Ezekiel 44:27

The priests had to avoid contact with death. They could not enter a place where a dead body was present. They also could not follow certain mourning customs, such as shaving their heads or letting their hair grow wild.

They were not allowed to drink wine before entering the inner courtyard. This rule helped prevent serious mistakes that could lead to death (see Leviticus 10:9).

The priests also had rules about marriage. They could marry only a virgin from Israel or the widow of a priest. These limits helped protect the purity of the priestly family line.

In all these ways, the priests were to show the people the clear difference between what was holy and what was common, and between what was clean and what was unclean.

Now that the glory of the Lord had returned to the temple, access was critical. Who could approach this holy God? Like Ezekiel 43, this chapter focuses on the temple’s entrances and exits, as well as the duties and procedures for its use.

Neither . . . wine--lest the holy enthusiasm of their devotion should be mistaken for inebriation, as in Peter's case (Act 2:13, Act 2:15, Act 2:18).

God's priests must be regulars, not seculars; and therefore here are rules laid down for them to govern themselves by and due encouragement given them to live up to those rules. Directions are here given,
I. Concerning their clothes; they must wear linen garments when they went in to minister or do any service in the inner court, or in the sanctuary, and nothing that was woollen, because it would cause sweat, Eze 44:17, Eze 44:18. They must dress themselves cool, that they might go the more readily about their work; and they had the more need to do so because they were to attend the altars, which had constant fires upon them. And they must dress themselves clean and sweet, and avoid every thing that was sweaty and filthy, to signify the purity of mind with which the service of God is to be attended to. Sweat came in with sin and was part of the curse. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. Clothes came in with sin, coats of skins did; and therefore the priests must use as little and as light clothing as possible, and not such as caused sweat. When they had finished their service they must change their clothes again, and lay up their linen garments in the chambers appointed for that purpose, Eze 44:19, as before, Eze 42:14. They must not go among the people with their holy garments on, lest they should imagine themselves sanctified by the touch of them; or, They shall sanctify the people, that is (as it is explained, Eze 42:14), they shall approach to those things which are for the people, in their ordinary garments.
II. Concerning their hair; in that they must avoid extremes on both hands (Eze 44:20): They must not shave their heads, in imitation of the Gentile priests, and as the priests of the Romish church do; nor, on the other hand, must they suffer their locks to grow long, as the beaux, or that they might be thought Nazarites, when really they were not; but they must be grave and modest, must poll their heads and keep their hair short. If a man, especially a minister, wear long hair, it is not becoming (Co1 11:14); it is effeminate.
III. Concerning their diet; they must be sure to drink no wine when they went in to minister, lest they should rink to excess, should drink and forget the law, Eze 44:21. It is not for kings to drink wine, more than will do them good, much less for priests. See Lev 10:9; Pro 31:4, Pro 31:5.
IV. Concerning their marriages, Eze 44:22. Here they must consult the credit of their office, and not marry one that had been divorced, that was at least under the suspicion of immodesty, nor a widow, unless she were a priest's widow, that had been accustomed to the usages of the priests' families. Others may do that which ministers may not do, but must deny themselves in, in honour of their character. Their wives as well as themselves must be of good report.
V. Concerning their preaching and church-government. 1. It was part of their business to teach the people; and herein they must approve themselves both skilful and faithful (Eze 44:23): They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the profane, between good and evil, lawful and unlawful, that they may neither scruple what is lawful nor venture upon what is unlawful, that they may not pollute what is holy nor pollute themselves with what is profane. Ministers must take pains to cause people to discern between the clean and the unclean, that they may not confound the distinctions between right and wrong, nor mistake concerning them, so as to put darkness for light and light for darkness, but may have a good judgment of discretion concerning their own actions. 