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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Leviticus 16:3 - 16:3
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Only בְּזֹאת, “with this,” i.e., with the sacrifices, dress, purifications, and means of expiation mentioned afterwards, could he go into “the holy place,” i.e., according to the more precise description in Lev 16:2, into the inmost division of the tabernacle, which is called Kodesh hakkadashim, “the holy of holies,” in Exo 26:33. He was to bring an ox (bullock) for a sin-offering and a ram for a burnt-offering, as a sacrifice for himself and his house (i.e., the priesthood, Lev 16:6), and two he-goats for a sin-offering and a ram for a burnt-offering, as a sacrifice for the congregation. For this purpose he was to put on, not the state-costume of the high priest, but a body-coat, drawers, girdle, and head-dress of white cloth (bad: see Exo 28:42), having first bathed his body, and not merely his hands and feet, as he did for the ordinary service, to appear before Jehovah as entirely cleansed from the defilement of sin (see at Lev 8:6) and arrayed in clothes of holiness. The dress of white cloth was not the plain official dress of the ordinary priests, for the girdle of that dress was coloured (see at Exo 28:39-40); and in that case the high priest would not have appeared in the perfect purity of his divinely appointed office as chief of the priesthood, but simply as the priest appointed for this day (v. Hoffmann). Nor did he officiate (as many of the Rabbins, and also C. a Lapide, Grotius, Rosenmüller, and Knobel suppose) as a penitent praying humbly for the forgiveness of sin. For where in all the world have clear white clothes been worn either in mourning or as a penitential garment? The emphatic expression, “these are holy garments,” is a sufficient proof that the pure white colour of all the clothes, even of the girdle, was intended as a representation of holiness. Although in Exo 28:2, Exo 28:4, etc., the official dress not only of Aaron, but of his sons also, that is to say, the priestly costume generally, is described as “holy garments,” yet in the present chapter the word kodesh, “holy,” is frequently used in an emphatic sense (for example, in Lev 16:2, Lev 16:3, Lev 16:16, of the most holy place of the dwelling), and by this predicate the dress is characterized as most holy. Moreover, it was in baddim (“linen”) that the angel of Jehovah was clothed (Eze 9:2-3, Eze 9:11; Eze 10:2, Eze 10:6-7, and Dan 10:5; Dan 12:6-7), whose whole appearance, as described in Dan 10:6, resembled the appearance of the glory of Jehovah, which Ezekiel saw in the vision of the four cherubim (ch. 1), and was almost exactly like the glory of Jesus Christ, which John saw in the Revelation (Rev 1:13-15). The white material, therefore, of the dress which Aaron wore, when performing the highest act of expiation under the Old Testament, was a symbolical shadowing forth of the holiness and glory of the one perfect Mediator between God and man, who, being the radiation of the glory of God and the image of His nature, effected by Himself the perfect cleansing away of our sin, and who, as the true High Priest, being holy, innocent, unspotted, and separate from sinners, entered once by His own blood into the holy place not made with hands, namely, into heaven itself, to appear before the face of God for us, and obtain everlasting redemption (Heb 1:3; Heb 7:26; Heb 9:12, Heb 9:24).