Thursday, March 19, 2009

Leviticus 21-22 Holiness for the Priests and the Offerings

Priests will be made unclean by:



  • touching a dead relative (except mother, father, son, daughter, brother, virgin unmarried sister).


Priests must not:



  • shave their heads.

    • Egyptian priests shaved the whole body every third day.



  • trim the edges of their beards.

    • 2 Samuel 10:5:
      When David heard what had happened, he sent messengers to tell the men, “Stay at Jericho until your beards grow out, and then come back.” For they felt deep shame because of their appearance.



  • cut their bodies.

    • 1 Kings 18:28:
      So they shouted louder, and following their normal custom, they cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out.

    • Isaiah 15:2(about the Moabites):
      Your people will go to their temple in Dibon to mourn. They will go to their sacred shrines to weep. They will wail for the fate of Nebo and Medeba, shaving their heads in sorrow and cutting off their beards.

    • Jeremiah 16:6:
      Both the great and the lowly will die in this land. No one will bury them or mourn for them. Their friends will not cut themselves in sorrow or shave their heads in sadness.

    • Jeremiah 41:5:
      eighty men arrived from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria to worship at the Temple of the Lord. They had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes, and cut themselves, and had brought along grain offerings and frankincense.

    • Jeremiah 48:37 (about the Moabites):
      The people shave their heads and beards in mourning. They slash their hands and put on clothes made of burlap.

    • Hosea 7:14:
      They do not cry out to me with sincere hearts. Instead, they sit on their couches and wail. They cut themselves, begging foreign gods for grain and new wine, and they turn away from me.



  • dishonor God's name.

  • marry a prostitute.

    • Hosea 1:2: When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, “Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.



  • marry a divorced woman.


High Priest must not:



  • let his hair hang loose (uncombed).

  • tear his clothing.

    • Matthew 26:65:
      Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Blasphemy! Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy.

    • Mark 14:63:
      Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Why do we need other witnesses?



  • go near a dead person, even if it's his mother or father.

  • attend his parent's funeral.

  • marry a widow, a divorced woman or a woman defiled by prostitution.


Priests must:



  • be set apart to God as holy.


High Priest must:



  • marry a virgin from his own clan.


Priest's family:



  • If a priest's daughter becomes a prostitute, she must be burned to death.


Disqualifications for a descendant of Aaron being high priest:



  • Any defect, such as:


    • Blind.

    • Lame.

    • Stunted.

    • Deformed.

    • Humped back.

    • Has a broken foot or arm

    • Dwarfness.

    • Defective eye.

    • Oozing sores or scabs.

    • Damaged testicles.



Why all these rules?



  • They must be holy, for they are the ones who present the special gifts to the Lord.

  • The priests are set apart as holy to their God.

  • The high priest has been made holy by the anointing oil.

  • The Lord makes the high priest holy.

  • "Do not defile my holy places."

  • "I am the Lord who makes them holy".


CHAPTER 22: Proper handling of the offerings by Aaron's descendants



  • He must be very careful with offerings.

  • If he is ceremonially unclean when approaching the sacred offerings, he must be cut off from God's presence (he can't serve at the altar).

  • If he becomes unclean by any of the following, he may not eat from the offerings until he has been pronounced clean.


    • Has a skin disease or any kind of discharge.

    • Touched a corpse.

    • Had an emission of semen.

    • Touched a small unclean animal.

    • Touched someone who is ceremonially unclean.

    • Eaten an animal that has died a natural death or has been killed by wild animals.


  • The priest who is defiled in any of the above ways will remain unclean until evening. He must bathe himself in water and will be ceremonially clean again after sundown.

  • No one outside a priest’s family may eat the sacred offerings.

    • 1 Samuel 21:6 (about David on the run from Saul): Since there was no other food available, the priest gave him the holy bread—the Bread of the Presence that was placed before the Lord in the Tabernacle. It had just been replaced that day with fresh bread.



  • A priest's slave and his children may eat from the offerings.