2. It was part of their business to judge upon appeals made to them (Deu 17:8, Deu 17:9); and in controversy they shall stand in judgment, Eze 44:24. They shall have the honesty to stand up for what is right, and, when they have passed a right judgment, shall have the courage to stand to it and stand by it. They must judge, not according to their own fancies, or inclinations, or secular interests, but according to my judgments; that must be their rule and standard. Note, Ministers must decide controversies according to the word of God, to the law and to the testimony. Sit liber judex - Let the judge be unbiased. Their business is to keep courts in God's name, to preside in the congregations of his people. And herein they must go to the statute-book: They shall keep my statutes in all my assemblies. God calls the assemblies of his people his assemblies, because they are held in his name, to his glory. Ministers are the masters of those assemblies, are to preside in them, and in all their acts must keep close to God's laws. Another part of their work, as church governors, is to hallow God's sabbaths, to do the public work of that day with a becoming care and reverence, as the work of a holy day should be done, and to see that God's people also sanctify that day and do nothing to pollute it.
VI. Concerning their mourning for dead relations; the rule here agrees with the law of Moses, Lev 21:1, Lev 21:11. A priest shall not come near any dead body (for they must be purified from dead works) except of his next relations, Eze 44:25. Decent expressions of a pious sorrow for dear relations, when they are removed by death, are not disagreeable to the character of a minister. Yet by this approach to the dead body of a relation they contracted a ceremonial pollution, from which they must be cleansed by a sin-offering before they went in again to minister, Eze 44:26, Eze 44:27. Note, Though sorrow for the dead is very allowable and commendable, yet there is danger of sinning in it, either by excess or dissimulation; and those tears have too often need to be wept over again.
VII. Concerning their maintenance; they must live upon the altar at which they served, and live comfortably (Eze 44:28): "You shall give them no possession in Israel, no lands or tenements, lest they should be entangled with the affairs of this life;" for God has said, I am their inheritance, and they need no other in reserve; I am their possession, and they need no other in hand. Some land was allowed them (Eze 48:10), but their principal subsistence was by their office. What God appropriated to himself they were the receivers of, for their own proper use and behoof; they lived upon the holy things, and so God himself was the portion both of their inheritance and of their cup. Note, Those who have God for their inheritance and their possession may be content with a little, and ought not to covet a great deal of the possessions and inheritances of this earth. If we have God, we have all; and therefore may well reckon that we have enough. Observe,
1. What the priests were to have from the people, for their maintenance and encouragement. (1.) They must have the flesh of many of the offerings, the sin-offering and trespass-offering, which would supply them and their families with flesh-meat, and the meat-offerings, which would supply them with bread. What we offer to God will redound to our own advantage. (2.) They must have every dedicated devoted thing in Israel, which was in many cases to be turned into money and given to the priest. This is explained, Eze 44:20. Every oblation or free-will offering (which in times of reformation and devotion would be many and considerable) of all, of every sort of your oblations, shall be the priest's. We have the law concerning them Lev. 27. (3.) They were to have the first of the dough when it was going to the oven, as well as the first of their fruits when they were going to the barn. God, who is the first, must have the first; and, if it belong to him, his priests must have it. We may then comfortably enjoy what we have, when a share of it has been first set apart for works of piety and charity. To this the apostle's rule bears some analogy, to begin the week with laying by for pious uses, Co1 16:2. The priests being so well provided for, it would be inexcusable in them if they (contrary to the law which every Israelite is bound by) should eat that which is torn or which died of itself, Eze 44:31. Those that were in want of necessary food might perhaps expect to be dispensed with in such a case. Poverty has its temptations, but the priests were so well provided for that they could have no pretence for it.
2. What the people might expect from the priest for their recompence. Those that are kind to a prophet, to a priest, shall have a prophet's, a priest's reward: That he may cause the blessing to rest in thy house (Eze 44:30), that God may cause it by commanding it, that the priest may cause it by praying for it; and it was part of the priest's work to bless the people in the name of the Lord, not only their congregations, but their families. Note, It is all in all to the comfort of any house to have the blessing of God upon it and to have the blessing to rest in it, to dwell where we dwell and to attend the entail of it upon those that shall come after us. And the way to have the blessing of God abide upon our estates is to honour God with them, and to give him and his ministers, him and his poor, their share out of them. God blesses, he surely blesses, the habitation of those who are thus just, Pro 3:33. And ministers, by instructing and praying for the families that are kind to them, should do their part towards causing the blessing to rest there. Peace be to this house.

