Leviticus 22:12

WHO OF THE PRIESTS' HOUSE MAY EAT OF THEM. (Lev 22:10-16)

There shall no stranger eat the holy thing--The portion of the sacrifices assigned for the support of the officiating priests was restricted to the exclusive use of his own family. A temporary guest or a hired servant was not at liberty to eat of them; but an exception was made in favor of a bought or homeborn slave, because such was a stated member of his household. On the same principle, his own daughter, who married a husband not a priest, could not eat of them. However, if a widow and childless, she was reinstated in the privileges of her father's house as before her marriage. But if she had become a mother, as her children had no right to the privileges of the priesthood, she was under a necessity of finding support for them elsewhere than under her father's roof.

The holy things were to be eaten by the priests and their families. Now,
I. Here is a law that no stranger should eat of them, that is, no person whatsoever but the priests only, and those that pertained to them, Lev 22:10. The priests are charged with this care, not to profane the holy things by permitting the strangers to eat of them (Lev 22:15) or suffer them to bear the iniquity of trespass (Lev 22:16); that is, suffer them to bring guilt upon themselves, by meddling with that which they have no right to. Thus it is commonly understood. Note, We must not only be careful that we do not bear iniquity ourselves, but we must do what we can to prevent others bearing it. We must not only not suffer sin to lie upon our brother, but, if we can help it, we must not suffer it to come upon him. But perhaps there is another meaning of those words: the priests' eating the sin-offerings is said to signify their bearing the iniquity of the congregation, to make an atonement for them, Lev 10:17. Let not a stranger therefore eat of that holy thing particularly, and so pretend to bear the iniquity of trespass; for it is daring presumption for any to do that, but such as are appointed to do it. Those that set up other mediators besides Christ our priest, to bear the iniquity of trespass, sacrilegiously rob Christ of his honour, and invade his rights. When we warn people not to trust to their own righteousness, nor dare to appear before God in it, but to rely on Christ's righteousness only for peace and pardon, it is because we dare not suffer them to bear the iniquity of trespass, for we know it is too heavy for them.
II. Here is an explanation of the law, showing who were to be looked upon as belonging to the priest's family, and who not. 1. Sojourners and hired servants abode not in the house for ever; they were in the family, but not of it; and therefore they might not eat of the holy things (Lev 22:10): but the servant that was born in the house or bought with money, being a heirloom to the family, though a servant, yet might eat of the holy things, Lev 22:11. Note, Those only are entitled to the comforts of God's house who make it their rest for ever, and resolve to dwell in it all the days of their life. As for those who for a time only believe, to serve a present turn. They are looked upon but as sojourners and mercenaries, and have no part nor lot in the matter. 2. As to the children of the family, concerning the sons there could be no dispute, they were themselves priests, but concerning the daughters there was a distinction. While they continued in their father's house they might eat of the holy things; but, if they married such as were not priests, they lost their right (Lev 22:12), for now they were cut off from the family of the priests. Yet if a priest's daughter became a widow, and had no children in whom she might preserve a distinct family, and returned to her father's house again, being neither wife nor mother, she should again be looked upon as a daughter, and might eat of the holy things. If those whom Providence has made sorrowful widows, and who are dislodged from the rest they had in the house of a husband, yet find it again in a father's house, they have reason to be thankful to the widows' God, who does not leave them comfortless. 3. Here is a demand of restitution to be made by him that had no right to the holy things, and yet should eat of them unwittingly, Lev 22:14. If he did it presumptuously, and in contempt of the divine institution, he was liable to be cut off by the hand of God, and to be beaten by the magistrate; but, if he did it through weakness in inconsideration, he was to restore the value, adding a fifth part to it, besides which he was to bring an offering to atone for the trespass; see Lev 5:15, Lev 5:16.
III. This law might be dispensed with in a case of necessity, as it was when David and his men ate of the show-bread, Sa1 21:6. And our Saviour justifies them, and gives a reason for it, which furnishes us with a lasting rule in all such cases, that God will have mercy and not sacrifice, Mat 12:3, Mat 12:4, Mat 12:7. Rituals must give way to morals.
IV. It is an instruction to gospel ministers, who are stewards of the mysteries of God, not to admit all, without distinction, to eat of the holy things, but to take out the precious from the vile. Those that are scandalously ignorant or profane are strangers and aliens to the family of the Lord's priests; and it is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to such. Holy things are for holy persons, for those who are holy, at least, in profession, Mat 7:6.

