of life, on account of its calling as a nation of God, the priests, whom Jehovah had chosen out of the whole nation to be the custodians of His sanctuary, and had sanctified to that end, were above all to prove themselves the sanctified servants of the Lord in their domestic life and the duties of their calling. (1) They were not to defile themselves by touching the dead or by signs of mourning (Lev 21:1-6 and Lev 21:10-12); (2) they were to contract and maintain a spotless marriage (Lev 21:7-9 and Lev 21:13-15); and (3) those members of the priesthood who had any bodily failings were to keep away from the duties of the priests' office (Lev 21:16-24).
Chap. 21
verses 1-6
The priest was not to defile himself on account of a soul, i.e., a dead person (nephesh, as in Lev 19:28), among his countrymen, unless it were of his kindred, who stood near to him (i.e., in the closest relation to him), formed part of the same family with him (cf. Lev 21:3), such as his mother, father, son, daughter, brother, or a sister who was still living with him as a virgin and was not betrothed to a husband (cf. Eze 44:25). As every corpse not only defiled the persons who touched it, but also the tent or dwelling in which the person had died (Num 19:11, Num 19:14); in the case of death among members of the family or household, defilement was not to be avoided on the part of the priest as the head of the family. It was therefore allowable for him to defile himself on account of such persons as these, and even to take part in their burial. The words of Lev 21:4 are obscure: “He shall not defile himself בּעמּיו בּעל, i.e., as lord (pater-familias) among his countrymen, to desecrate himself;” and the early translators have wandered in uncertainty among different renderings. In all probability בּעל denotes the master of the house or husband. But, for all that, the explanation given by Knobel and others, “as a husband he shall not defile himself on the death of his wife, his mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, by taking part in their burial,” is decidedly to be rejected. For, apart from the unwarrantable introduction of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, there is sufficient to prevent our thinking of defilement on the death of a wife, in the fact that the wife is included in the “kin that is near unto him” in Lev 21:2, though not in the way that many Rabbins suppose, who maintain that שׁאר signifies wife, but implicite, the wife not being expressly mentioned, because man and wife form one flesh (Gen 2:24),
