgiven sin. No less truly than the violation of this ancient law is this a profanation, and who so desecrates the holy food must bear his sin.
And as the sons of Aaron were charged by this law of holiness that they guard the holy things from the participation of any who were not of the priestly house, so also is the obligation on every member of the New Testament Church, and especially on those who are in official charge of her holy sacraments, that they be careful to debar from such participation the unholy and profane. It is true that it is possible to go to an extreme in this matter which is unwarranted by the Word of God. Although participation in the Holy Supper is of right only for the regenerate, it does not follow, as in some sections of the Church has been imagined, that the Church is therefore required to satisfy herself as to the undoubted regeneration of those who may apply for membership and fellowship in this privilege. So to read the heart as to be able to decide authoritatively on the regeneration of every applicant for Church membership is beyond the power of any but the Omniscient Lord, and is not required in the Word. The Apostles received and baptised men upon their credible profession of faith and repentance, and entered into no inquisitorial cross-examination as to the details of the religious experience of the candidate. None the less, however, the law of holiness requires that the Church, under this limitation, shall to the uttermost of her power be careful that no one unconverted and profane shall sit at the Holy Table of the Lord. She may admit upon profession of faith and repentance, but she certainly is bound to see to it that such profession shall be credible; that is, such as may be reasonably believed to be sincere and genuine. She is bound, therefore, to satisfy herself in such cases, so far as possible to man, that the life of the applicant, at least externally, witnesses to the genuineness of the profession. If we are to beware of imposing false tests of Christian character, as some have done, for instance, in the use or disuse of things indifferent, we are, on the other hand, to see to it that we do apply such tests as the Word warrants, and firmly exclude all such as insist upon practices which are demonstrably, in themselves always wrong, according to the law of God.
No man who has any just apprehension of Scriptural truth can well doubt that we have here a lesson which is of the highest present day importance. When one goes out into the world and observes the practices in which many whom we meet at the Lords Table habitually indulge, whether in business or in society, -the crookedness in commercial dealings and sharp dealing in trade, the utter dissipation in amusement, of many Church members, -a spiritual man cannot but ask, Where is the discipline of the Lords house? Surely, this law of holiness applies to a multitude of such cases; and it must be said that when such eat of the holy things, they “profane them”; and those who, in responsible charge of the Lords Table, are careless in this matter, “cause them to bear the iniquity that bringeth guilt, when they eat their holy things” (Lev 21:16). That word of the Lord Jesus certainly applies in this case: {Mat 18:7} “It must needs be that occasions of stumbling come; but woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh!”
The last section of the law concerning priestly holiness {Lev 22:17-33} requires the maintenance of jealous care in the enforcement of the law of offerings. Inasmuch as, in the nature of the case, while it rested with the sons of Aaron to enforce this law, the obligation concerned every offerer, this section (Lev 22:17-25) is addressed also (Lev 22:18) “unto all the children of Israel.” The first requirement concerned the perfection of the offering; it must be (Lev 22:19-20) “without blemish.” Only one qualification is allowed to this law, namely, in the case of the free-will offering (Lev 22:23), in which a victim was allowed which, otherwise perfect, had something “superfluous or lacking in his parts.” Even this relaxation of the law was not allowed in the case of an offering brought in payment of a vow; hence Malachi, {Mal 1:14} in allusion to this law, sharply denounces the man who “voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing.” Lev 22:25 provides that this law shall be enforced in the case of the foreigner, who may wish to present an offering to Jehovah, no less than with the Israelite.
A third requirement (Lev 22:27) sets a minimum limit to the age of a sacrificial victim; it must not be less than eight days old. The reason of this law, apart from any mystic or symbolic meaning, is probably grounded in considerations of humanity, requiring the avoidance of giving unnecessary suffering to the dam. A similar intention is probably to be recognised in the additional law (Lev 22:28) that the cow, or ewe, and its young should not both be killed in one day; though it must be confessed that the matter is somewhat obscure. Finally, the law closes (Lev 22:29-30) with the repetition of the command {Lev 7:15} requiring that the flesh of the sacrifice of thanksgiving be eaten on the same day in which it is offered. The slightest possibility of beginning corruption is to be precluded in such cases with peculiar strictness.