And they shall come at no dead person to defile themselves - Touching the dead defiles a Hindoo now, as it formerly did a Jew; and they must bathe to become clean again.

And in the day that he goeth into the sanctuary,.... Into the house and church of God, after his cleansing, and when the seven days from thence are up:

unto the inner court, to minister in the sanctuary; among the inward court worshippers, to minister in things to them; to preach the Gospel, and administer Gospel ordinances:

he shall offer his sin offering, saith the Lord God; though he has been privately cleansed in the fountain of Christ's blood, in which he has washed for sin and uncleanness; yet when he comes into the house of the Lord, he must acknowledge his sins and imperfections over Christ the sin offering; which he must bring in the arms of his faith, and so enter into the courts of the living God, and do the service of the sanctuary.

During the days of his uncleanness he kept out of the sanctuary; when the days of purifying are fulfilled he then may go in.

The sanctuary; not the temple itself, but, as the next words have it, the inner court.

To minister; to execute the priest’ s office.

Sin-offering: it is not said what this should be, nor doth that refer to this. I think rather that, , a young bullock was to be this sin-offering in purifying as it was in consecrating him, .

Requisites for the Administration of the Priests' Office, and the Obligations and Privileges of that Office. - Eze 44:17. And it shall come to pass, when they go to the gates of the inner court, they shall put on linen clothes, and no wool shall lie upon them, when they serve in the gates of the inner court and serve toward the house. Eze 44:18. Linen turbans shall be upon their head, and linen drawers upon their hips; they shall not gird themselves in sweat. Eze 44:19. And when they go out into the outer court, into the outer court to the people, they shall take off their clothes in which they have ministered, and put them in the holy cells, and put on other clothes, that they may not sanctify the people with their clothes. Eze 44:20. And they shall not shave their head bald, nor let their hair grow freely; they shall cut the hair of their head. Eze 44:21. And they shall not drink wine, no priest, when they go into the inner court. Eze 44:22. And a window and a divorced woman they shall not take as wives, but virgins of the seed of the house of Israel, and the widow who has become the widow of a priest they may take. Eze 44:23. And they shall teach my people, make known to them the difference between holy and common, and between unclean and clean. Eze 44:24. And they shall stand to judge concerning disputes; and they shall observe my laws and my statutes at all my feasts, and sanctify my Sabbaths. Eze 44:25. And one shall not go to any corpse of a man to defile himself; only for father and mother, for son and daughter, for brother, for sister who had no husband, may they defile themselves. Eze 44:26. And after his purification shall they reckon seven days more to him; Eze 44:27. And on the day when he comes to the holy place, into the inner court, to serve in the holy place, he shall offer his sin-offering, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - Eze 44:28. And so shall it be with their inheritance, that I am their inheritance, ye shall not give them a possession in Israel: I am their possession. Eze 44:29. The meat-offering, and the sin-offering, and the trespass-offering, these shall they eat, and everything banned in Israel shall belong to them. Eze 44:30. And the firstlings of all the first-fruits of everything, and every heave-offering of everything, of all your heave-offerings, shall belong to the priests; and the firstlings of all your ground meal shall ye give to the priest, that a blessing may come down upon thy house. Eze 44:31. No carrion nor anything torn in pieces of fowl and of beast shall the priests eat. - To the directions, who are to perform the service in the new temple, there are appended corresponding instructions concerning the bodily condition in which this service is to be performed, as the bodily condition shadows forth the state of the soul, or the spiritual constitution of the servants of God. The dress prescribed in Ex 28 for the priests to wear during the holy service had this signification. The same rule is here presupposed as still in force; and it is simply renewed and partially emphasized by the enumeration of some of the leading points. At the service at the altar and in the holy place the priests are to wear linen clothes, and, after the performance of the service, they are to take them off again when they go into the outer court (Eze 44:17-19). In the Mosaic law, שׁשׁ, white byssus, or בּד, white linen, is mentioned as