1 - 6 Regulations for Deaths
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: ‘No one shall defile himself for a [dead] person among his people, 2 except for his relatives who are nearest to him, his mother and his father and his son and his daughter and his brother, 3 also for his virgin sister, who is near to him because she has had no husband; for her he may defile himself. 4 He shall not defile himself as a relative by marriage among his people, and so profane himself. 5 They shall not make any baldness on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts in their flesh. 6 They shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God, for they present the offerings by fire to the LORD, the food of their God; so they shall be holy.
There are things an ordinary Israelite can do, but a priest cannot. Here it is about defilement by touching a dead person. Only in the case of close family members may the priest touch them. The high priest may not even touch his father or mother when they have died (verse 10.11).
We are both ordinary members of God’s people and priests. As ordinary members we spend every day in the world. As priests we serve in the sanctuary in the presence of God. In our priestly service we shall not allow things that do have a place in our lives as people of God.
We can be so busy with our hobby or other forms of pastime that this occupies our thinking on Sunday morning. Then we will not be able to perform priestly service. There can also be all kinds of worries that absorb us so much that we are also hindered in our priestly service.
(Pagan) custom of mourning is forbidden for priests. We may be sad, but not in the way of the world, which is without hope with respect to those who are asleep (1Thes 4:13). The natural feelings should not determine our priestly service. It is about bringing the food of God, what is due to Him.
The place of every aspect of life is determined by God, whether it is joy or mourning. The Lord Jesus did not allow Himself to be guided by natural feelings in His service on earth. When His mother wants to interfere in His service, He reprimands her with the seemingly harsh words: “Woman, what does that have to do with us?” (Jn 2:4). Yet He loves her and thinks of her in His most painful moments. When He hangs on the cross, He gives His mother over to the care of His disciple John with the words “behold, your mother” (Jn 19:27).
Our first responsibility is the service to God, only then that to our relatives and others (Mk 3:31-35). Our service to God certainly includes caring for our relatives and especially for our parents (Mt 15:4-6). To neglect that concern with a reference to our service to God is hypocrisy. But when it comes to the claim relatives want to make on our service to God, we must reject it.
7 - 9 The Wife and a Daughter of a Priest
7 They shall not take a woman who is profaned by harlotry, nor shall they take a woman divorced from her husband; for he is holy to his God. 8 You shall consecrate him, therefore, for he offers the food of your God; he shall be holy to you; for I the LORD, who sanctifies you, am holy. 9 Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.
Affection is good, but God wants us as priests to be careful about it. Those to whom sin clings cannot be persons to whom we connect. The holiness of God remains the norm in all things. That makes the harlotry of a daughter of a priest so serious. How did she get to that point? Her sin has consequences for her father’s priestly service. In it we see the seriousness of her sin, that she must be burned with fire. A person who has come to know God’s holiness in such close proximity and then dares to act in this way, is given up to the judgment of burning.
For the priest it is a great dishonor that his daughter has acted like this. He will wonder what his failure has been in it. When children of believers who perform a certain service among the believers go to serve the world, this is a stain on the service of the parents. In such cases it is not possible to perform certain functions in the church (1Tim 3:4-5). At the same time, children of believing, God-fearing parents also bear a great personal responsibility and will be judged all the more severe. This severe judgment we see in “be burned with fire”.
10 - 15 Holiness of the High Priest
10 ‘The priest who is the highest among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not uncover his head nor tear his clothes; 11 nor shall he approach any dead person, nor defile himself [even] for his father or his mother; 12 nor shall he go out of the sanctuary nor profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him; I am the LORD. 13 He shall take a wife in her virginity. 14 A widow, or a divorced woman, or one who is profaned by harlotry, these he may not take; but rather he is to marry a virgin of his own people, 15 so that he will not profane his offspring among his people; for I am the LORD who sanctifies him.’”
The holiness standards for the high priest are even stricter. These correspond to those for the Nazarite (Num 6:1-7). There is talk of a special consecration to God. The high priest is here called “the highest among his brothers”. This is especially true of the Lord Jesus. He is called “the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom 8:29) and “the firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18). These ‘brethren’ are the believers (Heb 2:11).
The high priest’s wife shall be a virgin. This points us to the bride of the Lord Jesus, who is also presented as such (2Cor 11:2). A virgin has had no sexual intercourse with anyone else and is there entirely for the bridegroom. Thus the Lord Jesus sees His bride, the church.
16 - 24 Exceptions for Priestly Service
16 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “Speak to Aaron, saying, ‘No man of your offspring throughout their generations who has a defect shall approach to offer the food of his God. 18 For no one who has a defect shall approach: a blind man, or a lame man, or he who has a disfigured [face], or any deformed [limb], 19 or a man who has a broken foot or broken hand, 20 or a hunchback or a dwarf, or [one who has] a defect in his eye or eczema or scabs or crushed testicles. 21 No man among the descendants of Aaron the priest who has a defect is to come near to offer the LORD’s offerings by fire; [since] he has a defect, he shall not come near to offer the food of his God. 22 He may eat the food of his God, [both] of the most holy and of the holy, 23 only he shall not go in to the veil or come near the altar because he has a defect, so that he will not profane My sanctuaries. For I am the LORD who sanctifies them.’” 24 So Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel.
There are a few exceptions to exercising the priesthood:
1. Daughters – only sons may be priests. The female speaks of the position, the male of the power in which the position is realized. Knowing that you are a priest is one thing, being a priest in practice is another. Only an orthodox confession (‘daughter’) doesn’t make someone a priest (‘son’).
2. If someone is too young – priests must have reached a certain age. In order to be able to practice priestly service, a certain degree of spiritual growth or maturity is needed.
3. If someone has a certain physical defect. A priest can be a son, can have reached a certain age and yet be unfit to be a priest. Someone with a defect may eat of the holy things (verse 22). He is not unclean. Yet he is not allowed to exercise priestly service.
The defect he has does not have to be his own fault. Blindness can, spiritually-applied, result from wrong teaching. Others are given strongly one-sided spiritual teaching, which makes them deformed, causing the proportions in understanding the truth to become unbalanced.
What is not possible in Israel in the literal sense – to help someone get rid of his deformity – is possible in the spiritual application in the church: the Lord Jesus can bring about change in a state of deformity if we entrust ourselves to Him.