This closing section of the law of holiness, which so insists that the regulations of Gods law in regard to sacrifice shall be scrupulously observed, in its inner principle forbids all departures in matter of worship from any express Divine appointment or command. We fully recognise the fact that, as compared with the old dispensation, the New Testament allows in the conduct and order of worship a far larger liberty than then. But, in our age, the tendency, alike in politics and in religion, is to the con-. founding of liberty and license. Yet they are not the same, but are most sharply contrasted. Liberty is freedom of action within the bounds of Divine law; license recognises no limitation to human action, apart from enforced necessity, -no law save mans own will and pleasure. It is therefore essential lawlessness, and therefore is sin in its most perfect and consummate expression. But there is law in the New Testament as well as in the Old. Because the New Testament lays down but few laws concerning the order of Divine worship, it does not follow that these few are of no consequence, and that men may worship in all respects just as they choose and equally please God.
To illustrate this matter: It does not follow, because the New Testament allows large liberty as regards the details of worship, that therefore we may look upon the use of images or pictures in connection with worship as a matter of indifference. If told that these are merely used as an aid to devotion, -the very argument which in all ages has been used by all idolaters, -we reply that, be that as it may, it is an aid which is expressly prohibited under the heaviest penal sanctions in both Testaments. We may take another present day illustration, which, especially in the American Church, is of special pertinence. One would say that it should be self-evident that no ordinance of the Church should be more jealously guarded from human alteration or modification than the most sacred institution of the sacramental Supper. Surely it should be allowed that the Lord alone should have the right to designate the symbols of His own death in this most holy ordinance. That He chose and appointed for this purpose bread and wine, even the fermented juice of the grape, has been affirmed by the practically unanimous consensus of Christendom for almost nineteen hundred years; and it is not too much to say that this understanding of the Scripture record is sustained by the no less unanimous judgment of truly authoritative scholarship even today. Neither can it be denied that Christ ordained this use of wine in the Holy Supper with the most perfect knowledge of the terrible evils connected with its abuse in all ages. All this being so, how can it but contravene this principle of the law of holiness, which insists upon the exact observance of the appointments which the Lord has made for His own worship, when men, in the imagined interest of “moral reform,” presume to attempt improvements in this holy ordinance of the Lord, and substitute for the wine which He chose to make the symbol of His precious blood, something else, of different properties, for the use of which the whole New Testament affords no warrant? We speak with full knowledge of the various plausible arguments which are pressed as reasons why the Church should authorise this nineteenth-century innovation. No doubt, in many cases, the change is urged through a misapprehension as to the historical facts, which, however astonishing to scholars, is at least real and sincere. But whenever any, admitting the facts as to the original appointment, yet seriously propose, as so often of late years, to improve on the Lords arrangements for His own Table, we are bold to insist that the principle which underlies this part of the priestly law of holiness applies in full force in this case, and cannot therefore be rightly set aside. Strange, indeed, it is that men should unthinkingly hope to advance morality by ignoring the primal principle of all holiness, that Christ, the Son of God, is absolute and supreme Lord over all His people, and especially in all that pertains to the ordering of His own house!
We have in these days great need to beseech the Lord that He may deliver us, in all things, from that malign epidemic of religious lawlessness which is one of the plagues of our age; and raise up a generation who shall so understand their priestly calling as Christians, that, no less in all that pertains to the offices of public worship, than in their lives as individuals they shall take heed, above all things, to walk according to the principles of this law of priestly holiness. For, repealed although it be as to the outward form of the letter, yet in the nature of the case, as to its spirit and intention, it abides, and must abide, in force unto the end. And the great argument also, with which, after the constant manner of this law, this section closes, is also, as to its spirit, valid still, and even of greater force in its New Testament form than of old. For we may now justly read it in this wise: “Ye shall not profane My holy name, but I will be hallowed among My people: I am the Lord that hallow you, that have redeemed you by the cross, to be your God.”