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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Leviticus 21:7 - 21:7
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Their marriage and their domestic life were also to be in keeping with their holy calling. They were not to marry a whore (i.e., a public prostitute), or a fallen woman, or a woman put away (divorced) from her husband, that is to say, any person of notoriously immoral life, for this would be irreconcilable with the holiness of the priesthood, but (as may be seen from this in comparison with Lev 21:14) only a virgin or widow of irreproachable character. She need not be an Israelite, but might be the daughter of a stranger living among the Israelites; only she must not be an idolater or a Canaanite, for the Israelites were all forbidden to marry such a woman (Exo 34:16; Deu 7:3).
Lev 21:8
“Thou shalt sanctify him therefore,” that is to say, not merely “respect his holy dignity” (Knobel), but take care that he did not desecrate his office by a marriage so polluted. The Israelites as a nation are addressed in the persons of their chiefs. The second clause of the verse, “he shall be holy unto thee,” contains the same thought. The repetition strengthens the exhortation. The reason assigned for the first clause is the same as in Lev 21:6; and that for the second, the same as in Lev 20:8, Lev 20:26; Exo 31:13, etc.
Lev 21:9
The priests's family was also to lead a blameless life. If a priest's daughter began to play the whore, she profaned her father, and was to be burned, i.e., to be stoned and then burned (see Lev 20:14). כֹּהֵן אישׁ, a man who is a priest, a priest-man.