Leviticus 22:1-16

1. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

1. Loquutus est insuper Jehova ad Mosen, dicendo:

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.

2. Loquere ad Aharon, et filios ejus ut separent sese a sanctificationibus filiorum Israel et ne polluant nomen sanctitatis mese in his quae ipsi sanctificant mihi: ego Jehova.

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.

3. Dic illis, in generationibus vestris omnis vir qui accesserit ex omni semine vestro ad sanctificationes quae sanctificaverint filii Israel Jehovae, et immunditia sua fuerit super ipsum, excidetur anima ipsius a facie mea: ego Jehova.

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;

4. Quicunque e semine Aharon fuerit leprosus, vel seminifluus, de sanctificationibus non comedet donec mundet se: et qui tedgerit immundum super morticinio, ant virex quo egreditur effusio seminis,

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;

5. Ant vir qui tetigerit quodcunque reptile per quod immundus erit, ant hominem propter quem immundus erit, secundum omnem immunditiam eius:

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.

6. Anima inquam quae tetigerit illum, immunda erit usque ad vesperam: et non comedet de sanctificationibus nisi laverit carnem suam aqua.

7. And when the sun is down, he shall be clean, and shall afterward eat of the holy things; because it is his food.

7. Quum autem occubuerit sol, turn erit mundus, et postea comedet de sanctificationibus: quia cibus ejus est.

8. That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall not eat to defile himself therewith: I am the LORD.

8. Cadaver et rapture non comedet, et polluat se in eo: ego Jehova.

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.

9. Et custodiant custodiam meam, et ne portent peccatum propter illud, et moriantur propter illud, quum polluerint illam: ego Jehova sanctificans eos.

10. There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing.

10. Omnis autem alienigena non comedet sanctificationem: inquilinus sacerdotis, et mercenarius non comedet sanctificationem.

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.

11. Quod si sacerdos emerit hominem emptione argenti sui: ipsc comedet ex ea, et vernaculus ejus: illi comedent de cibo ejus.

12. If the priest's daughter also be married unto a stranger, she may not eat of an offering of the holy things.

12. Filia autem sacerdotis quum fuerit viro alieno: ipsa de oblatione sanctificationum non comedet.

13. But if the priest's daughter be a widow, or divorced, and have no child, and is returned unto her father's house, as in her youth, she shall eat of her father's meat: but there shall no stranger eat thereof.

13. Filia vero sacerdotis quum fuerit vidua, ant repudiata, et semen non erit el, et reversa fuerit ad domran parris sui, sicut in pueritia sua, de eibo patris eomedet: onmis autem alienigena non comedet ex co.

14. And if a man eat of the holy thing unwittingly, then he shall put the fifth part thereof unto it, and shall give it unto the priest with the holy thing.

14. Quod si aliquis comederit sanctificationem per imprudentiam, addet quintam partem ejus, et dabit sacerdoti eum sanctificatione.

15. And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer unto the LORD;

15. Et non contaminabunt sanctificationes filiorum Israel, quas obtulerint Jehovae.

16. Or suffer them to bear the iniquity of trespass, when they eat their holy things: for I the LORD do sanctify them.

16. Neque portare facient cos iniquitatem delicti, dum comederint sanctificationes eorum: ego enim Jehova sanctificans eos.

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] (ver. 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.

10 There shall no stranger. It was also necessary to add this, that the majesty of sacred things might not be impaired; for if it had been promiscuously permitted to all to eat of the sacred bread and the other oblations, the people would have straightway inferred that they differed not from ordinary food. And unless the avarice of the priests had been thus anticipated, [195] an unworthy trade would have prevailed; for banquets would have been see up for sale, and the priest's house would have been a kind of provision-market. The prohibition, therefore, that the meats offered in sacrifice should be eaten by strangers, was not made so much with reference to them as to the priests, who would have else driven a profitable trade with the offerings, or, by gratifying their guests, would not have hesitated to bring disrepute on the whole service of God. The Law consequently prohibits that either a sojourner, or a hired servant, should eat of them; and only gives this permission to their slaves, and those who were incorporated into their families. Moreover, He counts the priests' daughters who had married into another tribe as aliens. The sum has this tendency, that whatsoever depends on the service of God should obtain its due reverence; nor could this be the case, if what was offered in the temple were not distinguished from common food. Inasmuch as they were human beings, they were allowed to subsist in the ordinary manner; yet was this distinction necessary, which might savor of the sanctity of Christ. This was the cleanness of the priests as regarded food.