the material used for the priests' clothing (Exo 28:39, Exo 28:42); here the material is more distinctly designated as פּשׁתּים, flax linen; and צמר, animal wool, is expressly forbidden, the motive being assigned for this regulation, namely, that the priest is not to cause himself to sweat by wearing woollen clothing. Sweat produces uncleanness; and the priest, by keeping his body clean, is to show even outwardly that he is clean and blameless. With regard to the putting on and off of the official clothes, the new thorah accords with the Mosaic. For we cannot agree with Kliefoth, who detects a deviation in the fact that, according to Exo 28:43, the priests were to wear the official clothes only when they entered the tabernacle and when approaching the altar, and, according to Lev 6:4; Lev 16:23, were to take them off when the service was ended; whereas, according to Eze 44:17 of the chapter before us, they were to put them on as soon as they entered the inner court, and were never to come before the people in the official costume. If, according to the Mosaic law, the priests were to go before the altar of burnt-offering in the court in their holy official dress, and not otherwise, they must have put on this dress on entering the court; for they could not wait till they were in front of the altar before they changed their clothes. For the expression צאת אל העם does not imply that, according to Ezekiel, they were never to appear in the presence of the people in their official costume, as it does not mean "come before the people," but "go out to the people," or "walk among the people;" nor is this involved in the words 'ולא יקדּשׁוּ , they shall not sanctify the people in their clothes (by their clothes). The latter by no means affirms that they are to sanctify the people by intercourse with them, but are not to do this in official costume; the meaning is simply that they are not to move among the people in the outer court while wearing their official clothes, that they may not sanctify them by their holy clothes.
This sanctification cannot be understood in any other way than as analogous to the rule laid down in the law, that touching most holy sacrificial flesh would sanctify (Lev 6:11, Lev 6:20), which Ezekiel repeats in Eze 46:20, and which does not stand in anything like an isolated position in the law, but is also affirmed in Exo 29:37 and Exo 30:29 of the altar of burnt-offering and the vessels of the sanctuary. The same thing which applied to these vessels - namely, that their holiness passed from them to any one who touched them - is here predicated of the holy dresses of the priests; and the moving of the priests among the people in their holy clothes is forbidden, because such holiness, acquired by contact with holy objects, imposed upon the person to whom it had passed the obligation to guard against all defilement (Lev 21:1-8), which the people could not avoid in the ordinary relations of life, and thus a weakening or abolition of the distinction between things holy and common would inevitably have ensued. לשׁכות הקּדשׁ are the holy cell-buildings described in Eze 42:1-14. - To the clothing there is simply appended in Eze 44:20 the direction concerning the hair of the head, the natural covering of the head, in relation to which excess on either side is prohibited, either shaving the head bald or wearing the hair uncut. Both of these were forbidden to the priests in the law: shaving in Lev 21:5, and letting the hair grow freely in Lev 10:6; and the latter was simply imposed upon the Nazarites for the period of their vow (Num 6:5). כּסם only occurs here; but its meaning, to cut the hair, is obvious from the context. - Eze 44:21. The prohibition of the drinking of wine when performing service agrees with Lev 10:9; on the other hand, the instructions concerning the choice of wives are sharpened in Eze 44:22, as that which only applied to the high priest in the law is here extended to all the priests. In fact, Ezekiel throughout makes no distinction between the high priest and the common priests. In Lev 21:14, marrying a widow is only forbidden to the high priest, who was to marry a virgin of his own people, whereas no such restriction is laid down for the ordinary priests. Here, on the other hand, marrying a widow is forbidden to all the priests, marriage with the widow of a priest being the only one allowed. מכּהן belongs to תּהיה, who has become the widow of a priest.
(Note: The Rabbins (Targ. Talm. and Masor. according to their accentuation) have endeavoured to obliterate this distinction, by applying the first hemistich to the high priest alone, and explaining the second thus: "The widow, who is really a widow, the priest may take," interpreting מכּהן by quidam sacerdotum, or aliqui ex ordine sacerdotali, or ceteri sacerdotes. But this is contrary to the usage of the language, as מכּהן cannot possibly be understood in a partitive sense in this passage, where the priests generally are spoken of, and the plural יקּחוּ follows.)
