Leviticus 21 KJV
Rules for Priests
Leviticus Chapter 21: Rules for Priests
The high priest's absolute ban on mourning, even for his own parents, positions him as a living embodiment of divine immutability, refusing the chaos of death that ordinary priests may ritually navigate under limited conditions.
1nd 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:
2 But for his kin, that is near unto him, that is, for his mother, and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother,
3 And for his sister a virgin, that is nigh unto him, which hath had no husband; for her may he be defiled.
4 But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.
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.
6 They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God: for the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their God, they do offer: therefore they shall be holy.
7 They shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband: for he is holy unto his God.
8 Thou shalt sanctify him therefore; for he offereth the bread of thy God: he shall be holy unto thee: for I the LORD, which sanctify you, am holy.
9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.
10 And he that is the high priest among his brethren, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head, nor rend his clothes;
11 Neither shall he go in to any dead body, nor defile himself for his father, or for his mother;
12 Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD.
13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity.
14 A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.
15 Neither shall he profane his seed among his people: for I the LORD do sanctify him.
16 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
17 Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.
18 For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous,
19 Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded,
20 Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;
21 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.
22 He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the holy.
23 Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the LORD do sanctify them.
24 And Moses told it unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel.
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Did You Know?
The high priest's absolute ban on mourning, even for his own parents, positions him as a living embodiment of divine immutability, refusing the chaos of death that ordinary priests may ritually navigate under limited conditions.
Physical defects such as a 'flat nose' or 'broken foot' disqualify altar service yet explicitly permit eating the showbread, revealing a theology where embodied perfection is required only for mediation, not for covenantal sustenance.
The burning of a priest's daughter who profanes herself extends corporate defilement to the entire paternal line, treating her sexual sin as a direct assault on the father's consecrated status rather than an individual offense.
Restrictions against shaving beard corners or making baldness deliberately echo and invert Canaanite mourning rites, transforming a cultural practice of sympathetic magic into a marker of Israel's distinct priestly separation from death cults.
Ordinary priests may marry widows of fellow Israelites, but the high priest must wed only a virgin 'of his own people,' creating a graduated hierarchy of purity that safeguards the most sacred office through stricter endogamy.
Commentary & Study Notes Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871) ยท Public Domain There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people โ The obvious design of the regulations contained in this chapter was to keep inviolate the purity and dignity of the sacrโฆ
Classic verse-by-verse commentary on Leviticus 21 from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871). Covers: Of the priests' mourning.
- 1
- There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people โ The obvious design of the regulations contained in this chapter was to keep inviolate the purity and dignity of the sacred office. Contact with a corpse, or even contiguity to the place where it lay, entailing ceremonial defilement (Nu 19:14), all mourners were debarred from the tabernacle for a week; and as the exclusion of a priest during that period would have been attended with great inconvenience, the whole order were enjoined to abstain from all approaches to the dead, except at the funerals of relatives, to whom affection or necessity might call them to perform the last offices. Those exceptional cases, which are specified, were strictly confined to the members of their own family, within the nearest degrees of kindred.
- 4
- But he shall not defile himself โ "for any other," as the sense may be fully expressed. "The priest, in discharging his sacred functions, might well be regarded as a chief man among his people, and by these defilements might be said to profane himself" [BISHOP PATRICK]. The word rendered "chief man" signifies also "a husband"; and the sense according to others is, "But he being a husband, shall not defile himself by the obsequies of a wife" (Eze 44:25).
Read all 6 notes on Leviticus 21 โ