14. And if a man eat of the holy thing unwittingly. A question may here arise, why God would have satisfaction made to the priests, if any one should have eaten of the offerings; for they deserved punishment rather than reward, if they had suffered sacred things to be brought into contempt by their promiscuous use. But the error of those is here dealt with, who had not reserved for the priests their lawful share. A portion, as we shall see, was assigned by God, which they were to set aside before they tasted any part of the victim; those, therefore, who had sinned by inadvertency, are commanded by Him to expiate their fault, to restore so much to the priest, and to add a fifth part. And this was done with the object of which we have spoken, lest, if the things offered to God were exposed to common use, religion should be brought into contempt. What follows afterwards, "and they shall not profane the holy things," I interpret as addressed to the priests themselves; for this sentence is connected with the previous one, in which the injunctions were directed to the priests alone; and this is further confirmed by the next verse, which declares that the whole people would be accomplices in the sin of the priests if they should have polluted the sacred oblations. For thus I take the words, "that they should not suffer the people to bear the iniquity," or the punishment of the transgression, if the unclean should have touched things offered to God. For as the priest is the mediator of reconciliation to propitiate God towards men, so his impiety is a common iniquity, which brings guilt upon all. The translation which some give, "that they should not lade themselves," [196] is further from the sense, and altogether wrested. Finally, God again declares that in proportion to the greatness of the honor which He had put upon them, would be the heaviness and inexcusableness of the crime, if they acted unworthily of their calling.

Footnotes:

[194] Lat., "Custodiant custodiam meam." Ainsworth, "Keep my charge."

[195] "Ils eussent ttenu foire et marche des viandes, qui leurs fussent demeurees de residu, ce qui n'eust pas este sans grand opprobre:" they would have kept fair and market of the meats which remained over to them, which could not have taken place without much scandal. -- Fr.

[196] As in margin of A. V.

There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing - For the meaning of the word stranger, see the note on Exo 12:43. The Jews suppose that stranger here means one who has had his ear pierced, (see the note on Exo 21:6), and that sojourner means a servant who is to go free on the Sabbatical year. Neither of these was permitted to eat of the holy things, because they were not properly members of the priest's family, and might go out and defile themselves even with the abominations of the heathen; but the servant or slave that was bought with money, Lev 22:11, might eat of these things, because he was the property of the master for ever. We see that it was lawful, under the Mosaic economy, to have slaves under certain restrictions; but these were taken from among the heathen, and instructed in the true religion: hence we find, as in the above case, that they were reckoned as a part of the priest's own family, and treated as such. They certainly had privileges which did not extend either to sojourners or to hired servants; therefore their situation was incomparably better than the situation of the slaves under different European governments, of whose souls their pitiless possessors in general take no care, while they themselves venture to profess the Christian religion, and quote the Mosaic law in vindication of their system of slavery. How preposterous is such conduct! and how intolerable!

If the priest's daughter also be married to a stranger,.... Not to an Heathen, but to any Israelite, that is, a common man, or a layman, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, one that is not a priest; but is married either to a Levite, or an Israelite, as Jarchi:

she may not eat of an offering of the holy things; the heave shoulder or wave breast, &c. being removed into another family by marriage, she is not reckoned of her father's family, and so had no more a right to eat of the holy things.

Unto a stranger, i.e. to one of another family, who is no priest. Yet the priest’ s wife, though of another family, might eat. The reason of which difference is, because the with passeth into the name, state, and privileges of her husband, from whom the family is denominated and esteemed.

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 הנּזר with מן 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. טמאתו לכל, as in Lev 5:3, a closer definition of לו יטמא אשׁר, "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). יחלּלהוּ, "because they have defiled it (the sanctified thing)."
Lev 22:10-16
No stranger was to eat a sanctified thing. זר 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 יחלּלוּ (profane) and השּׂאוּ (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 אליהם ישׂאוּ רלא (cf. Lev 22:9) instead of the unusual אותם השּׂאוּ.