In Eze 44:23 and Eze 44:24 the general official duties of the priests are mentioned, viz., to teach the people, and to instruct them concerning the difference between the holy and the unholy, the clean and the unclean, as in Lev 10:10 (cf. Deu 33:10 and Eze 22:26); also to administer justice in questions in dispute according to the rights of God-a duty which had already been committed to the priests in its highest form in Deu 17:8., Deu 19:17, and Deu 21:5. על ריב, concerning, in the case of, matters in dispute. עמד , to stand to judge, i.e., to appear or act as judge (compare העמיד שׁפטים, to appoint or institute judges, in Ch2 19:5). The Keri למשׁפּט is a needless emendation after Ch2 19:8. The Chetib ושׁפטהוּ, on the other hand, is a copyist's error for ישׁפטהוּ. Lastly, at all the feasts they are to observe the laws and statutes of Jehovah, that is to say, to perform all the priestly duties binding upon them at the feasts, and to sanctify the Sabbaths, not merely by offering the Sabbath sacrifices, but also by maintaining the Sabbath rest (cf. Lev 23:3). - In Eze 44:25-27 there follow regulations concerning defilement from the dead, and its removal. Eze 44:25 is a simple repetition of Lev 21:1-3. But the instructions concerning the purification from defilement from the dead are sharpened, inasmuch as not only is the purification prescribed by the law (Num 19:1.), and which lasted seven days, required (this is meant by טהרתו), but a further period of seven days is appointed after these, at the expiration of which the presentation of a sin-offering is demanded before the service in the sanctuary can be resumed. By this demand for a heightened purification, the approach to a corpse permitted to the priests, which was prohibited to the high priest in the Mosaic law, even in the case of father and mother (Lev 21:11), is tolerably equalized.
For these duties and obligations of service the priests are to receive corresponding emoluments. These are treated of in Eze 44:28-31. They are not, indeed, to receive any share of the land as their property in time to come any more than in former times; but in the place of this Jehovah will be their property and possession, and give them the necessary room for their dwellings from His own property in the land (Eze 45:4), and let them draw their maintenance from His altar (Eze 44:29 and Eze 44:30). The promise that Jehovah will be the נחלה and אחזּה of the priests is a simple repetition of the regulation in the law (Num 18:20; Deu 18:1; Deu 10:9). So far as the construction in Eze 44:28 is concerned, the words אני נחלתם are really the subject to 'והיתה להם לן, which we are obliged to render obliquely, "the inheritance for them shall be, I am their inheritance." For the proposal of Hitzig to take the words from אני נחלתם to the close of the verse as a parenthesis, and to regard 'המּנחה וגו in Eze 44:29 as the subject to 'והיתה, is untenable, not only on account of the great harshness which such a parenthesis would involve, but principally because these portions of the sacrifices and heave-offerings which belonged to the priest were not a נחלה, and are never designated as נחלה, inheritance, i.e., property in land. Eze 44:28 treats of the property in land, which God assigned to the Levites and priests under the Mosaic economy, by appointing them towns to dwell in, with meadows for the feeding of their cattle, within the territory of the other tribes, but would assign to them in future from the heave-offering set apart from the land for the sanctuary (Eze 45:4). It is not till Eze 44:29 and Eze 44:30 that the means of support for the priests are spoken of. They are to be supported from the sacrifices and the tithes and first-fruits which Israel has to pay to Jehovah as the lord of the land, and which He transfers to His servants the priests. For the priests' share of the meat-offering, sin-offering, and trespass-offering, see Lev 2:3; Lev 6:9, Lev 6:11, Lev 6:19; Lev 7:6-7; for that which is put under the ban, Lev 27:21; for the first-fruits, Exo 23:19; Exo 34:26; Deu 18:4; Num 18:13; for the תּרוּמות, Num 15:19; Num 18:19; for the ראשׁית עריסות, Num 15:20-21. In 'להניח, "to cause a blessing to rest upon thy house," the individual Israelite is addressed. For the fact itself, see Mal 3:10. - To the enumeration of the means of support there is appended in Eze 44:31 an emphatic repetition of the command in Lev 22:8, not to eat of any dead thing (i.e., anything that has died a natural death), or anything torn to pieces, either of birds or beasts, on account of its defiling (Lev 17:15).