  • If a priest’s daughter marries someone outside the priestly family, she may no longer eat the sacred offerings.

  • Anyone who eats the offerings without realizing it must pay the priest for the amount eaten, plus an additional 20 percent.

  • Restrictions on the burnt and peace offerings:


    • It must be a male animal with no defects.

    • It may be a bull, a ram, or a male goat.

    • It may have no defect of any kind: not blind, crippled, or injured, or has a wart, a skin sore, or scabs, has damaged testicles or is castrated.

    • If a bull or lamb has a leg that is too long or too short, it may be offered as a voluntary offering, but it may not be offered to fulfill a vow.

    • When a calf or lamb or goat is born, it must be left with its mother for seven days. From the eighth day on, it will be acceptable as an offering.

    • Do not slaughter a mother animal and her offspring on the same day.

    • This practice was abused in the days of Jesus, where priests would disqualify an animal for an insignificant reason, and them require them to purchase an approved sacrificial animal at an exorbitant price (Matthew 21:12-13).


  • Offer a thanksgiving offering properly.

  • Eat the entire sacrificial animal on the day it is presented. Do not leave any of it until the next morning.


Why all these restrictions:



  • "I am the Lord."

  • "I am the Lord who makes you holy."

  • "I will display my holiness among the people of Israel."

  • "It was I who rescued you from the land of Egypt, that I might be your God."

  • These sacrifices / offerings had to be perfect because they prefigured Christ's perfect offering.


What is it, then, that God wanted to teach the priests in these two chapters? First, He wanted them to know that He is the One who makes men holy, who sets them apart. It was not that the sons of Aaron were better or more worthy than the other Israelites, or that they “tried harder.” It was simply that God sovereignly chose to set them apart from others, to perform a special task. Second, He wanted them to know that in order to perform their task they had to remain undefiled, and thus they had to avoid those defilements which others might have been free to contact. God did have a higher standard for His priests, because they had a sacred task—that of making offerings for the people, because they had a higher privilege, and with it came a higher responsibility.


The fundamental difference which quickly arose between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees was the definition of holiness. The scribes and Pharisees had a distorted perception of the Old Testament definition of holiness, which to them was attained by human effort, by avoiding external ceremonial defilement and by observing the prescribed rituals of the Law of Moses. Thus, they concluded that Jesus, who mingled with sinners, who touched lepers, and who challenged their interpretation of the Law, could only be a sinner, operating in the power of Satan. Ultimately, playing their version of holiness and their interpretation of the Old Testament Scriptures to their ultimate conclusion, they found Him worthy of death.


The scribes and Pharisees did not interpret and apply the Scriptures properly. They did not carry them far enough. They stopped at the apparent, but did not press on to the intended meaning and practice. They interpreted the Scriptures in terms of what they wanted to believe and in terms of the way they wished to live. They did not conform their lives to the Word of God, but conformed the Word of God to their lives. They interpreted the Scriptures in such a way as to always “fulfill” them, to live by their demands, rather than to be persistently reminded of their own sinfulness, and their need for a sacrifice. Rather than seeing holiness as God’s work, they saw it as man’s work, and thus they became proud and independent, rather than humble and dependent upon God. They did not feel that they needed, nor did they seek, mercy, but they felt they deserved God’s blessings. Rather than viewing their position as a privilege, they saw it as a right. Rather than seeing their ministry as a service, they saw it as a right to have status.


These errors are not confined to ancient Israel, or to the first century, they are just as prevalent and popular today. We, like the scribes and Pharisees, are not inclined to take the Scriptures as far as God intended us to. We wish to stop at the point of studying them for information, for the formulation or proof-texting of theological systems. We want to feel holy, without acknowledging that holiness comes only from God. We want to avoid those defilements which we find distasteful anyway. We want to keep the Scriptures carefully compartmentalized, rather than to allow them to convict us in every corner of our lives. We want to use the Scriptures to elevate ourselves above our peers.




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