Imamat 21:1

Rules for the Priests

21:1 The Lord said to Moses: “Say to the priests, the sons of Aaron – say to them, ‘For a dead person ¹  no priest ²  is to defile himself among his people, ³ 

Imamat 21:6

21:6 “‘They must be holy to their God, and they must not profane ⁴  the name of their God, because they are the ones who present the Lord’s gifts, ⁵  the food of their God. Therefore they must be holy. ⁶ 

Imamat 21:8

21:8 You must sanctify him because he presents the food of your God. He must be holy to you because I, the Lord who sanctifies you all, ⁷  am holy.

[21:1]  ¹ tn The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, person, life”) can sometimes refer to a “dead person” (cf. Lev 19:28 above and the literature cited there).

[21:1]  ² tn Heb “no one,” but “priest” has been used in the translation to clarify that these restrictions are limited to the priests, not to the Israelites in general (note the introductory formula, “say to the priests, the sons of Aaron”).

[21:1]  ³ tc The MT has “in his peoples,” but Smr, LXX, Syriac, Targum, and Tg. Ps.-J. have “in his people,” referring to the Israelites as a whole.

[21:6]  ⁴ sn Regarding “profane,” see the note on Lev 10:10 above.

[21:6]  ⁵ sn Regarding the Hebrew term for “gifts,” see the note on Lev 1:9 above (cf. also 3:11 and 16 in combination with the word for “food” that follows in the next phrase here).

[21:6]  ⁶ tc Smr and all early versions have the plural adjective “holy” rather than the MT singular noun “holiness.”

[21:8]  ⁷ tn The three previous second person references in this verse are all singular, but this reference is plural. By adding “all” this grammatical distinction is preserved in the translation.